NewsroomPlus.com Contributed by Stephen Olsen – part 1 of a series Productivity Commission chair Murray Sherwin is a past taskmaster of presenting reports, and followed a reasonably tight set of talking points at a media briefing earlier today just ahead of the release of the Commission’s latest two-step production – a draft report simply titled Using land for housing. With housing issues almost continually in the headlines since last year’s Election campaigning, and court action looming over the legality of the rights that can be exercised over public land in Auckland, the timing couldn’t have been more apt.

A beginner’s guide to the draft report – Using land for housing

As with all of the Productivity Commission’s professionally produced reports to date – it began operating on 1 April 2011 – this is no ‘once over lightly’ treatment.
At 358 pages long you will want to hold off hitting print on this draft report too quickly, and to help you get your head around the overall structure the device of a ‘Cut to the chase’ executive summary is made available – and there is always the media release to refer to as well.
Cutting to the numbers, there are 120 findings to digest, accompanied by 38 recommendations that have the potential to keep the following very, very busy:
- Cabinet
- Parliamentary law-makers
- Territorial local authorities (local government)
- MBIE – Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
- Statistics New Zealand
- CCOs: Auckland Transport, Watercare
- Treasury
R3.2
The Ministry for the Environment should explore the potential to develop an Urban Feasibility Model that New Zealand local authorities can use.
R3.3
High-growth territorial authorities should review their zoning rules for rural land, to ensure they provide the right balance of promoting efficient use of land for housing and minimising reverse sensitivity risks.
R3.4
Large land price differentials between different types of zones, such as those observed in Auckland, should be a trigger for local authorities to review the adequacy of their land supplies and zoning decisions.
R3.5
A new legislative avenue should be designed to focus spatial plans on activities that:
- are of high importance to the functioning of cities and the provision of development capacity for housing (eg, land supply, infrastructure provision, transport services);
- relate closely to the use of land or space and the management of negative externalities; and
- are most efficiently dealt with at a local level and through local authorities.
R3.6
The new planning avenue should be voluntary to allow local authorities to choose the statutory planning mechanisms that best suit their circumstances.
R3.7
Future plans prepared under the new legislative avenue should be developed in partnership with the full set of central government actors whose services matter for the functioning of cities. Given the fiscal implications of greater central government involvement in spatial planning, both Cabinet and the relevant local authority should approve such plans.
R3.8
The new legislative planning avenue should include processes to encourage robust regulatory analysis and development, as section 32 of the Resource Management Act is designed to do.
Chapter 4: Supplying and releasing land
R4.1
High-growth local authorities should express their land supply targets in terms of zoned and serviced land and report publicly on their performance.
R4.2
Local authorities should monitor and report on dwelling completions and net changes in the dwelling stock, relative to expected and actual population and household growth.
R4.3
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Statistics New Zealand and territorial local authorities should work together to improve the quality of official statistics available from the building consent form as a priority.
R4.4
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, in conjunction with relevant local authorities, should inventory public land holdings in all high-growth cities to identify sites that could be used for housing.
R4.5
Local authorities should set policies for the publishing of and consulting on draft plan reviews or plan changes of interest to the wider community ahead of notification, unless compelling reasons exist for not doing so.
R4.6
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry for the Environment should, once the work of the Auckland and Christchurch Independent Hearings Panels (IHPs) is complete, evaluate the IHP processes, with a view to deciding whether IHPs should become a permanent feature of the planning system.
Chapter 5: Regulations and approval processes
R5.1
Urban territorial authorities should remove District Plan balcony / private open space requirements for apartments.
R5.2
Once the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has completed planned work on updating Building Code rules and guidance related to air quality, lighting, acoustics and access in multi-unit dwellings, local authorities should review minimum apartment size rules in their District Plans, with a view to removing them.
R5.3
Urban territorial authorities should remove District Plan minimum parking requirements, and make more use of traffic demand management techniques.
R5.4
Local authorities should undertake robust cost-benefit analyses before considering the introduction of building height limits, and should lift current limits where it cannot be demonstrated that the benefits outweigh the costs.
R5.5
Local authorities should review District Plan controls on the design and construction of buildings or dwellings that exceed standards set under the Building Act, with a view to removing them.
R5.6
The Government should introduce amendments to the RMA to clarify the role and importance of housing and urban environments.
R5.7
In reviewing their District Plans, local authorities should move more residential land-use activities into “permitted” or “restricted discretionary” status.
Chapter 6: Planning and delivering infrastructure
R6.1
When councils refer to the supply of land for housing, they should be clear about the readiness of land for building (eg, un-zoned but planned-for future zoning; zoned; zoned and serviced; zoned, serviced and consented).
R6.2
Councils should identify areas where there is existing infrastructure capacity and ensure that planning rules do not prevent intensification from occurring in these areas.
R6.3
Councils should prioritise the development of up-to-date asset management information systems. This should be supported by recruiting and developing staff with the skills and expertise needed to make effective use of these systems, and ensuring that the information from asset management systems is integrated into decision-making processes.
R6.4
Councils should pursue opportunities to make more efficient use of existing infrastructure assets including through greater use of user charges where this can reduce demands on infrastructure.
R6.5
Government should adopt the Local Government Infrastructure Advisory Group’s recommendation to amend the Land Transport Management Act to allow pricing on existing roads where there is a business case that enables effective network optimisation.
R6.6
Councils’ asset management systems should feed into decision making about optimal infrastructure standards. The data used to inform standard-setting should be shared openly with the development community.
R6.7
If councils determine that a good case to change infrastructure standards exists, then developments that already have consent should be exempt from the change. Alternatively, developers should be compensated for any additional costs incurred as a result of the change.
Chapter 7: Paying for infrastructure
R7.1
Evaluation of the financial prudence and reporting regulations should monitor how the regulations affect councils’ ability to provide infrastructure to support growth and review whether 15% is the most appropriate debt-servicing ratio for high-growth councils.
R7.2
Councils should include information in their development contributions policy about the relationship between dwelling floor area and the cost of providing infrastructure services. If smaller dwellings impose lower costs on the infrastructure network, this should be reflected in lower charges.
R7.3
The Local Government Act should be amended to make clear that developers may formally request that councils construct growth-enabling infrastructure, to be repaid through targeted rates on the properties that benefit from the infrastructure connections, and obliging Councils to consider such requests.
Chapter 8: Governance of transport and water infrastructure
R10.2
There is a place for a UDA to lead and coordinate residential development at scale in both greenfield and brownfield settings, working in partnership with private sector developers. Legislation would be required to establish and give powers (such as compulsory acquisition) to one or more UDCs in New Zealand.
* Stephen Olsen is an associate member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. This NewsRoom_Plus contribution was prepared with assistance from Olexander Barnes and Sylvester Racule.