NIMBY Bingo!

You are right. A libertarian property rights based approach is different from the approach I bring to the conversation. I observe that an emphasis on property rights and wealth-based entitlements,rather than land stewardship duties and a sense of looking after each other, has helped bring our civilisation to the brink of collapse, and is leading to a collapse in biodiversity. So it might be time for a different approach?

Hi John
Thanks for your message.

Disingenuous, hmmm? Like many champions of deregulation you present yourself as a champion of the needy but are actually arguing to entrench inequality and privilege.

Replace the idea of residents and character protections with unions and well-paying jobs and your rhetoric is straight out of the 1990s. I lived through this, spent years arguing in central government that warm dry houses required government intervention against deregulatory advocates such as yourself.

As I said in one of my scoop posts

“Someone said to me the other day, people who oppose these changes are just old rich white people protecting their wealth. “Middle class capture” is a slogan from the 80s and 90s; people talked about how deregulation would stop the greedy middle classes hoarding privilege and create opportunities for those on low incomes. How did that go?”

The idea that our heritage and character areas are hotbeds of privilege does not stand scrutiny – Wellington’s character areas are not the wealthiest, people who live there don’t have the highest incomes and anyone who thinks Newtown is dominated by old, rich, white people lives in a parallel universe. You may be surprised to know that many people who rent also oppose the current proposals in Wellington.

You present the choice as this:

“What about for people who would like to live close to town, but not right in the city centre? Or would you rather just put everyone in new subdivisions in Porirua or Wainuiomata, and never mind sustainability?”

This is well-known rhetorical trick of driving to the extremes, so as to present your own extremism as reasonable position. The better questions in my view are more like:

How do we densify well? How do we build on our strengths? How do we support and grow strong, vibrant, diverse communities?

Wellington’s inner-city suburbs are already at the high end of medium density – Mt Victoria for example comes close to 100 people/ha once you exclude the town belt. Replacing flats (a form of co-housing) with apartments will do little for sustainability, and lead to a minimal increase in net housing ,but will make living in Mt Vic much less affordable. As for Te Aro, are you aware that in the 1980s, southern Te Aro was the most densely populated urban area of New Zealand?

The model that is currently being proposed is about deregulating height and site coverage over a wide area and allowing developers to choose where to build, with little thought to affordability and little input from the community.

This model has little to do with emissions reduction or sustainability, and everything to do with the accumulation of wealth. The idea that developers will cherry-pick sites for profit is baked into the proposals.

The rhetoric behind this is that there is a land shortage and that planning controls are a cause of our housing shortage, The first point is flat out false on the data and the second has no evidence to support it – it is in the nature of a piece of fake news which has become entrenched in some sectors – a local version of “election fraud”.

This approach leads to “gensification” and has little impact on emissions, undermines the quality of the urban environment, and does little or nothing for affordability, which is only improved if there is an overshoot in construction.

The alternative model is based on prioritising intensification on land that is vacant, used for car parking or occupied by low quality commercial post-1960 commercial buildings. You say you’ve looked = well so have I.

Under current planning rules there is more than enough land in these three categories to house 50,000 people in Welllington Much of this exists along transport corridors, and a fair chunk exists in the character areas. Such an approach will increase the net housing stock and density much faster than one relies on demolition of existing buildings. It will also perform much better in terms of emissions. And yes, we need strong involvement from the public sector as this is the only thing that has guaranteed affordability worldwide (feel free to check the research on this if you disagree).

So my question for you is:

Do you actually care about creating affordable housing, lowering emissions and improving the quality of life for everyone? Or are you really just an advocate for deregulation, and co-opting whatever seems convenient to support that?

I am really happy to have a serious conversation about housing; one grounded in evidence. I would love this blog and elsewhere to be developing an evidence-based agenda for housing.

I have little time for people using other’s suffering to promote an agenda of deregulation, inequality and a move from community voice to wealth as the driving force in our cities.