Govt tomove faster on urban planning changes
The Government is looking to speed up its scheme to force councils to allow more housing to be built.
Environment Minister David Parker confirmed the Government was looking to bring forward parts of its National Policy Statement on Urban Development – a push announced in 2020 to force councils to allow more housing density by removing their ability to require parking or set height-limits below six storeys in many areas. That statement was not set to be fully rolled out until 2024 but Housing Minister Megan
Woods said a ‘‘short-term solution’’ was needed. The move is likely to cause ructions with existing homeowners upset as more high density housing is built near their properties. It comes after the Government launched a housing package of tax changes and new infrastructure cash to moderate house price growth, which has outpaced income growth in recent years.
Woods revealed the plan while responding to a call by the National Party to pass an emergency law which would essentially suspend the Resource Management Act (RMA) consenting process, based on a law used after the
Christchurch earthquake. While the minister did not endorse this approach, she said the Government was working on a stop-gap while it completed larger reforms of the RMA and brought in the National Policy Statement (NPS) on Urban Development. ‘‘We need a short-term solution while we wait for a medium long-term solution like the NPS and RMA to come into play,’’ Woods said. Parker confirmed the plans were to speed up the NPS. ‘‘The Government is looking at measures that will bring forward implementation of the NPS-UD to both enable greater density and zone more land for housing. ‘‘I am actively considering measures to help bring forward plans flowing from the NPS-UD. This is not dependent on the RMA reforms.
‘‘I will have more to say about this in coming months.’’
Woods also critiqued the National Party’s new policy of offering councils $50,000 for every house built over their historical five-year average. She said because the money would not be front-loaded, councils would still have to borrow to build infrastructure and many councils were at their debt-limit. Her Government’s $3.8 billion to support infrastructure would be frontloaded, she said, and more details would be available on it soon.