I mean, I know his party campaigned on housing affordability, but many of his supporters own property and if he does something about high house prices not everyone is going to be pleased.
We have successfully regulated our housing market so tightly that only the children of existing homeowners can obtain the financing to purchase property. We have created a landed gentry.
How very British.
The last reliable data was the 2018 census, that recorded just over 64% lived in owner-occupied homes, which was a fall from the peak of 73% in the early 1990s.
For comparison only 56% lived in owner-occupied properties in the aftermath of the War, but the current trend is going the wrong way. I expect it would have fallen since the 2018 census.
There are two reasons for this; land use restrictions and building regulations.
Let’s start with land use. The Resource Management Act, or RMA, began life in 1991 as a blueprint for preventing Kiwis doing anything with their land unless it complied with a national environmental plan and had the consent of the local council; and many councils mandated a bit of koha for a sensitivity report.
It has expanded and is now a complex book with creative ways to prevent construction.
There are rules about what can be built, and what cannot, requirements stipulating the Crown and local councils must maintain a local register of those who can exercise kaitiakitanga and a specification as to the amount of grass any residential unit at ground must have. (20%; in case you were interested).
The RMA’s starting position is that you need permission. It is going to be dumped. Again.
Simon Court, the Act MP and Undersecretary with the responsibility for drafting the replacement, has a different outlook.
You can do whatever you want with your land, so long as it does not interfere with someone else’s property or rights.
Now; this does leave a lot of room for meddling in what your neighbours are up to, and we should wait and see the bill before reaching for the foie gras.
We also need to appreciate that this reform is 18 months away and will be in place for less than a year before the next election.
Some criticism is warranted. National and Act have had six years to draft their RMA replacement.
There are plenty of interested parties who would have contributed to this effort and a bill should have been ready to present to a select committee in the first hundred days.
As Court will be aware, Labour took so long with their reforms to the RMA that it only obtained Royal Assent in August last year, and was repealed on December the 24th .
There is no guarantee this government last three years given it requires the mercurial Mr. Peters to retain its majority.
The longer any RMA replacement has to gain acceptance the more durability it will enjoy upon a return to a Labour-led government, and Labour have their RMA bill already drafted and ready to go; that being the one Court and his mates deleted on Christmas Eve.
But if Court succeeds a powerful impediment to construction will have been removed, but more remain. Our building regulations have created a narrow list of approved products that can be used in construction. Given our small market this has created an effective monopoly for many products.
The minister tasked with correcting this is former naval man and National heart-throb; Chris Penk.
Penk’s agenda is as ambitious as Court’s. He is proposing a new rule; if a building product has been approved in a trusted overseas jurisdiction, such as Australia or Estonia, they will be automatically approved here.
By just adopting what has been approved in Australia would unlock two hundred thousand products; Penk claims.
There will be resistance. They will fail. Penk did not abandon a legal career and years away from his family to protect the vested interests of Fletcher Building Shareholders.
But that is not all. Penk, I am reliably informed, has his eyes on the entire regime of building regulation; a vast library of detailed stipulations that covers how much light must enter a living area to the energy efficiency of insulation materials that makes buildings complex to design and expensive to build.
Both Court and Penk deserve credit for having the courage and determination to push through.
They will face opposition from those who benefit from the status quo, obstruction from the self-interested.
Both Court and Penk deserve credit for having the courage and determination to push through bureaucracy and the risks of a failure of political will from those above.
The path before them is not straight, but the prize is a shift in the intergenerational outcomes of those fortunate enough to call New Zealand home.....The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
How very British.
The last reliable data was the 2018 census, that recorded just over 64% lived in owner-occupied homes, which was a fall from the peak of 73% in the early 1990s.
For comparison only 56% lived in owner-occupied properties in the aftermath of the War, but the current trend is going the wrong way. I expect it would have fallen since the 2018 census.
There are two reasons for this; land use restrictions and building regulations.
Let’s start with land use. The Resource Management Act, or RMA, began life in 1991 as a blueprint for preventing Kiwis doing anything with their land unless it complied with a national environmental plan and had the consent of the local council; and many councils mandated a bit of koha for a sensitivity report.
It has expanded and is now a complex book with creative ways to prevent construction.
There are rules about what can be built, and what cannot, requirements stipulating the Crown and local councils must maintain a local register of those who can exercise kaitiakitanga and a specification as to the amount of grass any residential unit at ground must have. (20%; in case you were interested).
The RMA’s starting position is that you need permission. It is going to be dumped. Again.
Simon Court, the Act MP and Undersecretary with the responsibility for drafting the replacement, has a different outlook.
You can do whatever you want with your land, so long as it does not interfere with someone else’s property or rights.
Now; this does leave a lot of room for meddling in what your neighbours are up to, and we should wait and see the bill before reaching for the foie gras.
We also need to appreciate that this reform is 18 months away and will be in place for less than a year before the next election.
Some criticism is warranted. National and Act have had six years to draft their RMA replacement.
There are plenty of interested parties who would have contributed to this effort and a bill should have been ready to present to a select committee in the first hundred days.
As Court will be aware, Labour took so long with their reforms to the RMA that it only obtained Royal Assent in August last year, and was repealed on December the 24th .
There is no guarantee this government last three years given it requires the mercurial Mr. Peters to retain its majority.
The longer any RMA replacement has to gain acceptance the more durability it will enjoy upon a return to a Labour-led government, and Labour have their RMA bill already drafted and ready to go; that being the one Court and his mates deleted on Christmas Eve.
But if Court succeeds a powerful impediment to construction will have been removed, but more remain. Our building regulations have created a narrow list of approved products that can be used in construction. Given our small market this has created an effective monopoly for many products.
The minister tasked with correcting this is former naval man and National heart-throb; Chris Penk.
Penk’s agenda is as ambitious as Court’s. He is proposing a new rule; if a building product has been approved in a trusted overseas jurisdiction, such as Australia or Estonia, they will be automatically approved here.
By just adopting what has been approved in Australia would unlock two hundred thousand products; Penk claims.
There will be resistance. They will fail. Penk did not abandon a legal career and years away from his family to protect the vested interests of Fletcher Building Shareholders.
But that is not all. Penk, I am reliably informed, has his eyes on the entire regime of building regulation; a vast library of detailed stipulations that covers how much light must enter a living area to the energy efficiency of insulation materials that makes buildings complex to design and expensive to build.
Both Court and Penk deserve credit for having the courage and determination to push through.
They will face opposition from those who benefit from the status quo, obstruction from the self-interested.
Both Court and Penk deserve credit for having the courage and determination to push through bureaucracy and the risks of a failure of political will from those above.
The path before them is not straight, but the prize is a shift in the intergenerational outcomes of those fortunate enough to call New Zealand home.....The full article is published HERE
Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner, a member of the Taxpayers’ Union and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective
3 comments:
The RMA Legislation was permissive not restricting .
What needs an overhaul is the Local Government Legislation that no one seems to scrutinise and the approach to immigration that creates excessive demand with no consideration for infrastructure nor negative consequences on kiwis.
Damien , The issues you raise are accepted ,. However the biggest escalation is in over engineering of everything from the foundation to the roof including Council , Earthquake and Health and Safety.
Therein is the enormous cost that is mindblowing to those of us who have served 50 years in the construction industry and proudly drive past homes and cnstruction that we have completed decades ago.
Yes we give a basic 50year guarantee and few if any can match that .
Just ask your bank , accountant, lawyer or global warming adviser for a 50year guarantee . Hmmph
With the PM himself owning more than half a dozen homes, it's hard to believe he will truly be committed and driven to lowering the cost of housing?
That aside, we sure do need to do something about the red tape and rules around building. A friend recently built a fairly conventional three-bedroom home. The Consent, Plans & Specifications went to more than 800 pages, which were all required to remain on-site throughout the construction process. It's not unlike our traffic management, we've gone completely cone and requirement mad.
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