Vic Crone: “Talk is cheap”

 

This morning my inbox received an email from Victoria Crone. Yours may have too. “Talk is cheap,” she said. “We need a Mayor with fresh ideas who can actually deliver real results. Check out my 10 point plan for housing.”

So, thirsty for fresh ideas, I did.

They weren’t.

There were a lot of platitudes though.

Her first idea, after the hand-wringing boiler plate – her point number one? She wants to host a “housing summit.” A talk-fest. A whole festival of cheap talk. You can already feel all the good vibrations.

But that’s not all. She would also “put communities back at the heart of neighbourhood development,” whatever that means. She woud “release,” land faster than anyone else, “partner” with cronies, and “get tough” on land banking by slapping a huge rates bill on anyone not building what she wants. Not nice, and hardly either fresh or effective.

Not fresh either are ideas to speed up consenting, infrastructure, online consenting, or “aligning Unitary Plan intensification around key transport modes” -- all either being done (allegedly) or under way – or a nonsensical plan mentioned occasionally by the economically illiterate to force developers to build “a mix” of affordable houses in new developments.

So what is new and fresh from the Crone? A report card. A Mayor Crone led council would “provide user-friendly quarterly report cards on progress.”

And that’s it. Her ten fresh ideas. As a perceptive commenter said when she pasted these on Facebook, “It seems these 10 points basically deliver more government: more talk, more bureaucrats, more penalties.”

Talk is cheap, Ms Crone? Well, yes it is.. And bullying bureaucrats are ten-a-plenty.

Auckland doesn’t need another.

RELATED POSTS:

• Victoria Crone. Bully.
• Why “releasing” land doesn't necessarily make land cheaper
• Productivity Commission dumps on land-owners
• #HousingCrisis | Zoning for special interests

.