Auckland house prices are an abomination

Media Release

15 January 2015

Auckland house prices are an abomination

Auckland house prices will continue being outrageously high if Auckland Council doesn’t treat the housing supply shortage seriously in its rulebook.

Right now the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan, which is in front of an Independent Hearings Panel, has a mile-long list of restrictions on development that majorly hamper density and intensification targets.

Property Council believes one of the main avenues of creating much needed supply is through rezoning large parts of the single house and mixed housing suburban zones to mixed housing urban.

Right before the PAUP was notified, the council made major changes to the form and application of the three residential zones, making it even harder to provide enough homes to meet future demand.

Property Council chief executive Connal Townsend says this was a huge mistake, and the longer officials dither around, the worst the housing crisis is going to get.

“We’ve got houses more expensive than LA and London. How is this possible? A dump in Auckland’s Point Chevalier demands a million dollars, which gets you a mansion in Beverley Hills in the USA. We’ve reached the point of madness.”

It has now become starkly obvious that the PAUP fails miserably at considering the economic feasibility of projects, forcing developers to push costs on to the customer. Add the housing shortage to the mix, and there will be a generation of kiwis who will never own or live in their own homes.

An example of the PAUP’s unrealistic rules is requiring developers to provide 6 star homestar and universally accessible homes and other strict urban design obligations and controls that bog development down.

With land prices sky rocketing, not only does the cumulative impact of this hinder higher density development and increasing housing supply, but it stifles efforts to provide affordable housing in the face of soaring demand.

Property Council has also submitted on the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into land supply, reiterating the importance of making land available for residential houses by upzoning residential areas.

It is time council officials and local politicians stopped ignoring these issues which lead to disproportionate and often conflicting requirements on developers, in turn making houses too expensive for the average kiwi family. A legislative and culture change is desperately needed to address these historically problematic issues once and for all.

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