New Zealand's housing density experiment saw approvals for new builds in Auckland 'skyrocket' while house prices kept climbing
New Zealand's housing density experiment saw approvals for new builds in Auckland 'skyrocket' while house prices kept climbing
In Auckland, the council has been running an experiment, and at the heart of it is a bold decision to remove restrictions around zoning — but the New Zealand election could change things.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
There is a place just a few hours from Australia's east coast where a change in policy has seen the number of approvals for new homes "skyrocket" while increases in rents and house prices have been kept to moderate levels.
The test case went so well, New Zealand's national government adopted a version of it for the whole country, but recently the opposition withdrew its support, meaning the upcoming election could change things.
Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy, an associate professor in economics at the University of Auckland, said prior to the 2016 change, most of the city was zoned for buildings of no more than two storeys high and covering a maximum of 35 per cent of the block.
The New Zealand Human Rights Commission recently finished an inquiry into the issue, reporting that "while advances have been made, we still face an urgent housing crisis that has been caused by decades of institutional neglect".
Jacinda Ardern perhaps over-promised in 2017 when the future prime minister campaigned on a pledge to build 100,000 homes across NZ, but the Human Rights Commission inquiry did find that Labor had made "very significant efforts … to deliver a more equitable housing system in Aotearoa".
The zoning changes were made as part of the Auckland Unity Plan (AUP), and on the back of its success, the central government of New Zealand brought in legislation called the medium density residential standards (MDRS).
The original article contains 1,407 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I have been looking for places in Auckland and the rent is very affordable.
This article was posted in the Australian news community (link on the Aussie zone instance and link on the NZ instance), but I was curious what Kiwis thought about the policy in Auckland, its expansion across the rest of Aotearoa, and the potential for it being rolled back after next month's election?
@Zagorath I see it up on our lemmy instance now. Most of the people in my life hate it because they hate change. It seems to be resulting in a lot of small compact houses with no room to park a car. As someone looking for houses atm I am seeing a lot of new medium density homes that are a direct result of this legislation and they are a blessing because the other houses are old and poorly designed.
Thanks, I've linked it now.
Yeah I've definitely seen my fair share of that same attitude over here too. Unfortunately even from our progressive politicians I really don't see much desire to make that sort of wide-sweeping change here, though there's a lot of support for it whenever I bring it up in online progressive spaces.