New Zealand’s urban planning system is in for a shake-up.
The Government has commissioned the Productivity Commission to do an inquiry to identify the best system for allocating land use.
The Commission has today released a 96-page issues paper, ‘Better Urban Planning’, for consultation, which outlines its intended approach for the inquiry.
It says, “The review should look beyond the current resource management and planning paradigm and legislative arrangements to consider fundamentally alternative ways of delivering improved urban planning, and subsequently, development.”
It will examine New Zealand’s current planning system, looking at how environmental and urban development outcomes have changed over the last 20 years, and explain the role and capacity of local councils, planners, central government, the judiciary and private actors under the regime.
The review will explore the option of getting a new system to complement or replace the one we currently have, whereby local governments set rules and zones to control land use.
It will also look at what other countries do to regulate land use.
The public have until March 9 to make submissions on the issues paper.
From there it’ll release a draft report for public consultation in July, before presenting its final report to the Government on November 30, 2016.
1 Comments
Another year -2016, eight years after John Key and National were elected with a mandate to make affordable housing reforms and another year of can kicking. John Key, Bill English and Nick Smith know the answers. They know all the options -it has been explained to them many times. They are not stupid.
What they and we the voting public need to decide is do we want NZ's regulatory framework focused on providing affordable housing which will have wider benefits for business, workers, productivity, social welfare and social cohesion. Or do we want a framework that protects and maximises property wealth for a minority that over time will divide us into two classes -Tenant Jack of Generation Rent and Master Landlord (property owner, FIRE industry...) of the Land Gentry.
Currently we are trying to ride two horses that have bolted in opposite directions. The time is coming to choose which horse to ride. Do we have leaders with the political will to do that and do we have a public willing to use its democratic powers to decide what sort of future NZ is going to have?
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