Kiwis wanted something more radical than Kiwibuild, says urban planning lecturer Bill McKay, but the new housing authority could help with supply, and shared equity with affordability.
Expectation vs reality. A board displays an artist render of the Marfell KiwiBuild project. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
University of Auckland school of architecture and planning senior lecturer Bill McKay says he was impressed by the announcement of the new Housing and Urban Design Authority over the weekend.
"It's much bigger and more powerful than I thought it was going to be," he says.
He had thought there would be a series of authorities like the Hobsonville Point Project in Auckland which is building a fully designed community with 400-500 houses, parks, roading, schools and other facilities on the former air force base.
"What we're going to get is one big urban design authority … and it'll be running several projects of that scale, and it will also incorporate both Housing New Zealand and Kiwibuild.
"I think the closest analogy is the way that NZTA … builds and maintains roads and motorways in New Zealand."
He says it will have the power to override local government plans - while still itself being subject to RMA procedures - and be able to use the public works act to acquire property.
"This urban design authority, it's not a department or a ministry - it's an agency."
"In the same way that you could be minding your own business in your neighbourhood and NZTA comes up with the notion of a motorway through there … the urban design agency will say 'okay, here's a racecourse in Avondale that's not being used anymore, we're going to acquire it and we will have some other properties nearby to make it efficient and we will use the Public Works Act to do that."
Avondale racecourse Photo: Flickr / Public domain
"I think we'll see something much more streamlined that will cut out a lot of time and cost.
"Rather than having the whole process of the thing going before the council, and then everyone appealing it to the environment court, waiting a year and then going through the whole thing again."
He says it will also incorporate HLC, the state-owned designer behind Hobsonville Point, which is already working on several more projects.
Kiwibuild
However, McKay says Kiwibuild does not seem as ambitious as the government's initial promise of 100,000 houses in 10 years for first-home buyers.
"It had the ring of a campaign promise … it's been tweaked a little bit there," he says.
"Now if you look at the website it's got phrases like 'we will do this by supporting developers'.
"Originally it gave the impression it was going to go in the same way as the first Labour government [which] built 30,000 houses in their first term ... It was going to go out there and solve the crisis by building houses."
An artist's impression of outside the apartment building complex to be built in Onehunga. Photo: Supplied
He says the government doesn't seem to be aiming to fill the gap so much as boosting supply a bit to stabilise house price inflation.
"In my view it's subsidising the market to do what the market does anyway and we're ending up with suburban houses that are a bit more expensive than you might think - but actually it is way too early to say."
Shared equity
Kiwibuild certainly doesn't seem to be solving problems of affordability for those who are struggling to buy - but McKay says the government might have a way out of that.
"The key thing that's being foreshadowed at the moment - and I heard the Prime Minister mention it last week - is shared equity.
"The idea there is that the government acts a bit like the bank of mum and dad so that you can go to them and you still get a mortgage and … the government agency or a charity or an iwi or something like that can co-own 30 percent of the property."
Construction starts on the Kiwibuild project Photo: RNZ/ Sophia Duckor-Jones
He says it gives easier access to a house and mortgage while offering the potential to buy the remainder further down the line. There's already examples out there, too.
"The Housing Foundation for example has an affordable equity scheme where they co-own 30 percent of the house … there's another one down in Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust; the Salvation Army's been suggesting something similar where the government provides 40 percent; the UK government's got a similar one."
"It's out there and I think it's the next step for the government to make Kiwibuild a bit more affordable by bringing that in."
