Author: Scott Caldwell

In their ongoing efforts to tackle the housing crisis in New Zealand and reshape urban development, the government put forward a bipartisan RMA amendment at the end of last year, which most notably introduced the so-called Townhouse Nation standards to allow 3 homes of 3 stories on almost any suburban site.…

Like both housing and heritage advocates, Auckland Council is rushing to put out a response to the recently announced Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) which are currently going through select committee. Last week, they had their monthly public planning committee meeting, much of which revolved around their submission.…

The government shocked everyone yesterday as Minister of Housing Megan Woods and Minister for the Environment David Parker held a joint press conference in the beehive theatrette with Leader of the Opposition Judith Collins and Opposition Housing Spokesperson Nicola Willis. The only thing more surprising was what they were actually announcing: New Zealand is abolishing single family zoning.…

Parking minima is appealing as people see the need for a household to have parking as inevitable, so it follows that as we intensify that we need buildings to provide parking in proportion to the new households who would move in.…

Yesterday, Auckland Council revealed some of the work it has been doing in response to the National Policy Statement for Urban Development (NPS-UD), the government’s attempt to coerce councils into enabling more urban intensification, particularly up to 6 stories, around transit nodes to improve housing affordability.…

Yesterday, the government announced an ambitious new plan, a grabbag of housing policies ranging from okay to highly laudable designed to lower the price of housing. However, this package is a donut: a tasty outer with a great big hole in the center… The Problem For decades, New Zealand has faced two major shifts in the general population: significant growth, and significant aging.…

Auckland has a housing shortage. Everybody likes houses. Everybody understands that everybody needs to be housed. Nobody wants people to be homeless, or even overcrowded. People typically choose to live in a neighbourhood because they like that neighbourhood as it is.…

What would a typical Auckland suburban street look like if we intensified to meet the housing shortage? Auckland has about 550,000 dwellings, and estimates of the shortage are placed at about 50,000. In other words, we need to increase our housing stock by about 10%.…