End the Rural Urban Boundary

Stuff reports:

ACT leader David Seymour is promising to “cut red tape” to allow at least 600,000 Auckland homes to be built.

Seymour made the announcement in the west Auckland suburb of Henderson on Sunday morning.

It doubled as the launch of his book, Own Your Future, which opens with the story of a Waitakere family blocked from subdividing its land as the property falls outside the region’s Rural Urban Boundary. …

“Land use restrictions are now responsible for 56 per cent of the average Auckland house price, according to one of the Government’s own reports released last month,” he said.

“This cost is the single largest cause of poverty, inequality, and sickness in Auckland and beyond.

“ACT says it’s crazy to ban people from building homes during a chronic housing shortage.”

Seymour said ACT would move to abolish the Rural Urban Boundary and push to reclassify areas like Waitakere, Karaka, and Clevedon as residential. 

“These areas are not treasured natural landscapes. They are grassy fields with the occasional barn or horse.

“Allowing housing in these areas should be a bare minimum for any Government.”

The party would fund the infrastructure to service the new homes by sharing the GST on construction with councils, he said.

This is the only policy that is a sustainable long-term solution to land and house inflation.