The time is ripe – the end is near. Gradually, slowly, the Independent Commissioners are releasing their Reports onto the interwebbies, and very slowly, a sleepy group of Wellingtonians are reading them. So many words, expensive words, produced at a rate of thousands of dollars per hour. It is a select group, as in reality so few people really give a toss, and yet in time, I suspect that these reports and their outcomes will be as significant a factor on the future of Wellington as would be the Alpine Fault going off with a 2500 year bang. A bloody good wake up call, in other words. But if you’re not interested, or simply have had enough, then back to sleep you go, perhaps to wake up in a Rip Van Winkel trance for 20 years, only to find that the world had gone ahead and left you behind.
“What on earth is the Fish on about?” I hear some of you wonder, although most of you already know. Shall I briefly summarise the past that got us here? We had a District Plan, and the rules say that every ten years we should make another Plan. The Council put lots of effort into the new Draft Plan, adding in areas where intensification could occur, and yeay, verily did they consult the populace. They published the Draft Plan, called for comment, and then the beastly central Government, tired of waiting for Councils to do exactly what they had been asked to do, threw a proverbial spanner in the works and told the Tier One cities (mighty divisive phrase that – telling all the smaller centres that they really did not matter), that they had changed their mind and now multi-unit housing was to be as near as dammit everywhere. This was such a momentous occasion that both National and Labour actually agreed on it, gripped the very same ballpoint pen and scrawled a hurried signature over it: Judith Collins, Nicola Willis, and some Labour people, I forget who.
So popular was this with the good burgers of Wisconsin – no, Botany – that they decided to chop off Judith’s head, stick it on a stick and march around the fireplace singing “The Piggie is dead”. Something like that anyway. Luxboy got into power, and into bed with Winston and Seymour and consummated their three-way menage by declaring that they had only been joking all the time and they never meant it anyway. All the Tier One cities realised belatedly that they had actually been Rogue One cities instead, and didn’t really have to densify anyway. Christchurch decided to do nothing about it what so ever, while Auckland say Yah Boo Sucks and decided that they already had a working plan and besides, one day they would have Light Rail and then everything would be different, so they left out a massive swathe through the city, claiming that they wouldn’t make their mind up until the Government gave them a train set. Wellington just scratched its heads, and plowed on regardless, only this time without their trousers, which had got a soaking for all the leaking water pipes.
Where was I? Up a creek without a paddle, perhaps, but in actual fact, I was in good company because the Council were up there too, also sans paddle. The WCC now republished the Draft District Plan but this time they called it the Proposed District Plan, which meant it was a different Plan altogether, although only in tiny ways that no-one noticed – except for me, and other spotty-faced nerds. They called for more Consultation, which meant pouring over the plans to try and spot the difference, which of course meant that people only looked at their own house to see what had changed there, it anything. Then they got in a highly trained and specialised panel of Independent Commissioners to look at all the issues of the Proposed Plan and listen to Experts tell them what to do, or listen to the People to tell them what NOT to do, all while being paid something like $800 per day. Crikey. When I go on a job in another city, my boss allows me to claim $40 per day, so a rate twenty times mine sounds impressive to a small bottom dwelling mudfish like myself. Literally, I flounder.
And now the Reports from these highly paid people are back, with a stash of reports that you / we / I can download and read. So what do they say?
To be perfectly honest, I’m not really sure. There are so many words there on so many different documents, that I haven’t got anywhere near the end, or even the beginning of the end, nor even the middle of the middle. I think that I am somewhere near the middle of the beginning. Other people seem to be having more luck than me. Some slick sleuths are on the ball, claiming that their Character Area is now bigger, or that the neighbouring Heritage area now has more Character, or that the Boundaries have moved. Honestly, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Presumably, if an Area is declared to be full of Character or Heritage, then perhaps no one is to touch it? So does that mean that your property price goes up or down? The way the Council decided what was Character was a bit of a rumpty solution anyways, asking Boffa Miskell to investigate and tell them whether there was any Character on the horizon, or any Horizontality in the Heritage.
Do you trust Boffa Miskell to have got right the question over whether your house is full of Character or merely quirky crap? Some don’t. Actually, I do, as I think that only people who professionally lie for a living, like Real Estate agents, and they will assign “character” to a property that is plainly a dog. Perhaps people believe them, mistakenly. Estate Agents, that is. But Boffa’s viewpoint is a bit rougher and more harsh. If something is a dog, they’ll classify it as a canine quadruped alright, and not recommend it be placed in a Character Area.
Does Character mean that it has to have Good Character? But aren’t the best parts in any film the actors who play the Bad Characters? Hasn’t Hugh Grant got much better with his more recent portrayal of Bad Characters, compared to his former saccharine portrayal of soppy-faced foppish git Tim-Nice-But-Dim Good Characters? Can we do the same with Character buildings? Should we have a Zone where buildings are full of Bad Character, rather than Good? Or does that already exist and is merely called Johnsonville? Or Churton Park? Take your pick, we have many contenders.
Is there anything else left to say? Or have I said enough already? Has the whole event been worthwhile? Probably not. Is it over yet? Definitely not. Have I had enough yet? Definitely! Is the city looking better yet?
Should we have a Zone where buildings are full of Bad Character, rather than Good? Or does that already exist and is merely called Johnsonville? Or Churton Park?
My vote is on Karori
God it’s just one giant pudding
It’s as if the whole thing was written by an AI LLM – full of bland whataboutisms
So how will something get built in this new environment? Will projects need to employ a chief waffler on point? Someone who can guide the waka through the dense undergrowth of bullshit, occasionally shooting down a flying guideline with a well-aimed paragraph of phooey to deflect it from tipping the whole project out into a boiling stew of “further consultation required”?
perhaps there will be new service sector jobs for underemployed sociologists
Thanks 60 ! Further consultation required – indeed. It is a war of words these days, and you know who has all the best words, don’t you? Yes, he says he has all the best words, which means that we must be fobbed off with a bunch of second-hand used words instead…
I’m intrigued though, as despite there still being a housing crisis (that hasn’t gone away overnight now, has it?), the amount of building being done has gone down acutely. To me the answer is obvious: it is not the supply and demand of housing, but instead it is the supply and demand of money. Interest rates up? Work dries up.
Cost of business has gone up so less entrants to the market
Materials cost more, local govt clipping the ticket costs more due to uncertainty over infrastructure costs and political decisions
We’re all a bit in the swamp at the moment but I think the market is turning and we’ll soon be off on another round of house price inflation, bugger the fundamentals..
National’s mantra being “More Roads”, “Less Taxes for the Middle Classes and the Rich” and “Less Red Tape for More Business”, I noticed that the new Government’s aim was to pull in $700million annually through the “foreign buyer’s tax” that they think will want to come into the country and buy houses over $2million each. So, a 15% tax on a $2million house = $300,000 each, which means we would need around 2,500 investors arriving each year, all buying a house over $2m. Seeing as we currently have 70,000 to 80,000 houses being sold each year, that would require about 3.2% of the houses to be sold for over $2m to attract the tax. That should be quite achievable, but remember that this may not be allowed to be applied to ALL people incoming. Obviously not applying to returning Kiwis, probably not to Aussies, and maybe not applicable to Singaporeans either? Depends who we have a “treaty” with. Immigrants to NZ apparently mainly come from India, Phillipines and China, but also UK, Australia, South Africa, Fiji and Samoa. Massive numbers too, at present, being (apparently) between 130,000 per annum and 225,000 per annum. Both of those figures from Stats – one from January 2023, the other from August 2023.
There are a few obvious holes in Nicola Willis’s logic, one being that there may not be that many $2million+ houses in NZ, and the other that there is a big jump between a house costing $1.99m (no tax) and one costing $2.01million ($300k tax). Last year there was only 140 houses in total in Wellington that sold for over $2m, so the rest of them will just have to come from Auckland, Queenstown and Wanaka. Of course that leaves no room at all for Kiwis to buy a home over $2m (which arguably should not matter as not many of us could afford that) – so there are a few issues there around who has the right to buy a house in NZ.
Personally I would rather have housing for New Zealanders, and I would rather have it being MORE affordable, than it being LESS affordable. Call me old-fashioned…
Thank you Alan, for crunching the numbers. Just looking back through the Eye of the Fish back catalogue, one of my predecessors posts was entitled “100,000 homes x 10 years = ??” https://eyeofthefish.org/100000-homes-x-10-years/
Dating from 2012 (and amounting to nothing, as Twyford cocked it up), 100,000 homes = just 10,000 homes a year – which means we would need to be building a full quarter of those new homes as expensive, luxurious, $2million+ homes for the wealthy immigrants. So I think that I might just agree with you – there is no way that Willis’s numbers can ever stand up !!
Youch!!,
Chris Bishop has just appointed himself Wellington’s Chief Planning Commissar,
If the Council Refuse any parts of the IHP plan, then Bish is now the Honcho to decide it…
“I can also announce today that I will be the decision-maker on relevant district plan changes relating to housing where councils and Independent Hearings Panels do not agree – for example, the Wellington IHP process depending on where the Wellington City Council lands on it, or any requests for extensions to timeframes – in my role as the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform. ”
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/speech-wellington-chamber-commerce-5
Yes, this is deeply worrying – as I said a few months ago, the real elephant in the room is Mr Bishop and Mr Brown. Both of them are “pragmatic” but also they are uneducated idiots in the subject at hand. Bishop has no clue what he is doing except for a savage reflex reaction – he is the sort of dickhead who will not ask for any expert assistance or reports, he will just unilaterally make a decision and not have any qualms about the damage it may cause. At least Luxon will pretend to listen – Bishop will just say No.