Government to ‘flood’ cities with more housing by liberalising planning rules

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2024-07-04 17:00:09

Chris Bishop's reforms will remove council powers over urban boundaries and development standards. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver

Housing Minister Chris Bishop will on Thursday unveil the Government's plan to "flood the market' with land for development in a bid to end New Zealand's housing crisis.

Bishop will use a speech to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand today to announce a slew of changes to New Zealand's planning laws recently agreed by Cabinet. He will argue the changes will flood the market with affordable land to develop and make it easier and cheaper to develop that land into housing.

Some of the changes are bound to be controversial; the Government will abolish councils' ability to set fixed urban-rural boundaries and will abolish powers that let councils mandate balconies or minimum floor area sizes for developments.

This means the market, and not councils, will set the minimum size of new apartments. This could be controversial, but Bishop will defend his changes in his speech, noting the rules "can significantly increase the cost of new apartments, and limit the supply of lower cost apartments".