Crone on Auckland housing

Victoria Crone writes on what she would do to make housing more affordable in Auckland:

Implement higher and more realistic targets for how much housing the city needs to be consented in any year.

• Rethink planning restrictions under the final Unitary Plan to allow more housing where transport and water infrastructure already exist.

• Release underused public land for development much faster.

• Implement strict sunset clauses on released land so that development happens faster.

• Discourage land banking through substantial targeted rates.

• Overhaul the council’s consenting process to introduce shorter consenting times and tougher penalties for not meeting them, take it online, provide full transparency to users, take a serious look at the necessary resourcing and look at introducing competition.

• Provide stronger incentives to encourage the building of more affordable homes, including looking into consenting costs reflective of house size.

• Provide clear and useable report cards on our housing progress.

They all look good policies. But the most important is to abolish the MUB.