Housing

Click here to return to the policy homepage.

• Reform the RMA to: reduce compliance costs and promote certainty of outcome; enable urban areas to develop multi-nodal centres of employment so as to reduce travel times, commuter distances, and congestion; enable people to buy rural lots on an “as is - where is” basis; focus on adverse effects on the natural and physical environment rather than on letting central planners direct and control how people live their lives.
• Reform the Local Government Act to severely restrain the use of Development Contributions.
• Reform the RMA and LGA to prohibit councils from artificially restraining the supply of land and to remove all existing Metropolitan Urban Limits.
• Reform the Building Act 2004 in recognition of the limited term of liability of councils.
• Reform LGA and Transport legislation to make transport serve efficiency and mobility rather than be used as a tool for directing and controlling where people live and work.
• Reform the appropriate legislation to encourage long term financing of infrastructure including the use of private/public partnerships. (more here)

• Increase acquisition and building of state housing units by at least 3000 units a year for the next 3 years.
• Maintain an income related rental policy of 25% of income for Housing New Zealand Corporation tenants.
• Provide funding to third sector housing organisations for a minimum of 1000 units a year for the next 3 years, prioritising those with commitment to environmental and social sustainability.
• Remove legal and institutional barriers to the development of co-operative housing, eco-villages, self-built, sweat equity housing, shared ownership, and papakainga housing
  Supported housing for those in need.
• Ensure appropriate housing and support for those living with, and recovering from, mental illness and addictions.
• Support older people and people with physical or intellectual impairments so that they can remain in their own homes, or move into suitable housing .
• Reduce speculative investment in the housing market by tightening the rules around loss attributing qualifying companies and introducing a capital gains tax on all but the family home.
• Increase peoples ability to save for a deposit and service a mortgage by increasing the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour, with an annual review.
• Introduce a Universal Child Benefit that can be capitalised towards the child's first home.
• Increase provision of low interest financing for low-income households seeking home ownership
• Shift the standard tenancy conditions towards more secure and predictable tenure arrangements.
• Develop a sustainable building strategy, which sets standards for use of building materials. (more here)

• Labour will carry out an urgent review of Crown land which could be made available for affordable and social housing in areas of extreme shortage.
• Labour will work with third sector organisations who can assist tenants to sustain tenancies in both the public and private sector. Housing New Zealand will be directed to develop relationships with NGOs that can better support tenants with special needs e.g. disabled, elderly, mental health clients, homeless, youth etc.
• Labour will look at reintroducing a shared equity pilot, once resources permit; it will then be reviewed after two years (as originally intended) and expanded if successful.
• Labour will continue with the Welcome Home Loan scheme and will investigate other tools to assist first home buyers into home ownership both through Housing New Zealand and in partnership with Community Housing Sector providers. (more here)

• Increase government investment in iwi and community housing construction projects in areas where there are shortages of low cost rental housing, significantly boosting employment in the construction industry.  Investment in environmentally sustainable housing is of particular interest as it is more labour-intensive, having the potential to create greater levels of employment. (more here)

• Enact an annual power rebate for low-income whānau; installation of low cost heating and insulating 10,000 low-income homes per year including rental properties.
• Devolve state housing to Māori and Pasifika community groups for whānau to purchase their own homes, including a rent-to-own scheme.
• Assessments for housing need of rentals undertaken by Housing NZ to be inclusive of whānau, e.g. accounting for health, social, cultural and economic wellbeing.
• We will promote the Lifemark design as a quality standard to ensure houses are accessible, usable and easy to adapt as people’s needs change over time.
• Direct the Social Housing Unit to respond to the Auditor General’s report into better utilisation of Māori land to support whānau initiatives into housing; including building on Māori land in multiple ownership.
  We will better match support available including a review of Kāinga Whenua loans and Māori Demonstration Partnership funds, to assist more Māori into affordable housing on their own land.
• Review adequacy of the accommodation supplement.
• Encourage whānau designed housing.(more here)

• Complete, by the end of 2013, the insulation of the 4600 remaining state houses built before 1978 – when insulation standards were introduced.
• Continue our $347 million Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart scheme to retrofit at least 188,500 privately owned homes.
• Introduce a suspensions policy so that a state house tenant evicted for illegal behaviour may not be eligible for another state house for up to one year.
• Work closely with social housing providers and Community Housing Aotearoa to grow the total amount of social housing available, in areas of most need.
• Rapidly progress options for financial assistance to social housing providers through the Social Housing Unit.
• Work with iwi on housing provision particularly on significant rural housing initiatives.
• Give HNZC the flexibility to reconfigure their housing stock to increase the number of houses in areas of high demand for those most in need of a home. (more here)

• Encourage home ownership by allowing working families to capitalise their Working For Families entitlements to help purchase or build a home, extend existing homes, or increase equity in a home. Those who choose to receive their payments in this way as a lump sum will be entitled to a small additional incentive to acknowledge the savings in administrative costs for the government.
• Investigate alternative local body funding arrangements with the aim of abolishing rates on domestic and commercial properties.
• Continue to sell state houses with very high valuations (some are over $1million) to purchase two, three or four other properties to be used as state houses
• Extend the provision of community housing
• Review Housing NZ tenancies on an annual basis to ensure that the occupants still meet the criteria and to ensure that housing stock is fairly allocated, and encourage long-term tenants into home ownership.
• Strengthen legislation to allow Housing NZ to evict problematic tenants more easily.
• Extend the existing scheme in which Work and Income NZ deducts Housing NZ rentals directly from benefits to include private sector rentals.
• Promote co-housing as an option for older people to join together to create and manage their own accommodation
• Adopt a national strategy, including private sector funding, to insulate all NZ homes to at least 1977 standards, prioritising the homes of those with low and fixed incomes.
• Require all dwellings sold to be assessed for energy efficiency (e.g. insulation, double glazing, heating methods, use of solar energy) and given a standardised energy efficiency rating.(more here)