TL;DR: Wellington faces an existential threat from NIMBYs, land-bankers and politicians of all shapes, colours and sizes who have successfully strangled housing supply until now.
This week may well be the capital’s last chance to accommodate growth, especially of young workers, as the City Council considers whether to over-turn, up-zone or (heaven help us) further down-zone an already bizarrely down-zoned District Plan proposed by an Independent Hearings Panel. The final decision on the plan will be Housing and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop’s. He has already had to back down to protests against urban densification from NIMBYs in National, ACT and New Zealand First.
Without a change to the IHP’s plan and the current situation, Wellington’s status as a ‘dying city’ will be confirmed. It will be at a past tense ‘dead city’ moment. See the Chart of the day below. That’s because an inability to densify will mean relying on greenfields housing development and just one family, the Callenders, own all the available land on Wellington’s northern fringes, which they have slow drip-fed out over the years. The Post-$$$
Chart of the day
What happens when a city restricts housing supply
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