Housing Minister Chris Bishop has told real estate agents that the government wants to “flood the market” with opportunities for housing development.
It has agreed to a range of changes that would free up land for housing, and, the government hopes, make housing more affordable.
My rough summary of proposal:
- Most cities will be required to have zoned enough land for 30 years of housing demand all the time
- These cities won’t be allowed to determine urban/rural boundaries
- Must intensify, especially around major public transport routes. If they decide not to for character reasons, then equivalent capacity must be opened up in another area
- cafes, dairies, etc (mixed use) must be allowed in residential areas
- appartments not allowed to have minimum floor area or requirement for balcony set by council
- councils already intensifying under a previous agreement (MDRS) will keep this, but if they change it then they have to move to using new rules
Let me know if I’ve got something wrong!
It’ll be great if it does, but there appears to be a big focus on greenfield both explicitly and giving opt outs to councils that can push to “other” areas if they don’t upzone so called character areas.
So pushing development to the fringes that are less served by existing infrastructure and services, and therefore more expensive or just downright worse in that regard.
There is a greenfield development in Upper Hutt that is nearing completion, on a former Ag Research piece of land. It’s a very dense development, a mixture of townhouses and stand alone buildings, with the standalone buildings mostly multi story. Still has walking access to public transport and shops, too.
It’s definitely easier to build on a large scale when starting from scratch like that.
Does that give incentive for the council to not use the character clause? They can use it, but if they do they will face more expensive servicing of properties.