Auckland Housing Accord Dissent

The fine print is where the devil is in the Auckland Housing Accord which is to be governed by Mayor Len Brown, Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse, Minister of Housing Nick Smith and Deputy Minister of Housing Paula Bennett.But it has to be agreed by Auckland Council's governing body first.

Auckland Council's media release describes the accord like this:

"...(The Accord) proposes a streamlined consenting process for new housing developments. This process will be subject to the rules of the notified Unitary Plan, which will reflect feedback now being gathered from Aucklanders in the current public engagement process.
“It’s right that government and the council work together to address the immediate housing challenges facing Auckland,” says Len Brown.
“This won’t solve all of our housing challenges, but it will ensure we work in a coordinated way with government to enable more pace around home building and create options for affordable homes."

The Accord (which at the moment is between those named above), explains why it is needed, how it will work and what it is designed to do.

These bullet points are extracts from it. They have been selected by me to illustrate how the Accord would apply to brownfield areas of Auckland (ie existing suburbs):

• ...it is agreed that to meet the current and future housing needs of Auckland, interim measures need to provide for a mix of greenfield... and brownfield.... housing development.
• ... the essential agreement in this Accord is for... Government to provide Council with additional powers to grant special approvals and consent new land and housing developments;
• ....  the Accord is conditional on Government passing legislation that provides new flexible powers to streamline consenting processes for .... residential development proposals.
• Under the terms of this Accord the Auckland Council will be granted certain powers.
• The legislation will enable Special Housing Areas (SHAs) to be identified by Council and jointly approved by Council and Government.
• SHAs are brownfield and greenfield areas inside the proposed Rural urban Boundary (RUB), identified for the purpose of urban development, mainly for housing...
• An SHA is not subject to the provisions of the operative Regional Policy Statement (RPS)... or any other operative District Plan.
• Any party may propose to Council for consideration Qualifying Developments within an SHA, as per the notified Unitary Plan that are: predominantly residential,.... have the capacity  for 5 or more dwellings...in brownfield areas;  a maximum of 6 storeys....
• Applications for Qualifying Developments will be determined under the following criteria: ....that sufficient and appropriate infrastructure is or can be provided to support this development; meet all the relevant provisions of the Unitary Plan...
• All Qualifying Developments are...required to give consideration to the provision of affordable housing and/or first home buyer purchase. Conditions of consent may include requirements for a proportion of the development to include affordable housing....
• Consent for Qualifying Developments in brownfield areas will be subject to:  being within a Mixed Housing Zone or Terrace and Apartment Building Zone identified in the Unitary Plan;  special limited notification... adjoining landowners with a 20 day time limit; an Independent Panel, appointed by Council, hearing submissions and making decisions; scope of submissions being limited to matters of discretion as provided in the unitary plan;  Panel decisions being final for developments up to 3 storeys
• Council and Government acknowledge the importance of agreeing targets....
• These targets will need to be achieved mainly by private housing developers... This Accord is about providing the conditions for private investment in housing and will require the Council and Government to work closely with the development sector...

It is hard to read and appreciate this Accord as a planner, and not come to the conclusion that these are draconian measures indeed. What it will permit is for anybody to buy enough sections to hold 5 dwellings, pretty much anywhere in Auckland's existing urban landscape (because that's how widespread the relevant zonings exist under the draft Unitary Plan), and, provided the Council has determined that these are within a Special Housing Area, approval for medium density development will be given a fast track process.

(BTW - who will identify the Special Housing Areas? Like a zone within a zone - but one that needs Government to agree with Council. Man oh man. Who runs Auckland?)

What this Accord does is permit the Unitary Plan, when (and if) notified in September, to have regulatory effect immmediately in respect to housing developments in Brownfield and Greenfield areas that are in SHA's agreed by Council and Government. Council wants the Unitary Plan to have effect when notified - rather than in 2016 - after submissions etc. The Accord is a deal between Government and Auckland Council. The deal is: Council releases land now within the RUB for Greenfield development (there will be SHA's for this); and Government passes special legislation to enable Council's brownfield intensification plans (in the Unitary Plan) to have effect upon notification.

Who needs to consult and obtain community buy-in when you can get Council and Government to gang up on neighbourhoods, and fast track consent for any developer who can get their act together? The fact that the panel that hears these applications will have their discretion restricted is a clear signal that matters relating to height, density and all sorts of other matters that would be dealt with in a comprehensive planning approach would not be within their discretion.

To say this Accord is about genuinely increasing the supply of affordable housing is a bit of a joke. Words like "give consideration" and "may" don't demonstrate real commitment to affordable housing at all. I conclude that this Accord is more about giving developers a hand to engage in piecemeal intensification across Auckland. By definition an unplanned, market led approach to urban development.

If both parties to this agreement were serious about putting a genuine piece of affordable housing legislation through Parliament, there would be public dollars on the table, linked into a requirement for a quota of affordable homes to be provided in each SHA, in some sort of public private partnership. The mechanism for this in Australia and Britain for decades has been Housing Trusts. Private developers remain an essential part of the process. But they are not the be-all and end-all that is at the heart of this Auckland Housing Accord - which can only rub salt into the wounds of communities already concerned by the Unitary Plan's one track approach.