Government set to fast-track changes to allow more housing
The Government is looking to speed up its scheme to force councils to allow more housing to be built.
The admission was made as the Government faces relentless pressure to do more to fix the housing crisis, and National pushes them to do something about the problems developers have getting new buildings consented.
Environment Minister David Parker confirmed that 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 car parks 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 ahead of it being fully implemented.
The move is likely to cause serious ructions with existing homeowners upset as more dense housing is built near their properties.
It comes after the Government launched a housing package of tax changes and new infrastructure cash
aimed at moderating house price growth, which has rapidly 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 fully endorse this approach, she said the Government was working on some kind of stop-gap while it completed larger reforms of the RMA and brought in the National Policy Statement (NPS) on Urban Development, which forces councils to allow more intensification but will not be fully rolled out until 2024.
Parker confirmed the plans were to speed up the NPS.
‘‘The Government is looking at measures that will bring forward implementation of the NPSUD to both enable greater density and zone more land for housing,’’ Parker said in a statement. ‘‘This is not dependent on the RMA reforms.’’
Woods also critiqued National’s new policy of offering councils $50,000 for every house built over their historical fiveyear average. She said because the money would not be frontloaded councils would still have to borrow to build infrastructure, and many councils were at their debt-limit.
National’s housing spokeswoman Nicola Willis welcomed the news. She has previously pushed for the NPS’s implementation to be sped up. ‘‘We won’t get the additional housing supply we want unless we take some immediate measures to make more land available for housing and to cut through some of the resource consent processes which currently make it hard for a council to do this even if they want to.’’
She said there was a big political push to be constructive on the issue, with a lot of young voters backing measures to increase supply from across the political spectrum.