Collins calls for emergency law change to build more housing
Judith Collins has challenged the Government to pass an emergency law change to allow more houses to be built, in her first speech of the year.
Collins said she had written to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern offering bipartisan support for a bill to be drafted as soon as March that would allow for new houses to be consented rapidly. This policy is similar to one that National campaigned on at the last election.
Her State of the Nation speech came as skyrocketing house prices and steadily rising rents have caused a political headache for the Labour-led Government, which was elected in 2017 promising to rein in house price inflation.
Collins said the situation was ‘‘spiralling out of control’’ and emergency powers were needed while the Government worked on its reforms to the Resource Management Act (RMA), which aren’t expected to be enacted until at least 2022.
‘‘I am calling on the Government to introduce urgent temporary legislation to make it easier to build a house, until the permanent RMA reforms are completed,’’ Collins said. ‘‘The legislation would give Government powers to rezone land and avoid frustrating consenting delays. It was done by National following the Canterbury earthquakes. It’s now urgent for the rest of the country.’’
The policy would see much of the power over housing consenting wrested from councils and given to central Government. The Government would be able to rezone council land to allow for more housing – both through greenfield developments and intensification. It would also suspend the requirement for infrastructure to be built prior to zoning and suspend the appeals process so district plans could be completed ‘‘as soon as possible’’.
The Government have introduced a National Policy Statement on Urban Development which requires councils to allow intensification, but this will not go into full effect until August 2022.
‘‘New Zealanders have had enough. It’s time for the two major political parties to work together to fix this problem,’’ Collins said.
Collins said a special select committee should be set up to draft the legislation with a view to introducing it by the end of March. She said Labour’s policies on housing thus far were not enough.
The Government announced the full roll-out plan for 8000 previously announced public houses last week, and a timeline for when other housing policies would be announced.
Asked whether house prices should actually drop following her speech, Collins demurred. ‘‘I’m not going to tell people that their house prices need to fall, because I’m not the person who has actually had to go and borrow 90 per cent of the cost.’’