Bishop backed on housing

“Cities that make it difficult to build more housing have housing affordability problems. Cities that legalise housing find it is more affordable.”

Chris Bishop, Housing and Infrastructure Minister

The fate of Wellington’s housing for decades to come will most likely end up in the hands of National minister Chris Bishop – but the Labour-Green bloc on council have welcomed the news.

Mayor Tory Whanau said she was “pleased that something as important as the future of Wellington’s housing will be considered by a senior minister who is based here and understands intricately what the city needs”.

Rebecca Matthews, a Labour councillor known for her YIMBY (yes in my backyard) views, said that while there were still big decisions for the council ahead, it was a positive step.

“I welcome central government taking a long-term view and making sure that we’re delivering a plan that meets the future needs of the city.”

Wellington’s Independent Hearings Panel has been under fire for taking the view that zoning for more housing would not make homes more affordable.

The New Zealand Association of Economists survey on the topic this month found that 98% of economists disagreed with that perspective.

“I have to be honest with you, the idea that zoning and land supply does not affect housing affordability is frankly nuts,” Bishop said in his speech yesterday.

“The evidence is as plain as day: cities that make it difficult to build more housing have housing affordability problems. Cities that legalise housing find it is more affordable.”

In the speech Bishop confirmed he would be in charge of the final decisions on district plans across the country, if there was disagreement between councillors and the panel. The Wellington City Council will vote on whether to accept the panel recommendations on March 14.

Councillors will probably change several panel recommendations – Matthews, a leader of the council’s left bloc in terms of housing, has previously signalled she would look at amendments.

The election of Green candidate Geordie Rogers in the Pukehīnau/Lambton by-election last week gives the pro-housing side of council a crucial vote and makes amendments to the panel recommendations even more likely.

Green councillor Nīkau Wi Neera said Bishop “seems to, at least aesthetically, share our desire for housing outcomes and that seems to be a fundamentally good thing for Wellington”.

On the other side of the council’s housing divide, Iona Pannett was “extremely concerned” at the announcement.

She viewed it as part of a “worrying trend” of central government overriding other decision-makers like the courts or the district plan commissioners.

The only people who had heard the full arguments and had followed the due process to make a decision were the commissioners, Pannett said.

Upzoning was not going to make housing more affordable in Mt Victoria, where Pannett lived, she said. New apartments built nearby had been priced at more than $1m and gentrified the area.

In a Cabinet paper released yesterday

Bishop wrote that his goal was to “flood urban housing markets” in New Zealand’s main centres. There was a “persistent undersupply of urban land”, he said, and his aim was to change that. “Abundant zoned and serviced land within and at the edge of our cities for housing will moderate land prices and increase competition among landowners to stop land banking. As the scale of development opportunities increase, developers will have the confidence to build up their capacity.”

But while the Cabinet paper and speech from Bishop were strongly worded, National will continue its rollback of the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) – the formerly bipartisan housing policy which would have made three-bythree terraced housing a permitted activity across the whole city.

Councils will be able to opt out, but they would still have to show they had enough housing zoned for 30 years of growth.

“To put it bluntly, we are going to let councils have more discretion over where they have density, but they’re going to have more housing,” Bishop said.

The details of how the MDRS will be made optional have not yet been determined.