By David Hargreaves
Figures produced by the Auckland Council this week show that the now disestablished 154 Special Housing Areas in the Auckland region had over 5,500 building consents issued for them - but 25 of the SHAs had no consent activity at all prior to being disestablished by May this year.
The figures are contained in a report to the council's Planning Committee (from page 63), which reviews and updates progress on the Auckland Housing Accord entered into between the Government and the Auckland Council in 2013.
The 154 SHAs were created in the period between late 2013 and last year. The last of the SHAs were disestablished in May this year.
The accord targeted the consent of 39,000 sites and dwellings in three years - a target which was accomplished.
The council says as of June, 5,527 dwellings were issued with building consents and 3,105 dwellings had been completed within SHAs.
The Orders in Council, which formally established the SHAs specified the proportion of dwellings in developments of 15 dwellings or more that were to be either retained affordable (provided by social housing providers) or relative affordable (targeted to first home buyers).
Affordable housing
The report to the council says that there were 1,541 dwellings issued with consent that qualified as retained affordable housing. These were being provided by social housing providers such as Housing New Zealand.
To date, Auckland Council has consented 1,336 relative affordable dwellings through the qualifying development process and received 49 statutory declarations from purchasers of completed relative affordable dwellings.
Of the 154 SHAs, the report says, 25 were disestablished "without a qualifying development application being lodged".
It says that consenting and construction of development is able to occur after the date of disestablishment "but construction must be completed within two years of any consent being issued if an adequate application has been made and granted to extend the consents lapse period".
Councillor Chris Darby, Chair of the Planning Committee, said overall the Accord had been positive for Auckland, significantly increasing the amount and speed of land supply and establishing a strong relationship with central government on housing issues.
He said there should be "no more questions" about a shortage of land being supplied. With the Accord, helped by the Auckland Unitary Plan and Future Urban Land Supply Strategy, that job is now done.
'Some oversights'
"But the Accord also had some oversights," he said.
"It lacked affordability targets, had affordability criteria making it extremely hard to collect data and lacked requirements for developers to actually build houses once they had a Special Housing Area apply to their land.
"...We don’t build houses; consenting is our business but Aucklanders can’t live in consents and so we have a responsibility to find ways to convert these into actual homes for people to live in."
The council's Planning Committee has now requested a review of all SHAs to ascertain the number of affordable homes provided.
Darby said it was time to build on the lessons of the Accord from the last three years and "move forward to get on top of affordability issues in the same way we have with land supply".
"We will also continue to very closely monitor a range of housing issues including affordability and homes built, rising rents and house prices to ensure council can do what it can to enable greater housing development across Auckland."
The report for the planning committee, while mentioning that 25 of the SHAs had no consent "activity" doesn't give any reason for why that is the case.
The breakdown
In the report prepared for the Planning Committee there is a detailed breakdown of the 154 SHAs that were established.
It shows that most of the houses that had been completed by the end of June were contained within about a dozen of the larger SHAs. The biggest total on one site was 426 completed in the 'Flat Bush Strategic Area'.
Among the 25 SHAs that saw no consent activity before being disestablished, some were established late in the Accord period - in May last year.
However six of the 25 SHAs with no consent activity were created in July 2014, which is the same time as when the Flat Bush Strategic Area was created.
Additionally one of the very first SHAs to be created in October 2013, at Alexander Crescent, Otara, and targeted as providing for around 200 dwellings, has seen no consent activity. That's despite initial word from the planned developer Kokiri Trust of "an intention to have the first residential housing ready for habitation by May 2014, with the entire development completed by 2017".
14 Comments
What else could they do?
It's one thing to take the theoretical position and say 'Open up more land', but beyond the land they have zoned much of Auckland's rural land is heavily fragmented, often of steep topography, or hard to access.
Please advise the large areas of flat, easily accessed land in one ownership or a smaller number of ownerships in Auckland's hinterland that should be freed up.
Auckland isn't Houston.
The question is what they shouldn't have done. Why disestablish the rest of the SHA's?
No Auckland is not like Houston geographically, but most cities in Aussie are, and they are just as expensive as Auckland. It's what is not happening in peoples heads that makes Auckland expensive, not the geography.
Christchurch's geography is more like Houston. Houston has been at 3x times multiple before the 1980's, and so was NZ at that time as well.
Auckland's contour is more like Austins, and their prices are cheap enough.
It's the NZ planning system (ex UK) that makes things as they are. Even if a town in NZ is cheaper than Auckland, all it is an Auckland Cluster waiting to happen.
Dear Auckland,
Please open up less land and reduce your sprawl by 30%. Please stop sprawling all over the hills around Wellsford, Warkworth and Pukekohe.
Instead build on the dead flat Takanini - Ardmore Plains. It would cost less, generate less traffic, result in less destruction of productive land and mean less pollution.
Yours sincerely,
The Rest of NZ
PS - stop asking us to pay for your mess.
This is a sign of how our thinking has been influenced by those ideologically driven to divest of state involvement in housing, something that's been part of NZ's housing outcomes since the 1800s.
In John Key's day as an impoverished welfare recipient "state housing" wasn't demonised, whereas now any reference to social or state housing (there's a difference) comes with winks and sniggers and references to "bludgers" and slums.
I mean, yeah, maybe some people have a point in wanting to make sure we don't see another John Key or Paula Bennett roll around, but seriously - we need to brush up on NZ's history and the role the taxpayer has played in getting the older generations into affordable home ownership, including state housing as a component of this.
[Chris Darby] said there should be "no more questions" about a shortage of land being supplied. With the Accord, helped by the Auckland Unitary Plan and Future Urban Land Supply Strategy, that job is now done.
Technically correct, Auckland currently is developing 50-80% more land than it should ever need. Auckland is spending a massive amount of ratepayer funds on land supply and is going broke doing it. Auckland is absolutely awash with land supply.
Unfortunately virtually none of this land supply is near Auckland City.
The question we need to ask Chris Darby and the rest of the muppets at Auckland Council is, why?
Why does Auckland Council have huge sprawls miles away from the city and ban compact small suburbs next to the city?
The report for the planning committee, while mentioning that 25 of the SHAs had no consent "activity" doesn't give any reason for why that is the case.
That is how a market is supposed to work, an oversupply of options is made available and development takes place on some, not on others.
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