Chris Aitken is CEO of the Hobsonville Land Company - a very successful public private partnership and Auckland peri-urban development project that began life under the leadership of Waitakere City Council and the Helen Clark government. As he tells the conference, "I agreed to come for 6 months and set it up, and I'm still here 6 years later, and my wife and I now live here..." he's also big enough to advise the conference that he stands on the shoulders of those who came before. I well recall the time and effort that Auckland Regional Council put in at the time to the planning for the area, aiming to provide for the development of a mixed use community etc etc....
After beginning with an extraordinary Youtube clip (apis) showing the nitty gritty of how 3-D printing systems are now being used to construct houses (in less than a day - so why should consenting take 3 months...?), Chris wanted to share with conference a pretty wild set of rules that now dictate what we're all doing now. relating to density, millenials and more. Might share those with you at another time. But the heart of his presentation was an examination of what is happening to the housing market and our economy....
Chris - like Shamubeel - is concerned at indicators suggesting an economic bust is round the corner. He wonders here whether that risk is abating...
Again - like Shamubeel - he notes that millenials are being locked out of the housing market in Auckland to an extent never seen before, and notes the volume of transactions that are due to investment activity.
And here is that slide that I quote from elsewhere in this posting. It is interesting that - at the same conference - other speakers were at pains to argue that what is happening in Auckland's housing market IS NOT caused by immigration (no names, no pack-drill). Talking with Chris afterward he emphasises the impact on the market of investing or buying activity at the margin - ie that it is the extra 1% or 2%, that new buying pressure that wasn't there before, that is driving prices....
And here is Chris's depiction of what is happening on the immigration front.
Chris wants to see innovation on a massive scale on housing for shelter. He argues that NZ is still building houses like they did in roman times - a stick at a time - and is not taking a "Corolla approach" to housing. We're still building houses that are far too big (like a Camry) when a well designed small house, well built, doesn't matter if it looks the same as eveyone else's (like I Phones are all the same to look at - but customised inside to suit the personality of the owner). He's big on that. And you'd have to say that even though those homes at Hobsonville might look the same on the outside - they are pretty cool!
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