ACT being NIMBY on housing

ACT said last week:

“National and Labour’s deal to stick it to ‘NIMBYs’ and allow three three-storey homes on every residential section will change the face of our cities without building more homes,” says ACT Deputy Leader and Housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden.

“Council documents obtained by the Weekend Herald show nearly a third of Auckland’s historic villas and bungalows “could be flattened for high-density housing.”

“The ACT Party wants more homes to be built in New Zealand. We want people to have access to warm, dry, affordable homes so that all New Zealanders feel like they can have a future in this country.

“While we know that there is a problem in housing, National and Labour’s housing deal was not the solution. It won’t deliver the houses that it promised to a generation.

“That’s because it focused on changing our planning laws when we know it’s not the planning laws that are the issue.

I know that no party is always ideologically consistent, but one of the things I have liked about ACT is they generally are. But it is depressing to see a classically liberal party argue against a law change that gives greater rights to property owners to develop their own land. Sure I understand David Seymour is MP for Epsom, but ACT should stand for more than Epsom.

ACT said “we know it’s not the planning laws that are the issue.”

Well let’s look at what ACT said in 2019:

“Fundamental changes to our planning rules are long overdue. The 900-page RMA is the single biggest obstacle to housing affordability in New Zealand.

ACT correctly said that planning rules were the biggest obstacle to housing affordability in 2019. Now they argue that planning laws are not even an issue!

ACT are right that the Government needs to do more than just change the planning laws, and also change infrastructure funding. But that doesn’t mean that the RMA changes are not also incredibly necessary.

They should stop campaigning against property rights of home owners.