“National and Labour’s deal to stick it to ‘NIMBYs’ and allow three three-storey homes on every residential section will change the face of our cities without building more homes,” says ACT Deputy Leader and Housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden.
“Council documents obtained by the Weekend Herald show nearly a third of Auckland’s historic villas and bungalows “could be flattened for high-density housing.”
“The ACT Party wants more homes to be built in New Zealand. We want people to have access to warm, dry, affordable homes so that all New Zealanders feel like they can have a future in this country.
“While we know that there is a problem in housing, National and Labour’s housing deal was not the solution. It won't deliver the houses that it promised to a generation.
“That’s because it focused on changing our planning laws when we know it's not the planning laws that are the issue.
“The Auckland Unitary Plan, which came into effect in 2016 has zoning for up to 400,000 more homes. Now, the Council acting on Labour and National’s new rules is re-zoning streets for development. That won't be more homes; they'll just be in a different place to where the councils had expected them to be when they were planning for communities.
“ACT has a real solution to the housing crisis. The real issue is infrastructure financing and funding.
“Councils can’t afford it. Without more infrastructure, there won't be more houses in total, they'll just be in different places.
“ACT would introduce a GST-sharing scheme that would provide councils with more resources to cope with a growing population. Government would share 50 percent of the GST revenue of building a new house with the local council that issued the consent to help them cover the infrastructure costs associated with new housing developments. This would provide the environment for local councils to approve more housing consents and enable builders to build houses with less delay.”