Chris Bishop’s second go at dismantling a NIMBY lightning rod will be far harder
Wednesday, 21 January 2026
OPINION: The problem was the number.
Zoning policy is a complicated thing to get your head around. But as soon as people started referring to Auckland’s “Plan Change 120” as a “plan for two million new homes” it started to seem very real for a lot of suburban home-owners - and they didn’t like it.
That number is fairly misleading. The Auckland Unitary Plan - created under the last National Government - zones Auckland for 1.4 million new homes. The new Plan Change 120 included those 1.4 million homes but upped the ambition to two million homes. It’s also not a target to actually build two million new homes - with townhouses replacing every inner-city villa - but a zoning change that would technically allow that many new homes.
There is no way that developers will actually build on every single site you allow them to (especially given they would have to buy all of the land first) - the idea is that you give them a lot of different options and the market works out where it is best to build.
Read More:
But the number became a lightning rod, an easy thing to rail against - whether you were a councillor critic, a “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) resident, or a local MP. And the problem for Housing Minister Chris Bishop is a lot of those local MP critics sit around the Cabinet table with him.
It is this lightning rod that Bishop has been forced into an embarrassing retreat on. After spending a year or so getting to this point and giving dozens of interviews about his plans to get rents and house prices down by stopping New Zealand saying “no” to everything new, he now has to be the one to say “no”.
It’s an awkward start to the year for a party that seems to have settled on “build the future” as one of its campaign slogans. It exemplifies a problem with any big change to allow more housing that Bishop is now very familiar with: The benefits (lower house prices and rents for future residents) are diffuse; the costs (more housing in some areas) are concentrated. Those who bear the costs know how to call an MP.
But it is also not a fully done deal yet. Bishop has not taken whatever changes he will make to Auckland zoning to Cabinet yet. And the fact that a single number has become the lightning rod means if Bishop removes that lightning rod he might still be able to zone for a lot more houses - just not specifically any number that adds up to two million.
The backdown will be concentrated in Auckland’s most well-heeled suburbs. There is still widespread agreement within National that the upzoning near the new City Rail Link stations is needed. The inner city will be allowed to go up. Suburbs will likely get some upzoning too - just not quite as envisioned.
It is now up to Bishop and his army of YIMBY (yes in my backyard) officials to design something elegant that is acceptable to those around the Cabinet table while not losing Bishop credibility with the building sector he needs to actually deliver the policy. It needs to take the heat out of this debate but not actually stop that many viable new bits of housing from being built.
YIMBY or NIMBY? Have your say about the housing conundrum below
The bigger problem for him in Cabinet might not actually come from the Auckland MPs in his own party, but from ACT leader David Seymour. Seymour is a self-proclaimed libertarian but on this issue sits firmly against the private property rights of developers who want to build more dense housing in suburban areas - a position that many find aggravating, even if the political logic in Epsom makes it understandable. The prospect of a months-long election year battle with ACT within National’s most reliable seats is not an appealing one.
Bishop’s big challenge here is that this is not his first backdown. Indeed - the plan change itself was designed after National last backed down to the NIMBYs and reneged on its townhouse deal with Labour. To save face when doing that Bishop promised that his replacement would zone for the same number of homes - a promise that eventually resulted in Plan Change 120.
That backdown already created a extra years of uncertainty and delay for the big developers (including the state-owned Kāinga Ora) who would actually have to come and risk money building new housing. But it was fairly elegantly handled by Bishop. Now he has to once more tell that sector that this backdown will be the last one, that they can start to plan out for years of new housing with a certainty that the politics aren’t going to change again. Will they trust him?