More land for homes seen as key
Auckland’s housing affordability crisis could be eased by freeing up more development land, a business leader says.
Property Council chief executive Connal Townsend wants a policy change to let more sites be built on.
“I am not in the least surprised that Auckland has slipped to fourth in the ranking,” he said referring to the new Demographia survey.
The survey shows Auckland now tails only Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver as the least accessible housing market.
“Auckland is still burdened with the poor housing policy decisions affecting land supply that were established well before Auckland Council came into effect.
“These historical policy decisions throttled the supply of developable land both by means of an urban metropolitan limit and generalised public opposition to the provision of greater density.
“Public policy improvements have been achieved under the Auckland Unitary Plan, but the plan is yet to become fully operative and there are some ratepayers still fighting to prevent the adequate provision of housing to meet our city’s needs. Some fear apartments going up next to them, some fear urban sprawl and some fear the loss of heritage buildings. While these fears are understandable, this approach will only exacerbate poverty and undermine opportunities for people wanting to live and work in Auckland.”
Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod blamed a number of factors for the Demographia result.
“Housing affordability is a key concern in our largest city. In earlier years we’ve had strong population growth, but relatively low levels of home building. That’s left us with an underbuild of around 33,000 homes compared to our population. To address this shortfall, we need to be building around 11,000 homes a year.
And that sort of pace of home construction will need to be sustained for around a decade, if not longer.”