20/20 Vision on Housing

Starting in 2020, Greater Auckland will be publishing a variety of housing content, under the theme “20/20 Vision on Housing”. We want to provide a better picture on housing in Auckland and across New Zealand, new homes and old homes too. We want to identify blind spots in housing that aren’t being talked about, discuss the housing/ transport interface (they’re two sides of the same coin), and get to the root of high housing costs.

This will be a running conversation through the year; check back on this page for links to posts, data and research, or keep the discussion going on the intro post for this series.

Our Housing Posts

Here’s some of what we expect to write about this year – we’ll add links and more detail as posts get published:

  1. 20/20 Vision intro post
  2. Housing as a human right
  3. The framework for housing quality
  4. The housing continuum
  5. Why a home is more than just a roof over your head
  6. How should ‘housing affordability’ be defined?
  7. A current view of housing in Auckland: where did the ‘housing shortage’ come from, how is it affecting us today (it hasn’t gone away), and how can we fix it? What is the condition of our existing homes? What is the housing spectrum?
  8. It takes a village to build a house
  9. Why the ‘land’ part of housing costs so much, and what difference urban limits and other planning regulations make
  10. Why the ‘building’ part of housing costs so much
  11. The condition/ quality of our new homes, and how we can improve quality for both new and existing homes (and what is ‘quality’?)
  12. The influence of transport on housing costs
  13. The influence of energy (electricity etc) on housing costs, and vice versa
  14. Are apartments ‘sustainable’?
  15. The demographic trends that will shape future housing needs
  16. Solutions that have been suggested for our housing market (and which we agree with)
  17. Bodies corporate
  18. Communities
  19. Co-living, co-housing and more (but see past posts on Cohaus, 1, 2, 3)
  20. Build-To-Rent
  21. Social housing (but see past posts 1, 2, 3)

We’ve also done recaps of the housing writing Greater Auckland has published in the past: by Stu Donovan, with recaps of Peter Nunns and John Polkinghorne to come.

And there will be occasional digressions e.g. Housing After The Lockdown and a Sunday Reading.

That’s even without much analysis of the Government’s/ Opposition’s policies, whether they’re realistic, well-targeted and actually being delivered (Kiwibuild?). We won’t be looking at this in election season but may revisit it in late 2020/ early 2021.

Housing Data

We use a range of data to support our housing content. Here are some useful links

  • The Government is tracking a range of housing data, including their “Dashboard” focused on their own housing work, as well as rent and affordability information
  • The Government’s “housing market indicators” dashboard deserves its own spot on this list, showing house price and rent data across the country (hard to get to but easy once you’re in; at the top of the page, click “market indicators” and then “map” or “time series”)
  • Auckland Council’s “datasheet” has a range of stats on how many homes are being built in Auckland, and where – unfortunately, most of the data only covers the last few years.
  • And of course the RCG Development Tracker, right here at Greater Auckland

Housing Resources

Links to research, useful articles and other resources for people interested in housing issues