Tāmaki MP Simon O’Connor has taken credit for the National Party backing away from its bipartisan housing policy, saying it was something he had lobbied for.
O’Connor was number 35 on the National Party list in 2020, but was returned as a member of Parliament after winning the safe blue seat he has held since 2011.
In a social media livestream on Sunday, the MP said he had successfully lobbied for the Medium Density Residential Standards to be retracted on behalf of his constituents.
“Quite literally, week after week, I’ve been taking that feedback back to my own caucus, to my colleagues. So, a big win today is that National is walking that back,” he said.
O’Connor said the new policy would help to prevent intensification in Glendowie, Mission Bay, and Meadowbank. These are wealthy central suburbs on a frequent bus route to the CBD.
“The intensification rules that National had initially agreed with, we’ve pulled back from that, and that’s a real win for locals here in Tamaki. It's not going to be as intense as originally planned.”
High density housing should be permitted in Glen Innes and Panmure, he said, as they are main arterial routes with both a bus and a train link running through them.
The revised policy would also protect productive farmland and should prevent “a whole lot of apartments” being built near Pukekohe, he said.
While the new policy does retain some protections for the most high quality land, it has been explicitly designed to enable more development of farmland.
The policy document said areas designated as “Future Urban” on the edge of Auckland city were likely to become available for housing immediately.
This includes a large chunk of land around Pukekohe, as well as Papakura and sections north of the city.
Bishop of Building
National Party’s housing spokesperson Chris Bishop said the policy should create “abundant development opportunities” on the edges of the city, as well as within them.
“The point is to flood the market with development opportunities so that we can get rid of this artificial scarcity around land which is driving up land prices,” he told media on Tuesday.
Greenfield developments require expensive infrastructure to be built, which buyers will pay for using 30-year targeted rates on the newly built houses.
This means those developments will only go ahead if the economics make sense, he said.
Labour’s Housing Minister Megan Woods said converting enough farmland into residential housing to meet 30-years of growth would cost tens of billions in infrastructure alone.
Somehow, National will have to push councils to also rezone urban areas for high density construction, and be prepared to intervene if they don’t.
Wellington city councillor Rebecca Matthews, who is an outspoken advocate for more housing, said local governments will always zone for the bare minimum of housing possible.
“They will cook population numbers, zone in the worst places, and [only] a small proportion of zoned land gets developed anyway. That’s why you need a standard MDRS to upzone broadly and reliably,” she wrote on Twitter.
It may be politically difficult for a National Government to force a city to upzone in areas it does not want to. O’Connor has already said he opposes density in three of his electorate suburbs.
Years of delay
Matt Lowrie, who edits the GreaterAuckland blog, said councils may withdraw existing plans in order to opt out of the MDRS.
“If that happens it will likely result in years of delay as they rework everything before re-notifying new plans. In other words, National’s policy will delay the delivery of more housing,” he said.
Bishop wouldn’t say exactly how long he would give city councils to zone enough land to accommodate 30-years of housing growth.
“We want it to happen very, very quickly. If we win the election and we have a mandate for this policy we will implement it quickly and they will have to move expeditiously to do that and if they don’t, we will do it for them,” he said.
Auckland’s unitary plan, which upzoned significant portions of the city in 2016, took three years to create.
Hamilton Mayor Paula Southgate said she welcomed intensification in general, but had been pushing back on the MDRS requirements to permit three-stories anywhere.
The city has its own infrastructure and housing plans which look 30-years ahead, she said.
It plans to use a blend of greenfield development and high-density urban builds to meet housing demand, but wants denser housing to be in the central business district.
Southgate said having six-stories in the central area was preferable to having three-stories scattered through outer suburbs more suited to “lemon trees and washing lines”.
On the face of it, National’s revised policy would align more comfortably with Hamilton’s preferred development plans. But the mayor was not enthusiastic about the walkback.
“It depends on them getting elected, and then living up to their election promise. Remember, this is just an election promise at this point,” she said.
What the city council, local developers, and residents needed most was certainty.
“Every time the government changes direction it costs ratepayers money. We can’t keep having plan changes.”
Still on the table
National and Labour have agreed to meet in an attempt to re-establish common ground, but neither have signalled what that might look like.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has said his preference was to have a bipartisan housing agreement, but that Labour would consider making its own changes if National walks away.
National Leader Christopher Luxon told the Herald that Hipkins was conceding there were problems with the MDRS in its current form and was open to him adopting the revisions.
Bishop said parts of the policy were similar to those of Labour’s Phil Twyford, particularly around moving the urban limit and removing infrastructure constraints, so common ground was possible.
Judith Collins, who was National Party leader when the MDRS was negotiated, said the revised policy was a development, not a rejection, of her original one.
“Every policy can be improved; even excellent policies,” she said.
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