Local Government must act quickly on new Infrastructure Funding Pool

Local Government in the membership region of the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) needs to quickly take advantage of Government’s $1 billion infrastructure fund announced at the weekend, says EMA GM Advocacy Mark Champion.

"Three of the five areas identified for assistance from the new funding are in our membership region and all three are feeling various degrees of pressure from rapid growth. Auckland and Tauranga alternate as our fastest growing cities and Hamilton is also facing expansion issues," says Mr Champion.

"This funding will help ease some of the pressure on providing infrastructure to support rapid housing growth and is another measure from Government to help overcome housing supply problems.

"The idea of aggregating land and inviting the private sector to quickly build new housing is one we support as it mirrors our existing policy on housing but we do have serious concerns around the idea of compulsorily acquiring land.

We’d want to see the detail on implementation of any such policy as we’d be very concerned about impinging on existing private land ownership rights."

Mr Champion says creating urban development agencies to aggregate land and investing in the infrastructure required to support such development could be another key in overcoming supply issues.

"As has been stated many times there is no silver bullet to the current housing issues in cities facing rapid growth but we are seeing government taking a number of steps to address the problem. Our members are noticing the difficulty in recruiting staff who have problems finding suitably priced housing so any measures that address that issue are very welcome."

ENDS

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