‘At our wits’ end’: Group fumes at housing recommendations

Thursday, 8 February 2024

The Independent Hearing Panel’s latest recommendations suggest a dramatic increase in the areas given protection from housing intensification in order to preserve their character.

Recommendations that would give character housing protection to the equivalent of more than 200 rugby fields in Wellington are seen as a kick in the guts by a housing advocate.

A panel of independent experts is advising Wellington City councillors as they look at revising the city’s district plan — essentially the city’s rule book.

The Independent Hearing Panel’s latest recommendations suggest a dramatic increase in the areas given protection from housing intensification — or apartment blocks — in order to preserve their character.

City for People spokesperson Luke Somervell: ‘We are all at our wits’ end.’

“We are all at our wits’ end,” City for People spokesperson Luke Somervell said after reading the latest recommendations, that suggests 206 hectares get character protection, up from the draft which had just 85ha. The new figure is the equivalent area of more than 200 one hectare rugby fields.

Under the recommendations, most Wellington suburbs will get a larger area of character protection. However, the eastern Wellington suburb of Kilbirnie is earmarked for greater intensification.

YIMBYs favour housing intensification over sprawling green field developments.

“They really do fly in the face of evidence,” he said.

It is the latest in a long-running debate in the capital, where there is already a housing crisis and an extra 50,000 to 80,000 new residents are expected in the coming 30 years. The debate is roughly split between those who don’t want apartment blocks in existing suburbs, and the so-called YIMBYs (yes, in my back yarders) who favour intensification over sprawling green field developments.

Wellington city councillor Rebecca Matthews, is the self-proclaimed 'oldest YIMBY in town”, advocating more infill housing.

City for People is a campaign made up of various groups — Generation Zero, Renters United, Women in Urbanism, Parents for Climate Aotearoa, the Sustainability Trust, and Cycle Wellington — calling for the council to allow more intensification.

Eric Crampton, chief economist at The New Zealand Initiative.

Somervell called on residents, such as those who had queued to find a rental property with 20 others or simply couldn’t find a suitable home, to get in touch with their local councillors.

“Email your local councillor saying we want more housing.”

Councillors have been warned not to comment publicly about their opinions on the recommendations so they don’t get accused of predetermination but Rebecca Matthews — a city councillor, chairperson of the long-term plan, finance, and performance committee, and self-proclaimed YIMBY — commented generally.

“It is becoming increasingly clear to me there will have to be some serious amendments … we will have a lot of questions to ask [the panel] when we meet them next week,” she said.

The New Zealand Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton said the council’s proposed district plan had a larger buffer between planned-for supply and projected housing demand in Wellington in coming decades. The new recommendations significantly reduced that buffer, which particularly mattered when Wellington was starting from a housing shortage.

But he believed the whole system may need to change to rely less on forecasts of whether housing demand would be met by zoned supply. If housing was unaffordable, people could be expected to leave town, reducing forecast demand, he said.

Instead, councils and the Government could watch land values. If those prices showed that zoned land was scarce, as work by the Infrastructure Commission had shown, then the Government could get councils to zone for more development.