Covid-19 is our opportunity for major housing policy reform – we cannot mess this up, TOP
As the country prepares to come out of Level 4 lockdown, The Opportunities Party (TOP) says now is the time to address our unsustainable, inaccessible housing market through long-term, structural change.
TOP will launch their Housing Policy, Building Aotearoa NZ, at a Housing Policy House Party, 8pm Friday 17 April via a livestream on Facebook, linked here.
‘Building Aotearoa NZ’ focuses on new models for making homeownership more accessible, reducing red tape to support concentrated urban development, reducing draconian restrictions on builders and empowering local councils.
“Housing in New Zealand was a nightmare before we were even thinking about how the coronavirus pandemic might affect the economy,” says TOP Leader Geoff Simmons. “Now in the middle of this crisis we have an opportunity to think about how we do things differently on the other side.
“We have needed to reform our housing market for years. If COVID-19 doesn’t give us the political motivation to make lasting change, nothing will. We have the most expensive housing market in the western world, with house prices outstripping those in other OECD countries over the last decade. On average it takes Kiwis 15 hours of work per week just to pay rent, up from an average of 12 hours in 2009. Again, we outstrip the world in rental costs.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to sudden losses of jobs and income, putting instant financial pressure and stress on countless kiwis, and making already high accommodation costs now severely unaffordable.
TOP’s housing policy covers the following four key reforms:
New approach to social housing needed
A new approach must be taken to social housing, especially as the number of kiwis seeking government support in relation to accommodation is set to rise as the impacts of the pandemic are felt widely across the economy.
“We need to provide subsidies for not-for-profits, charities and cultural organisations making housing accessible, as well as developing cooperative house ownership models,” says Simmons. “This will help to create social housing that delivers better outcomes for those struggling the most in our society, especially as this pandemic has shown how important it is that social housing is done well.”
Urban Development Act
TOP proposes separating urban development from environmental management through the creation of a new Urban Development Act in order to enable housing development in urban centres where it is needed most. This includes a national strategy and 30-year plan toward environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable towns and cities.
“The existing Resource Management Act has done its job at protecting the environment, but it has also restricted development,” says Brendon Monk, Candidate for Te Atatu, and TOP housing policy spokesperson. “All this has done in urban environments is increase housing costs and increased unnecessary urban sprawl.”
Construction industry reform
The first two policy areas will be supported by a reformed construction industry, which is less restricted. TOP will focus on upskilling and attracting young people to the industry, correcting building standards and supply issues, and protecting consumers with a building warranty insurance.
“Between supplier duopoly, barriers to young kiwis entering the industry, and consent consistency slowing things down, it’s no surprise that homes aren’t being built at the rate we need to keep up with demand,” says Simmons. “We must review the status quo, free up builders, reduce the cost of raw materials by increasing competition and enable the industry to quickly build more houses.”
Local infrastructure empowerment
Local government needs a cash injection so that they have the funds to properly manage infrastructure, and properly support housing development.
“Local government owns 35 per cent of infrastructure in New Zealand, but only receive 7 per cent of revenue,” says Simmons. “It’s no wonder that we’re finding regional infrastructure stretched to limits, national growth needs to be fed back to local governments proportionately.”
COVID stimulus
Simmons reiterates that there is opportunity presented by the current crisis to right some of the wrongs in the state of housing across New Zealand.
“The certain incoming stimulus in infrastructure needs to be done well, with a view to future sustainability,” says Simmons. “This means integrating housing and infrastructure plans while separating environmental management and urban development planning.”
“This has been a massive wake up call for New Zealand, and we cannot afford to get hit like this again in another 10 years if we allow things to go back to how they were. We must be in a better, more resilient place than this 10 years from now: if not just for a better New Zealand, but so we’re prepared for the next crisis.”
“This crisis has shown us many things about our fragile economy. It is clear that high housing costs are not a sign of success, but rather a noose around our necks.”
More corporate welfare and privitisation then is TOP’s answer. Isn’t that the same policy as the failed Natz and Labour ones?
NZ had it right already, with state housing owned by the state and then rented out at below market rates to more vulnerable people.
HNZ made a profit and if the profits from HNZ has not been siphoned off by government in dividends, and more state housing sold off to private interests then 40% of our housing problems would not exist. All HNZ had to do was reinvest their profits into upgrading the existing state houses and building more state houses on their own land to work.
Now taxpayers are paying the price for all the state house sell offs, a fortune for high rise hotel style accomodation that crams people into slum like conditions and will probably need remedial work on the build within a decade, turfing out all the tenants, leaky building style.
NZ imports in poverty from overseas which is wrong and around 50% of our housing problem which as the immigration scam hits maximum stream in NZ in the past few years, creates the demand that a country like NZ never used to have with unprecedented poverty and housing.
The other 10% of our housing problem is related to quality. When we build houses now, they fall down and need remedial work. Therefore as fast as they construct them, the previous ones are taking up labour being remediated!
It can never work, until construction becomes less about profits and scams and a focus on removing the ponzis, including labour and materials throughout the supply chain and going back to original building styles for non complex buildings for affordable housing, with small groups of construction firms with main builders running them who controls everything in the build themselves, not subcontractor after subcontractors and cash unskilled labour ends up building everything here, with a tick box, registered builder sign off at the end while they have little clue what went on with the build.
Trickle down is not working, why try to keep doing it with housing and wages!
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1808/S00537/oh-thats-where-they-get-their-profits-from.htm
Coronavirus: Harvey Norman, Kmart among largest wage subsidy payouts
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2020/04/coronavirus-harvey-norman-kmart-among-largest-wage-subsidy-payouts.html
Propping up sunset industry by dropping wages with hundreds of thousands of temp work visas and more permanent visas for low end jobs issued each year in NZ, does not just effect housing, it effects transport, our health system, our education system, our pensions our social welfare our suicide rate and mental illness.
It also effects NZ’s ability for other businesses to prosper that pay higher wages and are going to be more robust going forward. Any new strategy of growth in NZ seems to be hindered by NZ’s obsessions with corner shop takeaways and restaurants, b&b’s and tourism tat, low value commodities, Pine forest and retail businesses…
When Amazon and Alibaba get more presence in NZ, climate change continues with more droughts, and disasters and pandemics increase with intensive profit filled farming and globalism spreading it around the world, most of NZ’s businesses above will be wiped out as they are just not equipped for the 21 century and how consumers shop now, what they think, and a customer focused experience.
NZ under Rogernomics is all about placeholder CEO’s penny pinching on everything in particular wages which have come to prefer their employees poorly educated that do what they are told without any critical feedback, while stopping any innovation and change.
The world neoliberal widget model has the wheels falling off with Covid around the world, with everyone now relying on non democratic, corruption filled countries like China because their governments dialled down a broad base of educational skills in their own countries, have no skills in their own country anymore for manufacturing for their own supply and too lazy (and with huge lobby push back against it) to do anything about it. But that approach is not going very well for the world!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/19/hospital-leaders-hit-out-government-ppe-shortage-row-escalates-nhs
An excellent example of what is going wrong with privatisation of public housing around the world.
Now the UK can’t even afford to rent back their own military houses! Crazy!
In 1996, the Ministry of Defence decided to sell off its housing stock. The financier Guy Hands bought it up in a deal that would make his investors billions – and have catastrophic consequences for both the military and the taxpayer
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/apr/25/mod-privatise-military-housing-disaster-guy-hands
or
introduce a ‘guideline for a sustainable ‘ population , of say .. where it is now ~ , for example .
if over time the population were to drop by 1 or 2 hundred thousand then there’s enough housing already available for everyone .
that then would make way for TOP to implement their urban ‘ development planning , with a lot less land ‘ sprawl . because of the uniquely unprecedented situation this creates it could be better achieved by a :-O
scorched earth policy