Paper
Housing Affordability in Auckland: Looking behind the rhetoric
Published Nov 29, 2013 · DOI · P. Austin
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Citations
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Abstract
Housing affordability is becoming the political issue in Auckland, New Zealand. From the perspective of central government the issue is framed as a misuse of planning that interferes in the workings of the property market place. From the perspective of Auckland Council the issue is framed by a planning ethos favouring urban containment imperatives, and the transport, environmental, economic and social costs of a sprawling city. On the one hand, central government has conducted several reviews of the planning and local government legislation, undertaken a Productivity Commission inquiry into housing affordability, and threatened the Auckland Council that it will create a Crown agency to take over the planning of greenfield sites on the fringes of the city, if the Council does not zone these for residential development. On the other hand, Auckland Council (created by central government in 2010 in order to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies and to support integrated coherent planning) has released both a spatial plan for the region and a draft Unitary plan (statutory zoning plan) using an urban containment approach, and backed by rounds of community consultation. This paper unpacks the rhetoric and discourses around these two distinct approaches, to better understand the policy options being pursued and the storylines behind them. What is clear is that this is not simply a clash of two contrasting visions of a future Auckland – it is also about the relationship between New Zealand government and the largest and most metropolitan city council in the country.
Housing affordability in Auckland, New Zealand, is a political issue influenced by central government's interference in property market and Auckland Council's urban containment approach.
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