Inside the panel quietly strangling the home ownership dreams of another generation & killing Wellington's future with lines on maps banning extra supply in a city with increasingly unaffordable rents
Thanks Bernard. I'm not sure if you're still doing this atm, but i feel like this one should be opened up if poss!
There has also got to be more to this, who are these "independent" decision makers and at whose interest do they really represent? It feels so far removed from common sense and logic - like they have gone well outside their lines. No wonder why no one votes in local elections, because decisions like this get handed down that only represent the interests of the wealthiest.
The whole hearing process seems to just be an exercise so that elected local and national politicans can just sit back and go - oh gosh thats not good - oh well its out of our hands.
Not sure if it's just unavoidable, but the Kaka is starting to feel like pity-porn for older, economically and housing-secure subscribers, and like a kick in the teeth for us young people. I can't even bring myself to press play and I've read the panel's report.
The panel makes me very excited for Bishop's fast-track project panels!!!!!!
Perhaps if those of us who choose to live in desirable close to city centre and transport corridor single dwellings paid rates based on the capacity of the land for multiple dwellings, attitudes would change. Political suicide so it won’t happen. Open it up Bernard, and great questions!
A salutary read thanks, and spot on. Great cartoon - not reading the audience these days but then he doesn't have to. A minority leader playing to his own.
the looting of future generations by ehm’s like janet yellen, was turbocharged in 2008, and gained warp speed in 2020. and it is replicated around the world…the EU is horrific, Australia is going backwards fast. Here, Adrian Orr boosted national houses around 40% by ‘money printing’ because ‘everyone is doing it’. 40% in an already crazy overvalued market. and hes still in work, cooking up the next scam. People need to open their damn eyes and smell the shit that our kids will be shovelling if this debt fuelled mania isnt reversed. 😮💨
Yes despite the National-Act-NZ First coalition reinstating landlord-friendly policies and boosting house prices, the largest rise in prices came under Labour due as you say to Orr's actions.
No mention of simply stopping inward migration until we get our collective act together on housing and infrastructure.
No mention of why are we cramming ever more people into one of the most earthquake prone locations on the planet.
Also densification needs to be done properly if it is going to be done at all - and that is block by block not section by section - all we are getting at the present are new slums - the densified future is row houses and terraces and these need to be built by city block and not randomly as developers obtain 1000m2 sites then busily destroy the existing urban amenity by cramming as many apartments as the district plan
allows but not creating any new neighborhood aesthetic.
and as for house insurance - my home is in an area lacking any natural hazards but my insurance policy appears to be based on there being a 1 in 200 chance of it being completely destroyed in any one year - IAG New Zealand dominate our insurance market and my experience in dealing with them is not good - I suspect they are using the current concerns about increasing natural hazard risk as a way of simply milking home owners harder - NZ would be far better off going back to the old state insurance model where the state was the insurer as it is ever more turning out to be the crock of gold for those who haven't insured their homes for disaster flooding or earthquake and as in Chch earthquake it becomes the default insurer when things turn bad anyway.
One thing we know from overseas is that dropping a bomb on a city will clear space for new ideas. One thing we know from Christchurch is that earthquakes can do the same thing. Pity Wellington can't do it without a disaster
It does seem that it will take a climate change induced landslide to shift houses and owners from their self centred lofty views to the ground zero reality of the rest.
I'm a big fan of 'nuke it from orbit, its the only way to be sure' but I suspect the austerity assault on Wellington will give the streets the same post apocalyptic vibe in the next few years, probably wont drive down real estate prices though
One thing we also know from Christchurch is that in order for things to be rebuilt differently you need to not have the same players calling the shots. Christchurch could have been so much better if it wasn't for Brownlee.
This level of influence is corrupt imo. How does a ‘panel’ of 8 unelected privileged individuals get to influence decisions that will adversely impact on the home owning options of current and future generations of other citizens.
Where is the corresponding panel of teachers, nurses, retail workers, tradespeople, bus drivers etc.? The ones that actually provide the essential services.
I just saw a student of UBC Vancouver, who is flying to his two lectures a week from Calgary because it’s cheaper than rent in Vancouver. It’s the stupid financial capitalism that we’re trapped under
Just to play devil's advocate a little—and I think you tapped into it a bit by pointing the hypocrisy of ACT's outrage—it remains both possible (and, arguably, a feature-not-a-bug) to improve housing zoning without actually increasing housing density. In other words, there's no reason to believe that, just because someone *can* build more housing density, that they will. And, in fact, what seems increasingly evident in our housing crisis is the value of "being able to bowl over an old house and build three new ones on the section" is worth (net) more to the landowner than the strife of actually building three houses.
I'll admit to not having the data to back it up but, anecdotally, the building of just a single MDRS townhouse 'prototype' on a street in Auckland is enough to dramatically increase the prices of all the similar sized sections in the street.
Short of a tax, or major public-works intervention (or a market incentive structure)—and restricted in Aotearoa by builders and monopolised building supplies—our housing market will always be built on 'supply constraint and potential'; and not on 'zoning'... In that respect (being devil's advocate, remember), you could make the case that protecting a property from being able to be developed actually makes it less valuable (a fact that is sure to have been noticed by ACT voters who were never going to bowl down their villa anyway, but still love the price bump they get from listing "Development Potential" as a bullet point on their real estate signage)
I agree in the sense that I would like to see us move away from this laser focus on zoning as the lever for affordability and discuss instead the other reasons that affordable quality homes to own and rent are not being built.
And also to discuss what is the future of building more Public Housing for households that are on the Housing Register ('wait list" of over 25,000 households). There is currently only a Public Housing Plan up to June 2025 and only adds 3000 new homes (of which I am sure most of these are already under contract). So where is the plan to pay to build the other 22,000 needed?
And where is the plan to somehow get a developer to offer a new home to purchase at an affordable price? Or a landlord to offer a rental at an affordable price?
What I take from this is if we are serious about more houses for those renting and for first homes then we need to have a massive public house building programme. Relying on more high density zoning and private supply doesn’t get there.
that's my kaupapa - if we want below-market housing (rental or ownership) we have to design, build and sell/rent with that goal in mind from the beginning. Which takes a lot of innovation.
(I don't know how zoning factors into this, other than when one is lucky enough to have land to develop for affordable homes, it is made so much easier when the existing zoning/regulations allow you to build what you think best to meet one's goal as stated above. This might mean six stories or whatever, but often not. )
Yep, 100%. "Demand" in our housing market has been high without a break since 1990, so no amount of zoning cleverness is likely to fix it in a meaningful way. Public housing builds or a land tax are basically our only decent tools now (subsidies for developers would likely also work, but I hesitate to call that approach 'decent')
One problem is though Tim that NIMBYs use the argument put forward by Cameron to stop upzoning. Many more things are needed. The argument that upzoning doesn't work can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Yes many more tools and changes are needed, as well as up zoning. Agree on land tax and public housing.
Too many people do, I feel, treat upzoning as the silver bullet. It has its place, as do other things like design guidelines and urban design and central government support for infrastructure provision. The real silver bullet, though, is a massive public building exercise.
If you assume that only profit oriented developers making money from rising land values (rather than a margin on construction) build houses. Kainga Ora, community housing providers and plenty of build-to-rent developers with different financial models (ie low reliable bond-like returns from rents) are desperate for freedom to build apartments and other homes designed for those that can afford them in the long run.
I have been trying to find in/on the New Zealand legislation website the Act/legislation that introduced the concept and definition of Independent Hearing Panel but have not been able to.
Do you know what Act Independent Hearing Panels were first defined in?
if any person out there knows I should be grateful if you would reply.
I believe that elected councillors must be the only people who are able/allowed to make the decisions that IHP members (who are not elected people) seem to be making.
s 34A and s 39B of the Resource Management Act mean independent hearing panelists must have certain required qualifications. Generally required to have passed a hearing commissioner course.
Getting certification seems to be run by a private provider upon payment of $2,400 plus gst.
And councils choose their commissioners and as we all know, everyone brings their values with them.
Far better I reckon if we are to not have elected representatives sitting on hearing panels is for the Ministry of Justice to employ qualified hearing commissioners and allocate them as councils need hearing commissioners. Greatly reduces the potential for bias and such like.
If building more houses won't make prices go down (and in fact, we could build fewer houses) then the IHP should receive a Nobel prize for economics.
I'd also like to see this open to the public! I pay so that the journalism can be available to more people.
Thanks Bernard. I'm not sure if you're still doing this atm, but i feel like this one should be opened up if poss!
There has also got to be more to this, who are these "independent" decision makers and at whose interest do they really represent? It feels so far removed from common sense and logic - like they have gone well outside their lines. No wonder why no one votes in local elections, because decisions like this get handed down that only represent the interests of the wealthiest.
The whole hearing process seems to just be an exercise so that elected local and national politicans can just sit back and go - oh gosh thats not good - oh well its out of our hands.
I love those questions Bernard, and I couldn’t agree more about key people having to answer them!
Spread this news as far as you can.
Not sure if it's just unavoidable, but the Kaka is starting to feel like pity-porn for older, economically and housing-secure subscribers, and like a kick in the teeth for us young people. I can't even bring myself to press play and I've read the panel's report.
The panel makes me very excited for Bishop's fast-track project panels!!!!!!
What’s pity porn? Apologies but I keep having birthdays that make me older - so they say
Perhaps if those of us who choose to live in desirable close to city centre and transport corridor single dwellings paid rates based on the capacity of the land for multiple dwellings, attitudes would change. Political suicide so it won’t happen. Open it up Bernard, and great questions!
this book joined a lot of dots for me as to wtf is going on with the overt croynism and fraud at the very top. as someone who works in financial markets, its more true than ever and getting worse http://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/the-new-confessions-of-an-economic-hit-man/26098317?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIuf-B-6KahAMVdKlmAh1poQmpEAQYAiABEgKgY_D_BwE
A salutary read thanks, and spot on. Great cartoon - not reading the audience these days but then he doesn't have to. A minority leader playing to his own.
the looting of future generations by ehm’s like janet yellen, was turbocharged in 2008, and gained warp speed in 2020. and it is replicated around the world…the EU is horrific, Australia is going backwards fast. Here, Adrian Orr boosted national houses around 40% by ‘money printing’ because ‘everyone is doing it’. 40% in an already crazy overvalued market. and hes still in work, cooking up the next scam. People need to open their damn eyes and smell the shit that our kids will be shovelling if this debt fuelled mania isnt reversed. 😮💨
Yes despite the National-Act-NZ First coalition reinstating landlord-friendly policies and boosting house prices, the largest rise in prices came under Labour due as you say to Orr's actions.
No mention of simply stopping inward migration until we get our collective act together on housing and infrastructure.
No mention of why are we cramming ever more people into one of the most earthquake prone locations on the planet.
Also densification needs to be done properly if it is going to be done at all - and that is block by block not section by section - all we are getting at the present are new slums - the densified future is row houses and terraces and these need to be built by city block and not randomly as developers obtain 1000m2 sites then busily destroy the existing urban amenity by cramming as many apartments as the district plan
allows but not creating any new neighborhood aesthetic.
and as for house insurance - my home is in an area lacking any natural hazards but my insurance policy appears to be based on there being a 1 in 200 chance of it being completely destroyed in any one year - IAG New Zealand dominate our insurance market and my experience in dealing with them is not good - I suspect they are using the current concerns about increasing natural hazard risk as a way of simply milking home owners harder - NZ would be far better off going back to the old state insurance model where the state was the insurer as it is ever more turning out to be the crock of gold for those who haven't insured their homes for disaster flooding or earthquake and as in Chch earthquake it becomes the default insurer when things turn bad anyway.
One thing we know from overseas is that dropping a bomb on a city will clear space for new ideas. One thing we know from Christchurch is that earthquakes can do the same thing. Pity Wellington can't do it without a disaster
It does seem that it will take a climate change induced landslide to shift houses and owners from their self centred lofty views to the ground zero reality of the rest.
I'm a big fan of 'nuke it from orbit, its the only way to be sure' but I suspect the austerity assault on Wellington will give the streets the same post apocalyptic vibe in the next few years, probably wont drive down real estate prices though
One thing we also know from Christchurch is that in order for things to be rebuilt differently you need to not have the same players calling the shots. Christchurch could have been so much better if it wasn't for Brownlee.
This level of influence is corrupt imo. How does a ‘panel’ of 8 unelected privileged individuals get to influence decisions that will adversely impact on the home owning options of current and future generations of other citizens.
Where is the corresponding panel of teachers, nurses, retail workers, tradespeople, bus drivers etc.? The ones that actually provide the essential services.
Where is the reprentatives of the students who rent? Of those who can't afford to buy? Why aren't they being asked what they want?
I just saw a student of UBC Vancouver, who is flying to his two lectures a week from Calgary because it’s cheaper than rent in Vancouver. It’s the stupid financial capitalism that we’re trapped under
Just to play devil's advocate a little—and I think you tapped into it a bit by pointing the hypocrisy of ACT's outrage—it remains both possible (and, arguably, a feature-not-a-bug) to improve housing zoning without actually increasing housing density. In other words, there's no reason to believe that, just because someone *can* build more housing density, that they will. And, in fact, what seems increasingly evident in our housing crisis is the value of "being able to bowl over an old house and build three new ones on the section" is worth (net) more to the landowner than the strife of actually building three houses.
I'll admit to not having the data to back it up but, anecdotally, the building of just a single MDRS townhouse 'prototype' on a street in Auckland is enough to dramatically increase the prices of all the similar sized sections in the street.
Short of a tax, or major public-works intervention (or a market incentive structure)—and restricted in Aotearoa by builders and monopolised building supplies—our housing market will always be built on 'supply constraint and potential'; and not on 'zoning'... In that respect (being devil's advocate, remember), you could make the case that protecting a property from being able to be developed actually makes it less valuable (a fact that is sure to have been noticed by ACT voters who were never going to bowl down their villa anyway, but still love the price bump they get from listing "Development Potential" as a bullet point on their real estate signage)
I agree in the sense that I would like to see us move away from this laser focus on zoning as the lever for affordability and discuss instead the other reasons that affordable quality homes to own and rent are not being built.
And also to discuss what is the future of building more Public Housing for households that are on the Housing Register ('wait list" of over 25,000 households). There is currently only a Public Housing Plan up to June 2025 and only adds 3000 new homes (of which I am sure most of these are already under contract). So where is the plan to pay to build the other 22,000 needed?
And where is the plan to somehow get a developer to offer a new home to purchase at an affordable price? Or a landlord to offer a rental at an affordable price?
Cameron Murray makes the very valid point that new private sector housing comes on the market at the rate that best suits the developer's profit maximisation - rationing supply when demand is high increases profit. https://open.substack.com/pub/fresheconomicthinking/p/explainer-building-and-planning-approvals?r=2vxgf&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
What I take from this is if we are serious about more houses for those renting and for first homes then we need to have a massive public house building programme. Relying on more high density zoning and private supply doesn’t get there.
that's my kaupapa - if we want below-market housing (rental or ownership) we have to design, build and sell/rent with that goal in mind from the beginning. Which takes a lot of innovation.
(I don't know how zoning factors into this, other than when one is lucky enough to have land to develop for affordable homes, it is made so much easier when the existing zoning/regulations allow you to build what you think best to meet one's goal as stated above. This might mean six stories or whatever, but often not. )
Yep, 100%. "Demand" in our housing market has been high without a break since 1990, so no amount of zoning cleverness is likely to fix it in a meaningful way. Public housing builds or a land tax are basically our only decent tools now (subsidies for developers would likely also work, but I hesitate to call that approach 'decent')
One problem is though Tim that NIMBYs use the argument put forward by Cameron to stop upzoning. Many more things are needed. The argument that upzoning doesn't work can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Yes many more tools and changes are needed, as well as up zoning. Agree on land tax and public housing.
Too many people do, I feel, treat upzoning as the silver bullet. It has its place, as do other things like design guidelines and urban design and central government support for infrastructure provision. The real silver bullet, though, is a massive public building exercise.
If you assume that only profit oriented developers making money from rising land values (rather than a margin on construction) build houses. Kainga Ora, community housing providers and plenty of build-to-rent developers with different financial models (ie low reliable bond-like returns from rents) are desperate for freedom to build apartments and other homes designed for those that can afford them in the long run.
Seems like a very diverse panel.
Has the recent zoning uplift in Auckland resulted in more new builds or is it coincidence? Cameron Murray and Tim Helm! Australian economists reckon coincidence. Their latest substack on it is here https://open.substack.com/pub/fresheconomicthinking/p/the-auckland-upzoning-myth-response?r=2vxgf&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
afternoon Bernard
I have been trying to find in/on the New Zealand legislation website the Act/legislation that introduced the concept and definition of Independent Hearing Panel but have not been able to.
Do you know what Act Independent Hearing Panels were first defined in?
if any person out there knows I should be grateful if you would reply.
I believe that elected councillors must be the only people who are able/allowed to make the decisions that IHP members (who are not elected people) seem to be making.
Probably in tge First Schedule of the Resource Management Act. I will look later for the specific provision. ie not gunna look kn my phone
s 34A and s 39B of the Resource Management Act mean independent hearing panelists must have certain required qualifications. Generally required to have passed a hearing commissioner course.
Also this from the MfE site https://environment.govt.nz/what-government-is-doing/areas-of-work/rma/about-the-making-good-decisions-programme-certification-for-rma-decision-makers/
Getting certification seems to be run by a private provider upon payment of $2,400 plus gst.
And councils choose their commissioners and as we all know, everyone brings their values with them.
Far better I reckon if we are to not have elected representatives sitting on hearing panels is for the Ministry of Justice to employ qualified hearing commissioners and allocate them as councils need hearing commissioners. Greatly reduces the potential for bias and such like.