Auckland Mayor Len Brown, who is striving to convince Aucklanders to support his council's "compact city" blueprint for their city's future, is pointing to Vancouver as a model of “urban density done well", even though his Vancouver counterpart says a lack of affordable housing is Vancouver's most pressing policy issue.
Brown has issued a report entitled Learning from Vancouver: Gentle Density, which was commissioned from Isthmus Research by Auckland Council. The report looks at Vancouver's approach to increasing density in the suburbs. However, it does also touch on the city's need to tackle affordability issues.
Brown says Aucklanders who are worried about the impact of greater urban density should look at the report.
“It shows that, with the right approach, it’s possible to build a more intensified city that is more liveable and affordable, and that residents are proud of," says Brown. “Vancouver has many similarities to Auckland, including a central isthmus and low-rise suburbs spreading out from the central city."
Vancouver second least affordable
A study comparing 337 urban markets, released by Demographia in January, named Vancouver as the second least affordable city with a median multiple, or house-price-to-income multiple, of 9.5. The report showed in parts of central Auckland the median multiple is well over seven times and the North Shore almost at seven times. In Manukau the multiple has reached six times, and in Waitakere it's 5.5 times.
Demographia says housing is "affordable" when it can be purchased for less than three times annual household incomes. It is "moderately unaffordable" at between three and four times household incomes, is "seriously unaffordable" between four and five times household incomes, and "severely unaffordable" above five times annual household incomes. See the Demographia report here and see interest.co.nz's story on it here.
Separately, the Economist has named Vancouver as both the most expensive city in North America to live in, and third "most livable" city in the world.
The Auckland Council's draft Unitary Plan is currently open for consultation. This sets out that 60% of development over the next 30 years will take place within the current urban area with more high rise living on the agenda.
See an interview with Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse on the Unitary Plan here.
However, the Government, primarily through Housing Minister Nick Smith, has expressed concern the Unitary Plan won't do enough to improve housing affordability and has threatened to "smash" Auckland's metropolitan urban boundary to free up greenfields land for the building of new houses.
Prime Minister John Key last week suggested Auckland needs 15,000 sections available per year for both greenfields & brownfields development and suggested his government's planned Resource Management Act changes are a key plank in enabling this. Over the last decade an average of 6,520 homes, including apartments, have been consented in Auckland per year.
'Vast majority of Vancouver households have incomes well below those required to purchase even a modest condo'
Meanwhile, a Vancouver Mayoral Task Force report on housing affordability, released late last year, quotes Mayor Gregor Robertson saying the lack of affordable housing is the most pressing policy issue in Vancouver today. The report notes that; "Vancouver has the highest housing prices in Canada, and the vast majority of households in Vancouver have incomes well below those required to purchase even a modest condo (condominium)."
An academic working group that looked into the impact of foreign investment on housing affordability, noted that - as in Auckland - there's lots of media coverage, cocktail discussion, and broad debate about the impact of foreign investors coming into the real estate market and their impact on affordability. However, the academics conclude that "no concrete evidence exists showing either negative or positive impacts and the empirical conclusions of the impact of foreign investors on affordability is weak at best. Further exploration is required."
The Task Force focused on affordability solutions for moderate income households earning between C$21,500 (single income household) and up to C$86,500 (for single and dual income households). It noted rental vacancy rates were chronically low, averaging just 0.9% over the last 30 years. It also said nearly 40% of Vancouver households spend more than 30% of their income on housing, with the situation even more serious for young households with almost half households headed by people under 34 spending more than 30% of their income on housing.
The report made four recommendations;
1) Increase supply and diversity of affordable housing.
2) Enhance the city’s and the community’s capacity to deliver affordable rental and social housing.
3) Protect existing social and affordable rental housing and explore opportunities to renew and expand the stock.
4) Streamline and create more certainty and clarity in the regulatory process, and improve public engagement.
More choice & greater density called for
The report also notes that one way to improve housing affordability is to increase supply and competition between housing providers.
"Many of the initiatives identified in this report seek to increase the supply of housing that can be delivered at a lower price point. Lower development costs only translate into lower prices and rents when there is sufficient supply and competition in the marketplace. Currently in Vancouver, housing exists in two major forms – single family homes on single lots and apartment buildings (largely strata and some purpose-built rental). There is little in the continuum of housing beyond these two forms to meet the needs of families and smaller households."
"A number of the initiatives proposed in this report speak to the need to broaden the choices of housing form, achieve greater density and, by extension, increase the diversity and affordability of housing," the report says.
113 Comments
Congrats, GV, for nailing the real issue to the wall: it's no good wishing for a Compact City (or whatever the spin du jour names it) if it comes complete with Unaffordability built in.
The land supply is the main issue, coupled intimately with price-per-lot: no use having JK's fabled 15K sections/annum, if they Still cost 3 x household income to buy, and without a Hoose on top.
So Awkland CC needs to take a long hard look at:
- DC's. Stir the pot here, suggest a 20-year moratorium on all DC's.
- Resource consent requirements - these are a consultants dream when needed (engineer, geotech, architect, surveyor, lawyer to name a few obvious ticket clippers) well before the Council adds its own cost layers.
- Consent issue times. Time-Money, to those with capital skin in the game. Not to Councils of course because they exist off of effectively free OPM, in a luvverly little bubble world where the time=money equation does not apply.
- Rate the living bejasus out of land bankers (differential rate. done by lunchtime) and Ensure !!! that the proceeds of said rate are applied to Building More Houses. Not propping up yet more Buskers or Street Yartists. Offsetting fees, levies, charges and other economic deadweights. Yes, it's called Re-distribution.
And the industry needs to:
- get the factory-modular-properly QC'ed build process - er - nailed
- get some scale and method in things, abandon the knock 'er together on site mentality and build in volume to get unit costs down.
- sort the materials duopoly - this might need a rocket under the central Standards crew as well.
There.
Sorted.
Next?
"these are a consultants dream when needed (engineer, geotech, architect, surveyor, lawyer to name a few obvious ticket clippers) well before the Council adds its own cost layers."
Because land subdivision without sureying, geotech, infrastructure etc. is so successful. There was one on TV recently - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi
And how Vancouver has suffered from excessive immigration pressures.
Lesson. If you want your city to fall down the ''most livable cities'' list, then just allow it to expand without any controls.
Len Brown should be pushing Wellington on population pressures, not on expanding facilities.
Hugh,
Am inclined to defer to your certainly greater study of City Planning than mine, which is negligible.
For me to get totally on board, though, assuming you have some knowledge of Auckland, can you explain in what sort of suburbs or outlying areas of Auckland you imagine would be built on with the thousands of houses apparently required; and with roughly what sort of housing, if we were to follow the Houston model, which from memory you champion? Assuming some of that new housing would need infrastructure like roads, sewerage, schools, rubbish collection etc, who pays for that?
I did what you said and looked at the map. The isthmus is fully urbanised. All that is left is huge tracts of land from Stillwater-Redvale-Dairy Flat-Coatesville-Riverhead-Kumeu-Whenuapai-Taupaki-Waitekere-Swanson to the north and west and Beachlands-Whitford-Clevedon-Ardmore-Opaheke-Karaka to the south.
There is more land there than in the whole of current Auckland. Although you may have to displace a few lifestyle blocks (like Len's place) to realise the goal.
Remember that all the detached houses you live in were once considered sprawl by those further in yet over time they become part of the fabric of the city.
Here's the thing, Hugh.
You say:
My knowledge of the Auckland geography is very limited ... and Im sure there are others with the depth of knowledge required who could competently answer your question.
Auckland Council has plenty of people (perhaps too many, granted) who have the depth of knowledge; but they come up with answers of which you are very critical. And yet you acknowledge you don't know at all.
I did have the pleasure of living in Christchurch for 3 years in the 90s; and truly hope it gets back to its former self plus some. It is though a lot smaller than Auckland, and isn't squeezed in the middle by two harbours. (Nor is Houston; a quick look at Google Maps shows). I actually share Basel Brush's view that hopefully Christchurch will develop enough cultural diversity to attract some of the surplus, because I'm not certain we do have the room here. However if the people are coming we need a plan.
And lo and behold there is a plan: Here is just one page of where the people might end up.
http://monitorauckland.arc.govt.nz/our-community/population/population-projections.cfm
We apparently are looking to add 1 and a half times Christchurchs population into Auckland in the next 17 years. So you would think there might be a bit of urgency. Yet the government would have us wait 3 years before even starting on a plan; a plan that clearly they don't like; but I'm not sure they've articulated an alternative other than "Let's smash the urban rural boundary", whatever that means. You seem to support the government's view.
In Auckland, Hugh, the Urban rural boundary is a fair way away compared to the one in Christchurch. Probably time to learn a bit about Auckland, get specific on solutions for us, or take a back seat.
This government or the next need to do a deal with our biggest cities. Auckland especially. Where the Local Authorities are given the resources needed to have affordable housing, new transport, sewage, water infrastructures. I made a comment at the end of this comment stream indicating cost isn't really an issue when you compare it to other areas of government spending. In exchange Local Authorities have to accept they have a responsibility for ensuring the market provides affordable house. Housing is a basic need and it should the right of every working kiwi that they can afford a decent place to live. This right should be the number one priority of every local authorities agenda.
Just 0.70% of New Zealand’s land area is urbanised
.................................................
means exactly what....?: there's more space for houses? If that's what you mean it doesn't tell us much does it?
Putting it in perspective:
The urban landscape accounts for 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of Northern Ireland and 4.1% of Wales.
Put another way, that means almost 93% of the UK is not urban. But even that isn't the end of the story because urban is not the same as built on.
In urban England, for example, the researchers found that just over half the land (54%) in our towns and cities is greenspace - parks, allotments, sports pitches and so on.
Furthermore, domestic gardens account for another 18% of urban land use; rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs an additional 6.6%.
Their conclusion?
In England, "78.6% of urban areas is designated as natural rather than built". Since urban only covers a tenth of the country, this means that the proportion of England's landscape which is built on is…
… 2.27%.
.......
Ever been going down the road and wanted to take a pee without anyone seeing?
I see ad valorem taxes "ignore ability to pay". So for those who need new infrastructure (that provided in the past being taken by new arrivals with bulging pockets - inline with the government's policy of achieving wealth through population increase) some will not be able to afford the ad valorem taxes imposed to pay for the infrastructure. The government will have to step in?
jh;
The cost of paying back the bonds for infrastructure costs is significantly lower than the the cost currently being paid by the population for inflated housing costs. In fact the inflated housing costs fall unequally on society; it falls on all those who buy their first home after the prices have inflated.
It would be better to just sock everyone a $200,000 poll tax when they turn 25 and spend the money on infrastructure. The abused younger generation is paying this kind of money anyway and it is not being spent on infrastructure or anything that benefits them.
Also see this comment:
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/03/a-better-way-to-fund-housing-in…
In terms of population growth, this is what the Auckland Council is banking on:
This from the council: "Statistics New Zealand has projected medium population growth of 700,000 and high population growth of one million people for Auckland over the next 30 years. Given Auckland’s history of rapid population growth, Auckland Council believes it is prudent to plan for the high-growth projection."
And this from Stats NZ: "While population growth is projected to be slower, growth in the Auckland region as a whole will be higher than in other regions. The current medium-series projections show the Auckland region having the highest annual growth rate of all regions between 2006 and 2031. Annual population growth will average 1.4 percent between 2006 and 2031. This compares with annual average population growth of 0.8 percent for New Zealand as a whole."
Gareth Morgan makes an interesting comment:
"The “correct size” of Auckland is unknown but for sure there shouldn’t be special decrees being issued by government in order for Auckland to keep growing the way it used to, just because the cost of that growth formula has become prohibitive."
I had assumed that there is only one correct size and that is growing (in any direction).
http://garethsworld.com/blog/economics/foreigners-auckland-house-prices/
Not only is Vancouver one of the most unaffordable cities in the world.
http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf
It also has one of the longest average commute-to-work times:
The appendix “Table 8” beginning on page 36 of this paper is quite comprehensive and enlightening:
http://www.fcpp.org/files/1/PS135_Transit_MY15F3.pdf
It also has some of the worst traffic congestion delays:
http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/congestionindex/
On the other hand, cities without growth containment, have lower density, bigger properties on average, at affordable prices, lower traffic congestion, and shorter average commute-to-work times. Check the b----y REAL WORLD DATA.The planners GIGO computer models need to be scrapped.
The shallow assumptions of Len Brown Inc; and the planning classes; and the voters who give these charlatans a mandate; are flat WRONG and the sooner the central government strips these Marie Antoinettes of their powers, the better. It is time the people rebelled against being told to "eat cake" i.e. live in condos that end up three times the price of a separate family home on a quarter acre in an affordable city; AND end up with worse congestion and lengthened trip times into the bargain.
All it needs is slightly deeper thinking - it is actually obvious that higher density = worse congestion and longer trip times. It is also obvious that the price of land per square meter rises faster under a planning-enabled racket, than households can possibly reduce their space. This is why growth containment, the highest densities in new development, and the worst unaffordability tend to go together.
There is also no correlation between density and the state of local government finances. The Productivity Commission's report on Housing Affordability (a whole year ago, now, isn't it?) referenced a number of papers on this.
End the racket. Give the charlatan aristos the boot.
BTW, has anyone yet published a photo of Len Brown's own luxury large-lot home? And his location is, of course, not targeted for intensification.
PhilBest. Yes, back in '04 I spent couple months working in Vancouver and while the scenery and setting is awesome, the traffic is terrible. One of the locals told me there was a referendum where the citizens decided to not put US-style freeways through the city to alleviate. What makes it worse is the grid pattern, parked cars compromising dual-carriage streets, and no turn lanes at most intersections. So when at one, somebody invariably wants to turn across the traffic, holding up everybody behind, with the spare lane often blocked with parked cars. This one thing is a big problem there.
while the scenery and setting is awesome, the traffic is terrible.
...................................
'sounds like Queenstown:
"Up the road in Queenstown, nature is in full flight.
Queenstown advertises itself as "The Adventure Capital of the World," where you can bungy jump, heli-ski, jet-boat, or sky-dive. The confines of the modest town can no longer accommodate the throng of thrill-seekers. Soaring mountains still fringe the lake, but condos are creeping along the shore, a snake of traffic clogs the road into town, and Louis Vuitton has set up shop along with Global Culture, a clothes store.
If your idea of a holiday is a seething mass of cars and people, topped off by a cacophony of helicopters, Queenstown may be for you. Otherwise, it serves only as a warning of the perils of overdevelopment."
http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2004/11/07/new_zealand_at_a_crossroads/
Also relevant: some of the fastest growing cities in the western world cope with this growth without housing inflating much in price beyond median multiples of 3.
For the period from 2000 to 2010, there are examples of cities in the USA that grew from 3.8 million to 5 million people (Houston); from 3.5 million to 4.5 million (Atlanta); from 900,000 to 1.35 million (Austin); from 760,000 to 1.25 million (Charlotte, NC); from 540,000 to 880,000 (Raleigh, NC); from 54,000 to 170,000 (McKinney, TX). House prices in these and hundreds of other growing cities and towns remained low throughout. The attraction of affordable housing was a major reason for the population in-migration. Nor were overcrowding or homelessness a problem. Kiwis are irrational, "can't-do" wusses.Actually the number one reason for moving, by a wide margin, is "jobs".
It is probably connected, that the cities with the jobs are also mostly the cities with affordable housing. Whether a city is pro-growth or anti-growth affects the entire local economy as well as affecting the affordability of housing.
The exception to the rule, cities with unaffordable housing and strong employment (eg London) are marked by the in-migrants being immigrants from developing countries, while natural citizens stay on the dole in other cities rather than move to London and live 10 to a room so as to have work.
That's a little unfair Phil. All those cities had hinterland begging to be sprawled upon. In Auckland which really is the only city with a highish multiple you are sprawling onto prime fertile agricultural land.
If you are observing a lot of irrational , can't do wusses, perhaps you are mixing in the wrong circles. There are plenty of rational arguments against densification and sprawl. It is a good thing to see so many folk dragging themselves away from the TV to have their voices heard.
It would be great to have an extra million people in homes they can afford in Auckland. But lets have them in thriving satellite cities, Wellsford, Warkorth, Pukekohe, Wiauku, Huntly. Lets build a great new city centre in Manukau and then serve the whole lot with a world class public transport system. That would truly be a greater Auckland area.
Whatever: Kiwis are irrational. can't-do wusses if, with all the spare land we've got, we have to keep on engineering ourselves the world's worst housing unaffordability, the world's worst traffic congestion, and the world's worst local fiscal unsustainability.
If any land; prime agricultural or whatever, is not already so expensive that it is too costly to convert to some other use, there is no rational reason to preserve it in that use. NZ is meant to be a secular country, guided by reason and science. Price signals are part of the secular science of economics. "Preserving land" is a religious value and should be ruled out, just as conservative christian values are ruled out in regard of family law.
The so called rational arguments against sprawl are no such thing. There is no necessary correlation between density and resource use. It is perfectly possible to have a "sustainable" low density existence, in fact sincere environmentalists advocated this back in the 1970's before the movement was hijacked by a bunch of human-hating fundamentalists who regard nature as some kind of shrine and high density living as some kind of appropriate penal colony for evil humans.
I don't disagree with your ideas about growth in numerous different locations, that is all part of what would happen if we LET it. But trying to "plan" where everything is to happen, without compulsory acquisition of the land, is always mostly a racket in capital gains for property owners and not so much actual desirable outcomes, because few people can afford the utopian locations once the land owners have gouged their pounds of flesh out of the developers forced their way by "the plan".
Take a look at "The Woodlands" near Houston. as an example of a complete new city, with affordable housing of good size and quality, jobs-housing balance, and high amenity - all easy things to achieve when you start with farmland at farmland prices, not land banks at land banker prices.
"Public transport" of the monopoly-provider, heavily-unionised model should be abandoned; it is most of the time already no more efficient per passenger kilometer than a small car with only a driver on board. Smaller public transport vehicles, owner-operated, would kill the status quo system hands down on all measures. It is absurd to be pouring subsidies (like 75% plus of system cost) into an expensive and wasteful system that is no better than cars anyway, when a totally non subsidised system would be a far more efficient use of resources. It is a give-away that the "save the planet" types never get their heads around real-life economic outcomes.
In Austin: decent suburban house: $185,000
http://www.trulia.com/property/3116284850-4501-Dorsett-Oaks-Cir-Austin-TX-78727
Absolutely HAVE to live downtown on a budget? See what less than $100,000 gets you:
http://www.trulia.com/property/3039999946-1800-Lavaca-St-205-Austin-TX-78701
Bottom end of the market: would you rather be a poor person in Vancouver, or Auckland, or HERE?
Look for yourself at what you get for WELL UNDER $100,000……..
http://www.trulia.com/property/3110047250-5914-Hidden-Valley-Trl-Austin-TX-78744
http://www.trulia.com/property/3113538430-2318-Deadwood-Dr-Austin-TX-78744
http://www.trulia.com/property/1093930854-6812-Pondsdale-Ln-Austin-TX-78724
If you can only afford $28,500:
http://www.trulia.com/property/3113382458-Branch-Creek-12609-Dessau-Rd-469-Austin-TX-78754
Now look at Vancouver: cheapest RE advertised: just under $200,000 for a one bedroom apartment:
Using the "sort by price" function, see what you get for your money. EVERYTHING UNDER $500,000 IS A B-----Y APARTMENT....!!!!
TWO bedroom Condo: over HALF A MILLION
2 BEDROOM CORNER UNIT: $400,000
Oh great, found a separate home at last: $700,000 - with TWO bedrooms, 1 bathroom, "needs renovating":
I give up.
Len Brown: on behalf of all as-yet-1st home buyers: FAR QUEUE!!!!!!!!
Anyone who has paid the kind of prices that the Len Brown, Inc racket has brought about in the last few years, for their first home, is a friggin' idiot. If you expect them to just stop grizzling and pay up out of every orifice for the rest of their working lives, you are a fiscal child abuser and should go where you belong.
Any idiot can look at the evidence, just as I have, and any idiot can follow the links to the evidence I provide, to work out what kind of scum you and Len Brown are. BTW renting has never been more sensible, all these specufestors crazed by greed for capital gains don't expect much in the way of rents for their predominantly empty houses.
Gareth and Hugh - nice article about the maths underlying cities. HT Instapundit.
And a round-up worth keeping an (urban) eye on. Seems that those Bars could be Central Christchurch's - er - Salvation. Come on Anthony G - start buildin' 'em!
I think the government and council should just come to a compromise and allow unlimited growth both outwards and upwards. The market will determine whether people prefer to live in apartments near the city or in houses miles out. Would need height to boundary restrictions of course, but otherwise just zone the whole city and surrounding areas as 'do what you like'.
I think the government and council should just come to a compromise and allow unlimited growth both outwards and upwards. The market will determine whether people prefer to live in apartments near the city or in houses miles out. Would need height to boundary restrictions of course, but otherwise just zone the whole city and surrounding areas as 'do what you like'.
Indeed, jj, and I especially applaud your subtle use of a double post for emphasis.
But.
But.
Given that all this would have to imply, inescapably, the complete disestablishment of the Planners and Zonerators, whose life work consists of placing 'it's for the Public Good' rocks in the path of earnest citizens who simply wish to build a Small Extension, Subdivide the Backyard, or otherwise Assist the Housing Markets, ask yerself this question.
What's the probability of this Ever occurring?
(Hint, even an ex-sawmiller - usually the one-thumb, one finger type who got too close to the breaking-down bench in the good ol' days - would possess enough digital equipment to get This one right....)
All right, my original reply to that was deleted.
NZ, with 4 million people with more room than 120 million Japanese have, is evidently "out of room" to expand its cities to cover, say, 1.3% of its land area instead of 1.2%.
Personally, I do not think my original reply was undeserved by PDK.
David Chaston, it is all very well to accept complaints from the likes of PDK when he pushes guys like me over the edge with frustration. But your forum has been devalued to well below what it should be, by the incessant trolling and irrational, irrelevant arguments of the nature made by PDK above. It is him that should have been banned years ago.
I have run this argument again and again and again until I am sick. Theorising about laws of thermodynamics and alleging a "lack of room" in New Zealand - NEW ZEALAND !!! - is utterly irrelevant to regulatory distortions that result in wealth transfers like urban planning does, and with unintended consequences like urban planning has. It is like using these arguments every time someone complained about a cartel hiking the price of milk. These arguments would have nothing to do with the morality of the existence of a cartel in milk supply, and they have nothing to do with the morality of an economic-rent wealth transfer in housing.
PDK seems to be intelligent in his own way. I have repeatedly, for years, attempted to explain why he should have no problem with the end of a zero sum wealth transfer that is nothing to do with the future-proofing of our economy and society, and rather weakens it. I have attempted to engage his interest in the perfectly natural harmony of his solutions and mine. I agree with sincere people adopting sustainable lifestyle-block living. I strongly disagree with people being forced to under-consume land in the alleged service of objectives that are actually unrelated to the level of consumption of land - as PDK himself is a shining example of.
I have pointed out that PDK's perfectly sensible lifestyle solutions and many others are compatible with low density living, not high density living. Therefore, it makes sense to encourage low density living along with the sustainable aspects of it.
But every time - EVERY TIME - this topic comes up, David; PDK will pop up again without fail, as an apologist for Len Brown Inc....!!!!!!!
David, you don't need to ban me. I gave up on this forum long ago. PDK's mission is accomplished, in that respect. He has this forum pretty much to himself. I just pop back once in a while when a particularly relevent subject comes up, to see if anything has changed on here. It obviously has not. The contribution to understanding of these issues of urban land supply and planning and the socio-economic future of this country, from this forum, is almost totally useless. If you are on PDK's side on this particular point, rather than common sense and objective analysis, pity help NZ, is all I say. This forum should be way out in the lead.
I suggest that there are other people sho would have helped to advance the discussion on this subject on this forum, who like me, have largely given up, seeing it is pretty much a stomping ground for environmentalist trolls obfuscating and smokescreening. Presumably you understand the old "Baptists and Bootleggers" paradigm? That is the environmentalists and "big property".
If you yourself do not have the moral clarity to back up the side of truth and right on this issue, you bear a large measure of responsibility for what happens to NZ in the years ahead.
The current model needs green field and roading and cars an anti-environmentalist view and lots of subsidy. What's more it produces a crap product for all but the well off.
........
Christchurch architect Roger Buck, a longtime advocate of sustainable housing, says this could have been the moment to make the move to not just greener homes, but greener suburbs.
More innovative ownership models could have emerged, such as community designs grouped around shared garden spaces.
Instead, all he sees are cookie- cutter estates offering standalone houses on ever-shrinking plots. "They're short-life buildings to begin with, what I'd call stick houses," he says.
They look ritzy when first built, but use flimsy materials and are unlikely to age well.
Also, the sections are too small. Buck says people are clinging onto the old quarter-acre Kiwi ideal, but trying to make it work on half the land. We are building a rash of new suburbs that will never have vegetable patches, proper gardens or the shelter of trees.
"When the easterlies blow through, they will be utterly bleak."
Nor do these subdivisions allow people to capture the winter sun.
"You need do no more than orient your house to the north and that's free winter energy.
"However, developers just chop up the land at random to get as many sections out of it as possible. The house are then plonked down to fit the roads."
Inflated land costs is the CAUSE of what Roger Buck is saying. When the land is costing the developer nearly $1,000,000 per acre instead of under $30,000, of course everything has to be sacrificed to end up with housing at prices that the market might actually be able to stand. Even green space has to be sacrificed. Houses have to be crammed in my mathematical formulas to extract the most possible from a given area. Even intersections are a waste of space, hence cul-de-sacs predominate.
Look at "The Woodlands" near Houston, for an example of what can be done when the land costs are fair rural prices, not what some racket enabled by urban planners has forced developers to pay.
The correlation in this, is between ABSENCE of growth containment policies, housing affordability, space per person, quality of housing, amount of local amenity, and even lower traffic congestion. Kiwis are utter fools for engineering themselves the absolute opposite of everything. The only people who are not fools, are the capital-gain-extracting land owners and big incumbent property investors. The planners and politicians enabling the racket MIGHT be fools and useful idiots - the alternative is that they are corrupt and deserve to be in jail.
Just a quick scan thru the document and I have to say it is in a way sickening, all the suggestions they make for invisible/hidden development, laneway (infill) housing, house splitting, lot repackageing went on in Auckland until the council got its greedy mitts into the mix and levied punitive 'reserve contributions' on anyone doing this and surprise surprise it stopped and house prices went up.
What they then gave us was vertical slums - shame on the pricks.
Though you have to wonder, Vancouver has put in 1500 laneway houses sinnce 2009, big impact thats going to make, but when you read all the conditions these come with you can see why.
Nobody has said where the water, oil, sewerage, roading, hospitals , schools etc are going to come from or be paid for merely to satisfy big business and wreck what quality of life there is.
Nobody is worried at all about the environmental impact, even the Greens.
There is no long term sustainable growth.
So stop growing.
The problem is population growth.
Natural growth including internal migration would give enough work for our leaders to deal with.
I ask just one question with the population currently at 1.5m:
Will Auckland be as ''livable'' with 2m as it was with 1m?
Unfortunately our leadership, both local and national are leaving our grandchildren with what could easily be a disastrous future.
The problem with "let the market decide" is that the developer decides what will be available and short-term profit usually trumps good design. "Spontaeneous organisation" (*so called*) produces a shambles (as we see in many parts of NZ... flag houses etc).
Expert: Suburban sprawl a short-term solutionhttp://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/business/the-rebuild/8575174/Expert-Su…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTrj2f9t3So
So the developer does a shoddy job....funny that, but yes that is my experience particualry on the dodgy end of developers...oh wait that seems to be most.
The consumer is a price and feature taker, they decide little beyond yes or no for what stock is about. Once you get into covenents and other price raising fiddles its the developer and land owner who do the most to dictate whats what.
What you fail to see or dont wish to see is time and time again PDK and I point out the problems of scaling and energy and how that effects the price. This can be seen in the US prime examples are doing municipal bonds of 70 years on a road with a life expectancy of 35...that means innocent 3rd party's pick up the eventual tab.
All you really want to do is pass the costs onto those who can least afford it....sorry I see that as morally bankrupt.
regards
Steven, why is it "morally bankrupt" to put, say, $30,000 worth of infrastructure costs onto future generations, but not to put $200,000 of house price inflation costs onto them, all for nothing?
But there is in any case no evidence that the infrastructure costs are higher if growth is unconstrained. The Productivity Commission's report on Housing Affordability included an appendix of research references on this, and I am aware of even more research that they missed.
But there is no international evidence to support the claim that higher density cities have less problem funding their infrastructure. The cost of maintaining, renewing and expanding infrastructure in denser urban areas is higher due to the cost of access, disruption, and the cost of land acquisition.
What low density, unconstrained-growth cities in the USA actually do have a fiscal crisis relating to infrastructure costs? I regard myself as reasonably well informed on this. I do not believe there is one.
Some cities have a fiscal crisis relating to the superannuation schemes of their workforces, which includes teachers and police and firefighters - things being structured differently over there. Other cities have a fiscal crisis due to collapse of once-vital industries. None of this relates to infrastructure.
Really Mr Brown. Ordinary appartments for C$1.3M a real house on it's own section C$3-4M and a lot of very visible homelessness . So that is what you have in mind for us. I am sure your property investing mates/masters will be thrilled. What they did in Vancouver was stop any expansion of the city boundary as in Sydney, the other property unaffordability nightmare city.
Government policies blamed for house prices
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/4622459/Government-policies-blamed-for-house-prices
“The big adverse gap in productivity between New Zealand and other countries opened up from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The policy choice that increased immigration – given the number of employers increasingly unable to pay First-World wages to the existing population and all the capital requirements that increasing populations involve – looks likely to have worked almost directly against the adjustment New Zealand needed to make and it might have been better off with a lower rate of net immigration. This adjustment would have involved a lower real interest rate (and cost of capital) and a lower real exchange rate, meaning a more favourable environment for raising the low level of productive capital per worker and labour productivity. The low level of capital per worker is a striking symptom of New Zealand’s economic challenge.
”
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/reviews-consultation/savingsworkinggroup/pdfs/swg-report-jan11.pdf
and this:
“Among policy and analytical circles in New Zealand there is a pretty high degree of enthusiasm for high levels of immigration. Some of that stems from the insights of literature on increasing returns to scale. Whatever the general global story, the actual productivity track record here in the wake of very strong inward migration is poor. In an Australian context, the Productivity Commission – hardly a hot-bed of xenophobia or populism – concluded that any benefits from migration to Australia were captured by migrants and there were few or no discernible economic benefits to Australians. And that was in a country already rich and successful and with materially higher national saving and domestic investment rates than those in NZ.”
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/downloads/pdfs/mi-jarrett-comm.pdf
The trouble i have with this productivity myth is NZ's productivity is mostly based on producing a real good, ie something tangable that feeds into GDP. When we look at economies that have a better GDP we find its smoke and mirrors finance, all of which isnt under-written by anything real.
Wealth/energy to me is per capita, so more ppl make you poorer...unless of course you have a make believe economy thats really a ponzi scheme centered on the property market, which it seems ours is in ever increasing %s. "concluded that any benefits from migration to Australia were captured by migrants and there were few or no discernible economic benefits to Australians" which would match what I have read about above.
Frankly why do we need immergrants? oh so employers get cheap labour and leave NZers on the dole queue...that makes so much sense, not. For myself I'd cut the incoming by 50% tomorrow, if nothing else then maybe our useless dept of Labour could cope with the processing and the pressure on housing in Auckalnd eases.
regards
You're thinking, kimy, which is great - but even a static population with rising incomes, results in an explosion in the cost of land relative to incomes because so many people do try and use their increased income to buy themselves more space.
There is LSE research on this. (Authors, Paul Cheshire, Henry Overman and others. Cheshire was in NZ in January).
Even if a few more nueovo-riche people get themselves bigger properties with gardens, swimming pool, tennis courts, etc then the price of land is forced up with those on relatively lower incomes having to make do with less land for their buck.
If the accomadation supplement (1.2 billion) and working for families (2.8 billion) was instead spent on infrastructure needed for affordable housing, like transport infrastructure we would have no trouble funding new development.
This would be like giving Local Authorities a 50% funding increase or tripling spending on transport http://ipond.nzta.govt.nz/reporting/performance/workspace/ihtml/OpenDoc?DocInstanceID=2&DocUUID=0000013c7ad254d5-0000-8032-0a120385&DocVersion=1&isSmartcut=true.
Obviously we can afford to develop our cities in an affordable manner if we choose.
Exactly we would not need WFF or accomadation supplements if housing was 3 times medium incomes. So it is a choice thing. Our leaders should be reminded if they make the wrong choices we still live in a democratic country and they can be replaced.
The exact structures we put up to provide the affordable housing is debateable. Hugh is a big fan of MUDs and I think they would be excellent in providing infrastructure for new subdivisions (and these are not necessarily fringe development, they could be city renewal projects). Basically new subdivisions would have cheaper housing but higher rates because you also pay the MUD rates. But MUD rates would be compensated by lower taxes because we no longer need WFF or the accomadation supplement. The net gain is cheaper housing.
I think politically in Auckland there has to be more city wide transport infrastructure. Aucklanders voted for a new Super Council that would solve city wide problems like congestion. That cannot be ignored, it must be negotiated with. Wellington needs to do a deal with Auckland.
The basic point though is this can be solved and is not be that expensive compared to other things we agree to spend public money on.
Hooray, some more enlightened comments, keep it up, guys.
What you are describing, is WHY these affordable-land, non-growth constrained urban economies WORK......!
They are NOT showing any signs of the doom and gloom that the "smart growth" set (an Orwellian term if there ever was one) promise for such cities. However, every time I look, the UK's cities look like something that no-one should be trying to emulate. There is simply no comparison, between Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc etc and Indianapolis, Nashville, Charlotte etc etc. You're a b----y idiot if you want to emulate the former rather than the latter, on every count.
Actually Gareth I think this is a bit of a crap article.
The report covers a number of interesting possibilites for getting affordable housing (such as the 'invisible density'). Without discussing or considering anything in the report you just go:
Vancouver allows density. Vancouver is expensive. Therefore allowing density makes a city expensive. This is stupid logic.
Bob, I've fixed your quotes for you:
"Vancouver is forcing higher density by severely limiting fringe development. Vancouver is expensive. Restricting land supply to force higher density makes housing expensive."
"New Zealand is 0.7% urbanised. Therefore it makes no sense to ring-fence our cities with urban growth boundaries that create artificial land scarcity and ramp up house prices."
Thankyou. However there is exactly the same logic jumps between sentences. Final sentences still assume correlations between propositions. This is not logic.
There are other reasons why Vancouver might be expensive.
More desirable things are more expensive than cheaper things. Housing in Houston is cheaper than housing in Vancouver. Therefore Vancouver is more desirable.
ahh Steven so you don't like
Roy Orbison...Janis Joplin...Dwight Eisenhower.....Joan Crawford, Carol Burnett,Buddy Holly , Howard Hughes, Trini Lopez , Roger Miller,Audie Murphy, Buck Owens , Gene Rodenberry,A.J. Foyt, Willie Nelson.....................I could go on,but maybe you meant you had not met one you liked...
I mean , Roy Orbison mate come on really..?
I think it's far more evident that desirability drives cost than population growth being a consequence of desirability.
By your logic Otara is more desirable than Parnell, Lagos is more desirable than Houston.
In fact Dharavi slum in Mumbai has more population growth than Houston so by your logic is more desirable than Houston. It also is one of the densest places on earth therefore, by your logic, the denser place is more desirable than the sprawl place.
What was your name, Bob Drey something? It would certainly make sense if you were a dodgy apartment building developer by the way you dilberately misinterpret anything that doesn't suit your hidden agenda.
You know dam well that I meant desireable in the sense of preferring one thing compared to the other. I might desire gold taps but if I have to pay for them its desireability is a lot less. In fact then the standard taps would be my preference.
Try constructiong logical arguement. Making a personal attack on who I might be or what I might do is not logical arguement.
I know exactly what you mean by desirability. You are now argueing that the gold taps (Vancouver) ARE more desirable than the standard taps (Houston) and the only reason Houston has a bigger population growth is that is is cheaper - not because it's more desirable.
You argued that "People move to desirable places and the last time I checked more people are moving to Houston than Vancouver. So Bob Houston is more desireable then Vancouver not the other way around."
I'm simply pointing out that this is not a logical claim. As you point out if Vancouver is twice as expensive than Houston it must be a much more desirable place to live. Houston could be growing because it's cheap - not because it's desirable.
The fact is, Bob, you can get an undesirable place with absurdly high urban land costs because of planning. Look at all the cities in the UK, for example.
You can also get a desirable place with low urban land costs because of a lack of growth containment restrictions. LA and SF were famously cheap and growing faster than Houston today, at one time back in the 50s and 60s.
The fact also is that the most inflated housing costs also accompany a lack of growth - so it is not as if people are eagerly getting in there and putting up with higher density so as to enjoy the greater "amenity".
Tell a lie, though, there is an exception - recent immigrants, especially from 3rd world countries. This is why these inflated-housing-cost cities end up with a higher and higher percentage of their populations, as immigrants. And new ghettoes that are replicas of Kowloon and Kolkata and Lahore. Auckland, the way you want it?
Meanwhile, the local national population stays on welfare in Liverpool rather than moves to London to take the jobs (and the living conditions) that Pakis will.
The problem isnt the blind replacement in numbers, but the skill sets. If our best are leaving for OZ and we take in 3rd world educated ppl who often dont make the grade we have achieved diddly by letting them in. meantime employers seem to be screaming" for good employees but wont pay.....
wierd.....
regards
Kimy - that's a bonus, not a negative. You assume a lot - without reference/justification - with the word 'need'.
Their exit means ore of the country for each of us.
Try relating money/wealth, with what it is proxy for. That's the prima facie failure of most who opine as you do.
Kimy: you bein' mischievous again
- yes there "were" 60,000 new zealanders leaving nz for australia
- but some were coming back
- the ones that leave are being replaced
- net migration is positive
In the year to the end Feb 2013 1200 more people arrived than left the country, long-term
Geography is also an important determinant of house prices
"The third estimation approach follows a *growing literature* and proxies for supply elasticity with measures of physical and regulatory constraints to development provided by Rappaport and Sachs (2003), Saiz (2008), and Gyourko et al. (2006) http://flatbush.sauder.ubc.ca/revision_3.pdfGeography was shown to be one of the most important determinants of housing supply inelasticity: directly, via reductions in the amount of land availability, and indirectly, via increased land values and higher incentives for anti-growth regulations. The results in the paper demonstrate that geography is a key factor in the contemporaneous urban development of the United States, and help us understand why robust national demographic growth and increased urbanization has translated mostly into higher housing prices in San Diego, NewYork, Boston, and LA, but into rapidly growing populations in Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, and Charlotte.
The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply
Albert Saiz∗
econjwatch.org/file_download/472/CoxJanuary2011.pdf
Saiz committed a serious error of analytical approach. Drawing a radius the same size in all cases regardless of city size, and analysing the geographic constraints within that radius, means the conclusions will be meaningless.
From the Federal Reserve of Atlanta: “The Saiz paper is forthcoming in a top economics journal, and its results are already being used by housing economists. We draw from it ourselves in a paper that investigates why so many economists missed the housing bubble. But we caution that one should not push the Saiz results too far......
“…….the local-regulation index is ITSELF strongly correlated with Saiz’s space-constraint index, as space-constrained cities tend to have stricter regulatory limits on new construction. This correlation provides compelling evidence for something that many housing economists have long suspected—local voters seek to protect the values of expensive homes by preventing new homes from being built. This finding may be puzzling to some, as it may be hard to imagine why land-constrained cities would need to implement further restrictions on new construction. However, some new development, perhaps via dense apartment buildings, is usually possible. Note that unlike a lot of correlations in economics, we can be reasonably sure that the direction of causality runs from space constraints to local regulations, not the other way around. After all, it is hard to create a new mountain, lake, or ocean through the political process……”
A Korean paper with a completely different methodology to Saiz, finds that “geographic constraints” do NOT have any affect on housing prices in Korea.
SON and KIM (1998) “Analysis of Urban Land Shortages: The Case of Korean Cities”
Saiz’ results do not succeed in establishing house price inflation causality on the part of the “geographic constraints” themselves. Apart from the fact that an arbitrary 50 km radius can’t fit every city regardless of size of growth rate, it is apparent anyway that regulations are a likely result of people protecting their VIEWS, because the rolling nature of the terrain gives more people “views”. The regulations then cause the price inflation, the geog constraints themselves do not.
William Fischel, in “Do Growth Controls Matter”? (1990) suggested that they do not matter until a critical mass is reached with their imposition on MOST of the municipalities in a region; until then, the non-constrained municipalities act as a price “vent”. California tipped over this crucial point in the 1990′s, where there were no longer enough non-constrained municipalities.
Geographic constraints are almost irrelevant to the PRICE OF LAND as long as “building” is permitted SOMEWHERE. The “cost of building” might be a little higher due to terrain, but the cost of LAND should not be, as long as there are not artificial land rationing regulations at work. The fact that urban LAND prices are inflated by hundreds or thousands of percent, is evidence that the problem is regulations, not geography. The Korean paper’s methodology manages to make this distinction, while Saiz’ methodology does not.
If terrain ITSELF acted to increase housing prices, then that is a REASON for cities WITH “geographic constraints” NOT to have growth boundaries etc. which will certainly make the initially small problem, worse.
Len Brown's House on Google Maps and his rates. 6970m2 of land. Not zoned for densification.
Also, look at the Unitary Plan map here and add his address (8 Tiffany Close) and you will see that the propsed future urban zone (yellow colouring) stops at the end of his road.
And this is he man who wants us to live in tiny appartments and townhouses?
you can always pick weak spin when it gets personal.
I don't know them, vote for them, respect them or sidde with them, and on that basis, ask you the question: who cares what personal choices they make?
Tragedy of the Commons 101. Individual choice vs community good.
No, they're arguing that it is extremely hypocritical to place severe restrictions on urban fringe development in order to increase the density of the city while living outside the urban limit in a lifestyle block. It wouldn't matter where they lived if they weren't pushing these policies.
Isn't it always the way, conservative aristocracies who expect the proles to "know their place" and not aspire to too much, are part of an evil "Victorian" past, but socialist Nomenklatura, like the pigs in Orwell's "Animal Farm", are apparently exempt from any criticism for their hypocrisy.......
When Len was the Mayor of Manukau, he often referred his vision of Auckland to be like Brisbane.. Now we all know, Brisbane and QLD govt borrowed massive amount of money to cope with the infrastructure building program to cope with the growth and the QLD govt is struggling with the re-payment. The name Brisbane disappeared from Len's book.
Now Vancouver and its glory, wonder for how long!
Lets just start again. Pick a random spot in NZ that currently has little or no one there preferably up north where it's warm. Get someone who knows what they're doing to plan the perfect city with the right amount of roads, public transport to the commercial/industrial areas, near the coast, etc. Offer low, medium and high density housing options. The initial employment could come from the cost of building the city, then attract businesses, create a service industry and away you go. Publically state the goal of the city is to create a utopia, the perfect living environment, who wouldn't want to move there.
Might be cheaper than fixing Auckland...
Give the guys who did "The Woodlands" near Houston, a call.
I agree with you - I also point out that this sort of thing does "just happen" when you do not prevent it with regulations.
The guys who built "The Woodlands" simply bought a large ranch at very low price per acre, on which to start. The minute you get "planners" dictating which land owners you are to approach, the price per acre goes into nuclear chain reaction mode. Then if you still go ahead, it is necessary to cram everything in and sacrifice quality and amenity everywhere to try and keep the prices of the eventual housing, affordable.
I understand that the developer in "The Woodlands" offered blocks of land completely free to prospective desirable employers, as well as for schools etc - yet the housing prices still ended up at median multiple three. This is the sort of thing you can do when you start with land at the lowest prevailing cost. Green space, also no problem. Wide roads. Decent section sizes.
Instant jobs-housing balance due to the employers attracted in.
http://opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10881885
It's immigration, stupid.
BTW I recommend Garth Turner's "Greater Fool" blog right there in Canada:
What can you buy for a million bucks in Vancouver? Check out this entertaining/sobering website...
http://www.crackshackormansion.com/
Maybe someone will produce an Auckland version!
This site should drop the name "interest.co" and change it to the " Hugh Pavlitich/PhilBest Rage" page. These two have effectively high jacked this site with name calling, mud slinging, vileness and worse. Posters are better off going to Olly Newland's website in future to get reasoned, unbiased and sensible comments plus factual information on all matters concerning property :
("ollynewland.co.nz").
You missed they are economically blinkered by their political view point and, scientifically, technically and mathematically illiterate, which is more to the point when looking at financial decisions ie planning and policy. However anyone who does even a small amount of research and reading for themselves would see this.
regards
BigDaddy.......you stop just short of spamming in most all your recent posts....and yes we get it , you love olly's unbiased, balanced thoughts on matters of finance in property....and that is just peachy....wander over there and ask him for advice on an exit strategy , then let me know how you got on.
Big Daddy, that is so Orwellian given that this is the only thread at all that I have commented on on here for months. And you suggest the site should be renamed after ME because of MY thread-hijacking???????
When certain eco-fundamentalist ideologues without a shred of knowledge of economics and finance - in contradiction to the stated objectives of the site - appear to be paid to spend all day on here every day, for years now?
Just shows how shamelessly twisted you racket-apologists are.
My beef with Chaston and Hickey's graciousness towards all this actual hijacking (in contrast to the absurd lie that I am the offender in that) is that if people want to check out peak oil and global warming and thermodynamics, there are sites they can go to. If people want financial and economic commentary, they are entitled to get it on a site that is dedicated to financial and economic commentary, without having to wade through incessant hijacking of nearly every thread that should be a serious discussion of, say, urban economics.
As I said elsewhere, even "Frogblog" and other explicitly environmentalist sites do not degenerate along these lines like interest.co.nz does. Sincere environmentalists are often genuinely interested and concerned at "unintended consequences" and disparate impacts on real life people. The fact that this pernicious hijacking affects pretty much only interest.co.nz, stinks to high heaven given that it is this site on which the vested interests in the urban land racket will be most anxious to shut down informed discussion.
Oh, sizable parent, I am Wounded! To the Quick.
Where's the Waymad side-swipe reference??
Have you not Read right through this 'ere Entertaining Thread?
Sure, there's some Heat amongst the Light. But that fact doesn't pass the 'So What' test.
It's a Democracy out there......
oh large, testicularly-equipped one -
fear not, we have big shoulders, something to do with the weight of grey matter needing supported, perhaps.
I'd just been to an Inaugural Professorial Lecture given by a friend of mine. My better half had done a sabbatical year in his sphere of research, there were statistic and stochastic facts and figures, a demonstration of 3d sonar-tracking (self-designed/built) of marine mammals which is world-beating. Stunning stuff. Nibblies at the Staff Club later, then home to listen to Lord Browne on Nat Radio. A man who has enough nous to do better than he did - either denial or a cranial incapacity, is that thinking that somehow technology can replace energy itself. Interesting, for all that. Then we had a jolly fine post-supper conversation with a guest, re education, overall-teacher-judgement, and my submission to the DCC today.
Then I saw the PhilBest effort. All I can say is that it speaks for itself. Just wish others here could have shared my evening - the contrast was pretty stark.
In short, Big Daddy, some of us have the ability to discern whether credit is due. That, methinks, has been your traditional territory, no?
Sorry, but both you and the Hughey/PB types are wrong. What made you think this was an 'either/or'? The same encroaching parameters which are squeezing them, are blowing to pieces the funding system you rely on too.
PDK, I have tried before and will try again one last time, to have a civil and sensible discussion with you. Theorising about laws of thermodynamics and alleging a "lack of room" in New Zealand - NEW ZEALAND !!! - is utterly irrelevant to regulatory distortions that result in wealth transfers like urban planning does, and with unintended consequences like urban planning has. It is like using these arguments every time someone complained about a cartel hiking the price of milk. These arguments would have nothing to do with the morality of the existence of a cartel in milk supply, and they have nothing to do with the morality of an economic-rent wealth transfer in housing.
You and others who hold your views are often intelligent in your own way; however, it is possible to lack the ability to understand economics, markets, price signals, incentives, and so on. I have repeatedly, for years, attempted to explain why you should have no problem with the abolition of a zero sum wealth transfer that is nothing to do with the future-proofing of our economy and society, and rather weakens that future-proofing. I have attempted to engage your interest in the obvious harmony between your solutions and mine.
I admire sincere people adopting sustainable lifestyle-block living. I strongly disagree with people being forced to under-consume land in the alleged service of objectives that are actually unrelated to the level of consumption of land - as you yourself are a shining example of. Your consumption of land is high, the sustainability of your lifestyle is high. QED.
I have pointed out repeatedly that your lifestyle solutions and many others are compatible with low density living, not high density living. Therefore, it makes sense to encourage low density living along with the sustainable aspects of it, not de facto ban it, period, for most people.
But every time - EVERY TIME - this topic comes up; you will pop up again without fail, as an apologist for Len Brown Inc....!!!!!!! You have never once been able to offer a rational explanation for this contradictory and weird behaviour. But Len Brown also lives on a lifestyle block but advocates rabbit hutch living for everyone else, so I suppose I should not be so surprised. Is it some kind of "ruling class elite intelligentsia" syndrome or something? Or do you actually understand only too well, the unsustainability of high density living in a post-energy world, and look forward to the speedy die-off of the most of humanity that have been herded into high density living by government fiat, leaving the planet clear for the elite few with their sustainable lifestyle blocks? Recall my advice that you will need to be well-armed and well supplied with ammo in this eventuality.
The curious thing is that on a forum like "Frogblog" and other more explicitly environmentalist forums, I have experienced a lot more genuine open-mindedness among the sincere environmentalists, to the problems and unintended consequences that I draw attention to. Others could say the same: Andrew Atkin for example. I do wonder whether you, PDK, and possibly others like you, have been banned from such forums because of the bad name that you get "environmental intellectualism" through your obvious inability to grasp basic concepts such as racketeering, wealth transfers, pork-barrelling and political enabling.
I am very surprised that a forum like this one that is not an explicitly environmentalist one, tolerates the continual devaluation of the forum and the loss of valuable contributors who give up in frustration. I pop back every so often to see if the level of understanding and insight on here have improved and if any more people have grasped the essence of the housing affordability - capital gain - wealth transfer issue. But every time, not only are there almost never any such people, the ones who used to make helpful and insightful comments are now absent too.
David Chaston and his colleagues need to understand this and regret it.
civil? while calling ppl watermelons etc? yeah right.
"basic concepts" like uh "laws of thermodynamics" say?
Really you just pop in here to push your libertarian political agenda, and see how others with a like mind are doing and offer support, nothing more.
regards
There you go again; change the subject to the laws of thermodynamics. I suppose you would use the laws of thermodynamics to excuse a cartel in the supply of milk too? You are not even trying to demonstrate why transferring wealth from first home buyers and renters to land owners and property investors, and forcing everyone to live in rabbit hutches and catch trains, has anything to do with future-proofing society and the economy, unless, as I suggested already, it involves the desire to tip humanity more rapidly into "die-off" once the alleged post-energy era arrives.
True future-proofing would involve a trend "back to the land". Therefore, I regard the Kunstlerites as the more credible of the Malthusians. I would credit PDK with being one of these if he had the consistency to advocate for others, what he actually does himself, rather than, like you, acting as a perpetual apologist for the land-rationing racket.
When you ignore the limits of what the planet can supply, plus the laws of how the universe works, plus maths functions then any plan you have is nothing more than a castle built on quicksand. ie there is nothing in your plan that can future proof the economy ad infinitum by ignoring fundimentals.
Oh lets throw red herrings around and accuse ppl of things that simply isnt true shall we. Who was trying to have a civil conversation again?
"to tip humanity more rapidly into "die-off" there are several paths to choose from here, yours seems to be "lets just carry on with no changes until a fast collapse" scenario. Congrats, this it seems as revisiting limits to growth shows all to well is what is being done.
regards
Hey come on Phill . no fair there..! some of us are dead, some of us found porn, Gummy's cooking for coalminers or something.....
But , matey we have some people here now who have stepped it up in a very positive way, not forgetting the site is in itself , through the musings of Bernard , Negatively earthed....yes Phill, Negatively earthed and that is what makes it tick, what makes it earn, so you don't wanna mess with it when it works.
I would suggest while your back, you read around a bit..., yes I know there are idealogical differences to confront , but that does in no way demean the qualifications of the opposition you may be confronted with.
i been here a long time now, I miss some people, I've forgotten some people, but new arrivals have brought some serious quality to the input.
You're one of the better ones who has hung around, Christov. I assure you I don't lack "reading around a bit", I am well familiar with the arguments advanced by the other side. It is just that they, and not I or anyone like me, seem to have a career in swamping the blogosphere with their side of the argument. I find it hard to believe they actually earn an honest income and are taking time out from that to do what they do here and elsewhere.
My main protest, is with the perpetual changing of the subject by people who claim to be experts on physics, which apparently over-rides anyone else's expertise on economics. The former USSR is an example of a nation run by non-economics "experts". Good luck to NZ if PDK and Steven represent the new best and brightest, and interest.co.nz represents one of the "most influential" of our forums.
"......what makes it earn......."
Not rocking the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) vested interests boat........ I guess.
There is no money at all for anyone in advocating liberalisation of urban growth regulations. Greenfields developers competing with each other do not make "unearned increments", and in a genuine free market, even the vendors of land do not make much of this. However, containing the supply of urban land provides all incumbent property owners with massive unearned increments without them lifting a finger, as does the finance sector. In contrast to actual developers who employ people and build things in response to genuine demand.
The corruption all happens to be on the side of the growth containment people, and the familiar allegations are always running the wrong way.
Without mentioning any names, there is a forum in Australia that is picking up more and more absolutely top quality commenters, and comments threads frequently reach the level of academic peer-to-peer discussions in urban economics and so on. This is what Interest.Co.NZ should have been like.
"The Poor Ye Always Have with You"
As Ye might have expected home affordability is for the children of the middle classes.
Poverty increasing
The flood of applicants also reflects the increasing number of Houstonians living in poverty, said Henneberger.
A 2011 Brookings Institution study found that the number of Houston-area residents living in extremely poor neighborhoods nearly doubled over the past decade.
"There's no doubt that with the downturn in the economy, the lower-income and working poor have been disproportionately impacted," said Henneberger. "Rents have not gone down while a lot more people don't have full-time work or are out of work completely."
In fact, rents have been rising recently in the Houston market as demand increases.
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, about 220,000 Houstonians qualify for the voucher program, which provides rental assistance for low-income families. Under current guidelines, an individual applicant cannot earn more than $23,450; the income ceiling for a family of four is $33,450.
'A desperate shortage'
Houston's leaders often tout its relatively low housing costs for middle-class home-buyers, but this provides little benefit to families living in poverty.
"There's a desperate shortage of affordable housing in Houston," said Houston Housing Authority spokesman Mark Thiele. "We know a lot of our fellow Houstonians are going through difficult times."
The housing authority allocates 17,000 vouchers annually, which help about 48,000 people. More than half of those served under the voucher program are children, said Thiele.
Each year, about 1,700 vouchers open up through attrition or termination. The replacements are chosen from the waiting list, said Thiele. The current waiting list has been pared to about 900, which enabled the housing authority to open the list to applicants this week.
This year, the waiting list application process is entirely online for the first time, forcing the housing authority to add servers to keep up with the demand.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Thousands-apply-for-housing-voucher-waiting-list-3802243.phpSteven Fox, Professor of Architecture at Rice University
Problems:
(1) The indifference of the City of Houston and the Housing Authority.
(2) The destruction of historic, low-income communities.
(3) Little Public Outcome.
Vince Marquez, Vice President of Hispanic Housing and Education Corporation and Vice President of the Houston CDC Association.
Problems:
(1) We need more education to teach each other what works and what doesn’t work.
(2) The scarcity of land. Land is becoming very scarce in the City of Houston and the price of available land is skyrocketing [disputed]
Al Calloway, Executive Assistant to Mayor Lee Brown
Problems:
(1) Lack of safe and affordable housing
(2) Lack of housing that one can own. Renting is an option that everyone should have, but we should do everything in our power to encourage home ownership. What strikes you most emotionally about the situation in the 4th ward neighborhood is how long people did not exercise the option to purchase.
(3) In not all cases is the supply of housing adequate to have a place for every person to go.
http://www.texashousing.org/livingcrisis/Houston-dialog/index.html
Oh yeah, very credible given the median multiples, employment data, and other real life data.
If these people in Houston are in "poverty", do you suggest they would be better off if they moved to Vancouver?
There is nothing quite like a lefty liberal version of "analysis and commentary". It is always "intentions" (eg of lefty planners and policy makers) versus real life outcomes under free-er markets; it is never real life outcomes versus real life outcomes.
No credible responses, I note, to my evidence above that decent houses in affordable cities cost $100,000 or less and in YOUR favourite cities, cost over half a million; or that YOUR favourite cities most affordable "housing" - one bedroom apartments - are still $200,000.
No matter to lefty liberal true believers; just pen propaganda op-eds about how tough the poor people have it in the city where decent housing is $100,000 or less, and about how wonderful everything is where one bedroom apartments are $200,000 plus. And without mentioning employment prospects in both places either.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/003688-the-2013-best-cities-for-job-growth
It is very odd that people who claim to actually care about people, are the ones saying that Auckland house prices should continue to be pushed up to Vancouver levels, rather than reduced to Austin levels. Still, the UK has had a pro-urban planning "Labour" party for 60 years and the actual "labour" (union) leaders are probably all too slope-browed to realise how "the workers" have been sold out in favour of Tory "big property" interests (or perhaps the unions leaders are just as corrupt as the pigs in "Animal Farm").
Looks like Government with its vested interest in its own/Housing NZ's projects will do a deal on the Unitary Plan to allow greenfield sites outside current urban boundary - more urban sprawl and more traffic on the motorways - what a travesty!
Speaking of Hobsonville Point - speculators are onselling new homes bought off plan for around the mid $600,000 range for $800,000 plus, now they are completed and investors have purchased around 30% of the homes in that development - some individuals have purchased 3 or 4 at once. This needs investigation - this was supposed to be a government backed/Housing NZ developed project that would provide a degree of afffordability.
Housing NZ appear to be Aucklands biggest house builder at the moment - without all the homes they are building consent numbers would be even lower than they are. Is this NZ's version of China building ghost cities in order to stimulate activity?
"The deal will give effect to some parts of the council's new planning rule book - or Unitary Plan - and allow for a streamlined process for consent applications and controlled release of "greenfield" sites outside the existing urban boundary.
It is understood the Government and council have also agreed the fast-track process will apply to "brownfield" sites within the urban boundary, such as at Hobsonville and Tamaki."
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