This piece originally ran as an op-ed in the NZ Herald on Friday. To find out more about the Coalition for More Homes and get involved in YIMBY action, check out the website.
Last year, 200 people packed out a town hall in Mt Eden to protest apartment buildings being constructed near train stations – and therefore their house.
Last year, 72,500 Kiwis left New Zealand. That’s nearly a whole Mt Eden town hall per day.
One young town hall attendee offered a different perspective. He told the crowd he lives in a damp, mouldy flat in a special character area. He blamed Nimbys (“not in my backyard”) for preventing the change that would give him somewhere better to live.
He was right. For decades, Nimbys have used council zoning plans to artificially inflate their house prices by preventing new housing in existing neighbourhoods.
This means young Kiwis today don’t have the same opportunities to get into the housing market that their parents did. It’s not surprising that instead of filling out town halls they’re simply leaving.
This is an existential threat for Auckland.
Auckland’s central suburbs, closest to jobs and opportunity, are emptying out of people – especially young people. Kingsland, which will be eight minutes away from the city centre when the City Rail Link opens later this year, lost 15% of people aged 15-29 in just five years.
A similar number left suburbs in the inner-west. It’s not hard to see why businesses in Ponsonby are struggling.
But house-price-driven brain drain and decline is not written in stone, and Auckland’s new housing plan (Plan Change 120) offers a proportionate response: more homes near major centres and public transport, combined with stronger flood and natural-hazard protections.
It’s not an entirely new response, either. The National Policy Statement on Urban Development was passed in 2020, and promised New Zealanders growth focused around existing infrastructure. It has already been implemented by both Christchurch and Wellington.
In Auckland, that promise remains unkept almost six years later. It will remain unkept until a final decision is made well into 2027 – when hearings have concluded and the public have had their say.
That is, if it gets a chance.
Plan Change 120 is under threat. Persistent scaremongering by its opponents has spooked Wellington, with reports that the Government is going to water it down.
These threats don’t come from credible evidence of infrastructure concerns, or building in the wrong place. They’re from those who embody New Zealand’s culture of “no”. No to building new houses. No to solving our housing crisis.
This back-down couldn’t be coming at a worse time for Auckland. The International Convention Centre, City Rail Link and Central Interceptor are all opening or opening soon. The building sector is poised to start ramping back up, as long as we can provide it with some certainty.
If we take advantage of these investments, they will revitalise Auckland.
Plan Change 120 is the final piece of the puzzle to put homes near these investments and maximise our return on them. It aligns zoning, infrastructure and commercial feasibility, in a way that previous plans have failed to.
If we pull back on Plan Change 120 now, we’re putting all of that under threat, and we’ll still have to pay the price of housing growth anyway.Cutting down Plan Change 120’s housing capacity won’t slow down growth. It will just limit where it can happen.People will still need roads. They’ll still need public transport. Their homes will still need pipes.
Plan Change 120 focuses on growth where we’ve spent billions of dollars to build exactly that infrastructure.
Cutting back on the number of houses that Plan Change 120 enables risks wasting those investments. It means leaving sites that are infrastructure enabled, and commercially feasible, undeveloped.
It means pushing growth to places that can’t handle it, but more importantly, where a lot fewer people want to live.
Mouldy flats aren’t the only reason people leave Auckland. They leave because homes and rent are unaffordable. They leave because of long commutes. They leave because they can’t access the jobs and lifestyles they want.
They leave because all of these things pile up, and eventually living in Melbourne becomes more attractive than living in Drury.
Tinkering with house targets isn’t going to give these young people a reason to stay. It isn’t going to help our housing crisis, or deliver cost-of-living wins for Aucklanders.
The Coalition for More Homes calls on the Government to re-affirm its commitment to “the economy of ‘yes’”.
Yes, to Plan Change 120’s ambitious housing goals. Yes, to building homes near train stations and other infrastructure. Yes, to providing more Aucklanders access to more opportunities.
Yes, to staying the course, throwing away the planning mistakes of the past, and creating a more vibrant, more affordable city.
Header image: Toi and Whetu buildings on Carrington Road (photo by Malcolm McCracken)
Greater Auckland’s work is made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans.
We’re now a registered charity, so your donations are tax-deductible. If you’d like to support our work you can join our circle of supporters here.
Processing...
In Morningside near to the train station there are about 10 apartment buildings. Simplicity is now building 2 X 10 storey apartment buildings on Morningside road.
Most of these buildings are well spaced and people on all levels will get some view and sunshine. The apartments are mostly one bedroom for one or two people. Larger apartments are more expensive. I live in one that measures about 25 sq metres. Double bed, TV, Fridge Toilet. We all share the large modern kitchen but like many of the tenants I eat out quite often and there are many good eating places nearby. The several bus and train stops are very close.
The people at the meeting were complaining about the thought of developers building new apartment buildings right in the middle of a suburban block. Around Auckland there are many of these new 3×3 terraced units or apartments being built. Often there are groups of them and to me they look attractive and are built on the south side of a city block and shade the road only.
Nimbys should accept new tall apartments around train stations as in Morningside. Developers are aware of the concerns and won’t want to build tall apartments right in the middle of a heritage area. There is room for several more 10+ storey apartment buildings in Morningside. Parts of Morningside are very run down and new modern apartment buildings look good.
No-one left Auckland because of a mouldy flat Ffs.
The Unitec site apartments might be an architect’s wet dream but are a polarising design, shoebox sized, with rubbish brand appliances, and a rip-off price with no parking. The surrounding landscape looks like a bombed out Ukranian settlement and prospective purchasers have no idea what’s going to built around or immediately adjacent. There is also the risk of them becoming social housing. No wonder they’re not selling.
God you’re miserable
Nah, what a terrible entitled take. The risk of becoming social housing? What is wrong with you.
Housing is oppressive in cost, the solution is let’s have more hosuing.
Just because not everybody wants to live in an apartment does not mean that everybody doesn’t want to live in an apartment.
At 30 years old I much prefer my detached house with a garage and lawn to an apartment, however if you asked me the same question at 22-23 it would have been a different answer. And there are people of all ages who would prefer the simplicty of an apartment.
At least one person did; my cousin moved to Melbourne because the pay was higher and rental accommodation (an apartment in the city) was much better and cheaper than NZ.
I have no doubt I would be going. Rental accommodation is high expense and low quality. Buying is expensive relative to wages and everytime the government moves to make it easier to get on the ladder, guys like Bob turn up at town halls and demands the status quo remains.
The first two blocks on a brand new, large scale development with upgrade of Carrington Rd, NW Busway and CRL benefits still to come is no time to start condemning the whole package. This will be a whole nbew town within an Auckland neighbourhood.
They are also very expensive. It’s why high rise doesn’t work other than in a small number of central, expensive locations.
If you get the rules right, 3-4 level apartments are optimal.
The high rise zoning plans are setting false expectations and unneeded fear.
So many dogwhistles in such a short paragraph.
Melbourne was used as comparison, but I think its more of an aspiration. While the UNITEC site is a short walk or bike from plenty of good stuff ( Shops at Point Chev, the park at Waterview, trains from Mt. Albert), it isn’t the form people are used to.
It’s not yet a patch on Melbourne, but the price claims otherwise.
And we still love spending a couple of hours a day in heavy traffic, it seems.
In Morningside near to the train station there are about 10 apartment buildings. Simplicity is now building 2 X 10 storey apartment buildings on Morningside road.
Most of these buildings are well spaced and people on all levels will get some view and sunshine. The apartments are mostly one bedroom for one or two people. Larger apartments are more expensive. I live in one that measures about 25 sq metres. Double bed, TV, Fridge Toilet. We all share the large modern kitchen but like many of the tenants I eat out quite often and there bare many good eating places nearby. The several bus and train stops are very close.
The people at the meeting were complaining about the thought of developers building new apartment buildings right in the middle of a suburban block. Around Auckland there are many of these new 3×3 terraced units or apartments being built. Often there are groups of them and to me they look attractive and are built on the south side of a city block and shade the road only.
Nimbys should accept new tall apartments around train stations as in Morningside. Developers are aware of the concerns and won’t want to build tall apartments right in the middle of a heritage area. There is room for several more 10+ storey apartment buildings in Morningside close to the train station. Parts of Morningside are very run down and new modern apartment buildings look good.
Morningside apartments are epic, the Aalto building right off Western Springs Rd is the best.
We need to stop developers building townhouses on the rural fringes, where the infrastructure is poor but the land is cheap. The government’s blanket 3×3 rule encouraged this, PC120 will stop that sprawl and encourage development in the sensible places where it is needed.
Agree 100% with the article. Unfortunately the loud voices of the nimbys have got in the ear of the PM. It is unethical of Luxon to consider changes before the submission process is complete. West Auckland has suffered flooding, congestion and no sewage connection in one development. The infrastructure is in place in the inner suburbs at great cost to all ratepayers. We need to make use of it. Auckland is not a museum and change needs to happen.
Yep, I’ve said it many many times. If heritage and villa’s are so historic and important then make 1 or 2 streets protected (away from rail stations). That way people can visit some relic housing of the past, and it’s not a detriment to the rest of the city.
We still have this problem that people should have lives split: home time, commute time, office / worksite time. This is bad for families, for workers and apparently costs our city a lot, not to mention the ridiculous levels of pollution we can emit being a city with two coasts that mostly clears what would be unbreathable air in most places on this planet.
How does Tamaki Makaurau intend to be considered a city? Sure, we finally have a little bit of a subway system, which all respectable cities have, but without the accompanying apartments, we will never push away from this private car obsession and will forever be wasting our lives in traffic; despite having a low population. Humans make a city and we should be allowed to live closer to our fellow humans!
bah humbug
Yesterday one of the new players for the Warriors ( Up the Wahs) was interviewed on TV about his move to Auckland – first question ” How are you finding the traffic?”
I live in an older apartment and it is significantly better than most of the new developments. I am pro-density, but it must be done better. Too many areas are becoming a sea of concrete and losing greenery. In a warming world we need to ensure we retain sufficient trees and grass across our city.
In recent years we’ve been building poor quality density at great speed – they are poorly designed for the sun, they overheat, they have inadequate storage, and sadly some of them still leak or have other building defects. I read something a week or so back that a lot are sitting unsold and I can see why. We need to take pause and think about how we can do density better, and not something that will have to be pulled down in 30 years and end up in landfill.
If we can end up with capacity for 1.3m houses (vs 2m) it won’t make any discernable difference to house prices given in neither situation will all of them be built. But it will mean we end up with a better outcome.
About 60% of retirees have little or no savings beyond superannuation. How will they pay a bodycorp? The alternative is two and three story townhouses, which aren’t suitable for an aging population. Our communities thrive when there is a mix of ages living in them, and we need to have a mix of housing in suburbs for a variety of demographics.
Young people I know that are house hunting aren’t buying these new developments, they are buying older properties further out that have land and commuting further. They would prefer to live more centrally, but they don’t like what is being built.
The important thing to remember – and to include in any commentary, I believe – is that ANY sprawl development is worse than ANY intensification.
Developments located suitably centrally do often have excessive paving. It is bad, and it’s there to accommodate cars, which is regressive. Sustainable transport networks, minimal parking, and actual parking enforcement would be preferable to this. But at least, one day, we can rip the parking up and repair the situation.
Developments located peripherally, on the other hand, regardless of any green credentials, create the problem of people driving too much throughout the whole city. Living at such a distance necessitates car dependence, for most people. This cannot be repaired.
The only problem is even once permission is given to develop apartment sites, they will only built out once the developer is sure that there is enough scarcity.
For this reason no amount of plan change is going to solve the issue of housing affordability. Housing unnaffordability is a structural feature of the system.
Which system do you mean, exactly, Bernard? I don’t necessarily disagree, but unaffordability is not inherent to the concept of “plan changes”. Rather, unaffordability is a feature of a sprawl-based planning system, (often described as a ponzi scheme).
One big error has been releasing land bit by bit. The policy has a veneer of reasonableness but in reality it’s kept land prices elevated and kept developers building houses instead of apartments.
When Auckland Council was formed in 2010 we should have seen an honest appraisal of the best way to repair our city’s sprawled-out form and create a compact city. What was needed was to:
– halt sprawl altogether while
– conserving existing green space within the city and
– allowing development into perimeter block housing on all appropriate existing sites.
A wholescale change across the city to permit this everywhere (following other environmental restrictions as suitable) would have – and would still – correct the property market. It would reset the whole scene for affordable developments and affordable city maintenance.
Hi Heidi, Thanks for your very thoughfull and thorough response.
I am referring to the system in which people treat housing as a financial product rather than shelter.
This system is deeply ingrained in NZ culture.
There is a large portion NZ economy actively using housing as an investment rather than shelter. Everyone involved in this investment scheme have incentive to prevent housing from becoming affordable.
Therefore, I believe you should re-examine your optimism that planning changes will ever produce real affordability.
I agree. I live in north west [rodney] where only 16% of rates paid get spent in the area. We have helped fund this infrastructure we will never have access to incl over inflated grand stations.
We dont want any more sprawl we have severe infrastructure deficit and are flood prone. Development needs to go where billions have been spent on rail and sewerage up grades
The fact that the area around Kingsland (and Eden Park) is all these low-rise single family homes is ridiculous.
There are plenty of areas around Central Auckland where you can find these historic houses, and where they belong. People can keep them and intensify Kingsland like it should be.
Maybe then we’d be able to have more than a handful of concerts without some white-haired residents whinging about it, too.