Council development charges

Nick Smith has announced:

The Government has decided on changes to the Local Government Act to rein in council development contributions to improve housing affordability.

“We are going to narrow the charges councils can put on new sections, provide an independent objections process and encourage direct provision of necessary infrastructure to get costs down,” Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith and Local Government Minister Chris Tremain say.

“Development contributions have trebled nationally over the past decade and have gone up more than any other component cost of a new house. This huge increase can be attributed to the local government law change in 2002 that gave councils carte blanche to charge whatever they liked and removed any check or appeal on these charges. These charges now average $14,000 per section but can be as high as $64,000 per section,” Dr Smith says.

How I see it is National is focused on reducing the costs of new houses across the board. Labour just wants to subsidise 10,000 state houses a year that it will sell at a discounted rate through a lottery. If you don’t win their lottery, then bad luck