~ Damien Grant, from his over-optimistic column 'Housing market so tightly regulated we’ve created landed gentry'
* Court's most-developed explanation of his proposed 'Urban Development Act'
begins this way:
"Under ACT’s Urban Development Act, limits for urban development would continue to be based on locally-decided [council] plans."
So rather than a plethora of sackings of the unproductive, Court —
a 'planner' himself by profession — proposes instead to keep
his colleagues planners hard at work.
"These plans [his 'reform' plan continues] have democratic mandates [sic] and protect the legitimate expectations of property owners, while allowing councils to plan for infrastructure delivery."
Translation: Our party's two leading MPs represent home-owners in the country's leafiest suburbs, pledged to protect the unreasonable expectations of those suburbs' home-owners about what can be built next door.
"Councils [says Court] will not be permitted to restrict housing density more than the Auckland Mixed Housing Suburban zone."
Auckland's MHS "zone," by the way, essentially mandates for
more of the same tightly restricted suburbia. And this confirms that zoning will still be with us, as well as planners. (How this reflects, as Grant says, 'doing what you want on your land as long as it doesn't affect someone else's property right,' Court alone knows. I suggest they both read
Bernard Siegan.)
"These zoning rules [Court says] have already been validated [sic] through extensive litigation in the Environmental Court ..."
One would have expected to see the back of that meddling court damned soon. Sadly, it seems however, we have a Court who refuses to meddle enough in his 'reforms,' and is doing it so damn slowly we will have years of uncertainty in what folk can plan to build on their own land.
6 comments:
As much as a dog as the RMA is, it's not the biggest problem per se. It's the lack of zoned residential land. Christchurch has remained relatively affordable compared to other NZ cities the past decade, because despite a lot of new regulatory hurdles being introduced after the earthquake, they at least rezoned a lot of new land. I'm not following the detail of what exactly Court is proposing, but I have heard rumours there are plans afoot to force Councils to zone land for 20 years of growth. Perhaps the intention is to require 20 years of zoned land, but let Councils decide for themselves where that should be. To the extent that's true, this is certainly going to help improve things a lot. I know seeing planners being paid a lot riles you, but it's a minor cost in the scheme of things. Sometimes we've got to see the bigger picture and not cut our nose off to spite our face.
And according to his bio, Court's a civil engineer, not a 'planner'. Engineers are much more connected to reality, generally speaking. Possibly involved in 'planning' - because I know I couldn't do my job delivering infrastructure projects effectively without having something of a 'planners' knowledge on how to navigate the regulatory maze, and also keep the planners I have to engage somewhat tethered to reality. But not the same thing.
Ah, when he first appeared on the scene I thought he'd been introduced as a planner. So maybe he's not all bad then.
But the problem is still not "insufficiently-zoned land," cos councils can determined that to be anywhere, however uneconomic — and in this case still they mandate all zones to have nothing more than suburban character, except where the anointed say so.
The issue is still to get the anointed off the backs of property owners, who are entitled to make their own decisions about what goes on their land, (recognising of course that all land-owners have the right to peaceful enjoyment).
@PC - Of course that's the ultimate answer, but sufficiently zoned land would be a major step in the right direction. The relative affordability of Christchurch, despite all the other BS they threw at us, and despite the inflationary effect of all that insurance and government money sloshing around amply demonstrates that. The policy is actually to have 30 years of zoned land. Sure, some will be uneconomic, and some will still be difficult to develop because of RMA BS, but 30 years of land gives you a lot of options and a lot more will get through. It won't help you directly at the level you're involved in (existing urban areas), but it will undoubtedly help open up new areas of residential development and ultimately make housing more affordable.
@Mark: Any council opposed to "freeing" up anything (I'm looking at you, Auckland, in particular) has several 'tricks' it can use to avoid doing what the minister wants them to do.
Eric Crampton and Stu Donovan have been explaining some of these tricks:
Stu: "Ok, here's the trick that Councils play: adopt policies to constrain supply, house prices rise, the higher prices suppress demand, and then Council argues the demand isn't there and they've allowed sufficient capacity. One of the oldest tricks in the book.
"Long story short: "Demand" (specifically, the quantity demanded) would be significantly higher if prices were lower, and prices would be lower if Council enabled more supply in the locations where people want to live."
Eric provides the analogy: ""Based on that the only decent Korean restaurant in town regularly has one empty table every night, we will ban any new ones from opening up - even though the existing one is very expensive. Projected demand is met by existing capacity."
Eric again, summarising the problem: "Council can claim its hectares of zoned land represent X years' supply. But:
1. Depends on assumptions of population growth, which are themselves dependent on prices, which are dependent on relative scarcity of zoned land.
2. Dribbling that supply out inflates prices."
So any council wanting to avoid the impost can do so — and Auckland has already shown enough to show us it will.
And this is this Government's *only* substantive solution to the housing crisis - they're created years of uncertainty in order to implement yet another faiiling planneing scheme.
And this is not to even mention the violaton of property rights it is to tell people what they can and can't build on their own land.
Whose bloody land is it anyway? Governments both central and local still seem to think that they do.
@ Peter: Ok, I accept your point that growth rates would be higher if prices were lower, and there's various tricks that can be used. But even if we just base it on current growth rate (1.8% for Auckland), that's zoning for 1.5% x 30 x 1.5m = 675,000 houses. Do you really think that won't make a difference? And if you still maintain it won't, how do you explain that it did make a difference when done on a lesser scale than this in Christchurch post earthquake?
There's two ways to deal with a damaging/unjust law (in this case the RMA). One is to attack it on principle and seek its removal (as you've been doing for 20+ years). The other is to introduce mechanisms that enable action and indirectly make the law less effectual and damaging. We can and should do both. If we just limit ourselves to the former, it often makes us victims when we don't need to be. It's a significant improvement on the status quo, even if it doesn't go as far as we'd both like it to.
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