The cost of land

From an e-mail:

Rural land throughout NZ is in the order of $10,000 through $40,000 per hectare …. Councils have artificially pumped the stuff up on the fringes … e.g Rolleston $500,000 a hectare …. Christchurch a million and Auckland around the $2 million per hectare mark.

Now think about those figures, and think about the credibility of a party that says the price of land is not a factor in house prices.

Then to compound the problems, they have over recent years “dreamt up” spurious Development Levies (for purely revenue gathering reasons … that happen to be just a miniscule part of total LG revenues but do so much damage).

The sophisticated Texas MUDs model for financing infrastructure is staring us in the face … for what should be blindingly obvious economic efficiency and intergenerational equity reasons. Put simply…strip out all infrastructure costs other than roading and finance the stuff long term out on the muni bond market. That’s how they get in place new fringe starter sections for around the $US30 – $US40,000.

And again, think about the credibility of parties that don’t plan to do anything on the consenting side.