Len Brown’s Property Cronyism

“It is truly disturbing to see the Mayor of Auckland City using Council resources to advocate for individual businesses while in the process using tokenism to make it appear the Council is serious about affordable housing,” says Affordable Auckland Waitemata & Gulf candidate, Stephen Berry.

Mr. Berry’s comments follow a press release on Monday, issued by Auckland City Council, in which it is revealed resource consent has been issued for a ten storey apartment block in New Lynn. “The press release states what the prices of the apartments in the block are, who is building the apartment block and endorses the block as a great place to live. There is something horribly wrong with a Council that acts as a private company’s marketing firm.

“Clearly there is an ulterior motive at hand here. Mayor Len Brown wants Aucklanders to think that he is responsible for more affordable housing being built in Auckland. It is as if Mayor Brown thinks the issuing of resource consent is what creates affordable housing in Auckland. What the Auckland City Council’s press release doesn’t reveal is how many affordable homes have not been built as a result of restrictive zoning laws and high compliance costs. It also doesn’t show where the eighteen thousand new homes Auckland needs annually are going to come from. ”

Stephen Berry challenges Len Brown to show what steps Auckland City Council is taking to reduce compliance costs associated with the consents process. “I have personally spoken with individuals who have told me they are facing tens of thousands of dollars in costs to subdivide properties, due to compliance costs, before any foundations have been built.”

“The solutions to making housing more affordable are simple and can be found in any high school economics text book. Remove the artificial restrictions on supply and the cost will reduce. Allow people to intensify buildings on their residential properties without outlaying tens of thousands of dollars to obtain permission. Abolish the Metropolitan Urban Limit which forces buyers to compete for ever dwindling space in the property market. End the ridiculous levels of Council borrowing which will doom future property owners to exorbitant rates levels just to service the debt interest.”

“Affordable housing will not result from Len Brown’s opportunistic piggy backing on the efforts of one developer in exchange for an endorsement using local government resources.”

Affordable Auckland is one of six parties contesting the October local body elections under the Affordable City umbrella, with more to be announced. The other parties are located in Masterton, Porirua, Hutt City, Wellington and Invercargill.

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