‘Crappy apartments’ are better than homeless families – Bishop

Housing minister Chris Bishop has mounted a fiery defence of urban intensification, asking local government opponents, “where do you get off making life choices for other people?”
Wearing his hats as housing minister, and minister responsible for RMA reform, he spoke to the Local Government NZ conference in Wellington.
He reiterates that the Government’s ‘Going for Housing Growth’ policy involves freeing up land for development and removing unnecessary planning barriers, improving infrastructure funding and financing, and providing incentives for communities and councils to support growth.
“I want to be clear about where we want to end up: if you are a developer who wants to build on the city fringe, and are happy to pay for the infrastructure costs, you should be able to.”
But also: “We want greater intensification around key public transport corridors. We are also going to make it harder for councils to misuse their ability to exclude areas from intensification – making them offset any areas they exclude for unlisted reasons with housing capacity elsewhere.”
He supports “urban design done well” but says councils must be consistent in policing the rules, and not stand unnecessarily in the way of development.
“The stories I have heard from developers who are constantly battling with council urban design teams are enough to make you want to pull your hair out. One developer told me that they were told by council to cluster their doors in one development to create a sense of community, but in another development shortly after, they were told to separate the doors to create a sense of privacy.
“Another developer told me how they were forced to provide small Juliet balconies for each apartment in their social housing complex, massively raising the cost of the social housing units.
“This is all just total madness. There needs to be consistency for developers when it comes to urban design. We need to stop enabling subjective opinions and ‘nice-to-haves’.”
In response to a question about sacrificing heritage buildings and instead flooding the market with ‘crappy’ apartment blocks, he is firm.
“I’m a bit surprised at the clapping there, because you know what else is really crappy? The 2000 families who live in motels in this country, in grotty squalor-ridden motels.
“If you don’t want to live in a 23 square metre apartment, don’t live in one. If you don’t want to live in an apartment that doesn’t have a balcony, don’t. But remember, people will only build them if there is demand. People don’t piss money against the wall for no reason.
“So here’s my thing, for the people who clapped about preventing crappy apartments and the rest of it. Where do you get off making life choices for other people and the decisions that they make that aren’t yours?”
Bishop also confirms plans for a new national direction to enable papakāinga housing, requiring that each district plan have provisions to enable more papakāinga housing. “The opportunity here is huge – if Māori communities want to build homes for their people on their whenua or indeed general land, we should welcome this with open arms.”
He tells Newsroom that he’s also had preliminary conversations with Ngāi Tahu about iwi being allowed to do their own resource consents, on their own whenua, rather than being behest to councils.
There’s room for that conversation in the third phase of the Government’s reforms to the Resource Management Act, he says. “I’m not closed-minded to that, if it better liberalises the regime.”
He says the Government will implement new national directions for housing targets, granny flats, papakāinga, infrastructure and natural hazards, as well as new national environmental standards for heritage.