Councils Holding the Country to Ransom

[TheLiberalLeft]

Well they didn't ask me. I'd certainly not have ranked HSBC in there. They are brilliant and obviously not for the proles, which is why I suspect they've been rated this way. Once the dross has been ousted to Everyman Bank where they can be treated like drones alongside the rest, both they and the bank will be much happier I expect.

Which, on an even brighter note, means a less crowded access way through to HSBC's Premier Lounge. Honestly, it's like running the gauntlet through Hamilton sometimes. Head down, move fast, look determined and for God's sake, don't make eye contact.

[skid]

There it is in black and white.My suspicions confirmed about HSBC.
Are you sure you dont work for them LL?

[lawt]

You got to love it - communication companies that can't communicate.

[Perry]

And when they do, it's usually with a foreign accent: twangy
american accented pillipinos or thickly strained falsetto injuns.

[TheLiberalLeft]

No, skid, just a happy customer.

[eri]

seems that council want to get right in there and fiddle with renting ...


Published 28 January 2013
Auckland Council is looking at a betterment levy & inclusionary zoning as 2 options in its housing strategic action plan.

The council’s Auckland Plan committee approved the first stage of the action plan on 17 December and the council will post more information about the plan on its website at the end of this week.

The plan contains 12 priority areas & 32 council actions.

Deputy mayor & committee chairman Penny Hulse said on Friday the council was working closely with the Government and a range of external housing-sector parties through the plan to improve housing supply & affordability.

The 12 priority areas are:

1. Driving housing opportunities on council-owned land & property
2. Encouraging take-up of existing development capacity that is available to be used
3. New money, new thinking to secure investment and improve housing supply
4. Financing infrastructure, increasing housing supply and improving housing affordability
5. Value capture through a betterment levy
6. Inclusionary zoning options to be tested through the draft unitary plan consultation process
7. Regulatory processes
8. Improving the quality of existing & new housing
9. Papakainga & housing for Maori
10. Housing for Pacific peoples
11. More secure rental tenure
12. Removing legislative barriers

The betterment levy would apply where new infrastructure has raised the value of surrounding property. Inclusionary zoning can be complicated, but is essentially a mechanism to ensure some lower-priced housing is included in the development of more expensive homes.

The action plan has gone through a long year of consultation & debate. The council organised 10 workshops for the governing body & local boards from March-December, had a multi-sector external housing reference group, 2 wider external housing forums and an Auckland Council/central government working group, plus other one-on-one discussions with individuals in the housing & development sectors.

Approval of the action plan will result in issues such as inclusionary zoning & value capture being included in a March addendum to the draft unitary plan, which is to be released in February.

The scope of stage 2, to complete the plan, will be reported to the council’s Auckland Plan committee in March.

[Perry]

Davo will be in here, boots and all, very soon, I suspect. For now, let's just look at these.

Priority area 2: Encouraging take up of existing development capacity that is available to be used

What does that mean? This:

Investigate ways rating policy could be changed or improved to incentivise
development of undeveloped land in existing urban areas and greenfields.

Investigate if unregulated investment is a driver of the Auckland Housing
Market and assess whether this contributes to suggested property spec-
ulation or land banking.

---

Priority area 3. New money, new thinking to secure investment and improve housing supply

What does that mean? This:

Investigate how Council could act as a guarantor for a pilot housing bond to
facilitate start up loans for first home buyers administered by Community Housing
Organisation schemes.

Nowhere can there be found any mention of reducing bureaucracy and compliance costs.
Nowhere at all. So no surprises at all, there. Wonder what the whole talkfest cost the
hapless greater Auckland ratepayers?

[mrsaneperson]

Reading through the council 12 point propaganda plan above its meaningless drivel...Exactly what Perry said "What does it mean?"

[eri]

it means they want to do some serious wealth distribution

via their only tool

rates

it's a blunt tool so they'll have to squeeze every rate payer

but give rebates to their mates

[Davo36]

but give rebates to their mates

Their voters...

Right here I am with my biggest pair of hobnail boots on!

WTF is a betterment levy? Is this where council improvements supposedly add value to a property, so they want to levy the owner? Crikey. What about worserment levies i.e. where something the council does reduced your property value? Will they be paying up then?

But really. The council have caused this affordability mess and are now looking for all sorts of ways of fixing it without addressing the policies which have created it. So as Perry points out, they are not offering to reduce their fees and levies are they?

I saw a very reasoned letter by a long term engineer and developer recently. He outlined how the Auckland Council has added $70k to the cost of a new apartment in the last few years.

This is why very few people are building apartments right now despite the pent up demand.

[TheLiberalLeft]

That's what it means, Davo. If you get a public dunny built in the local park, all local residents rates go up by $20/week, despite the fact that very few local residents will use said dunny.

[eri]

so was the super city

just a way to make the rest of auckland subsidize improvements to manukau

that manukau residents couldn't afford themselves?

[eri]

here's 1 for tax and spend

lenny and penny

The idea of lean Nordic government will come as a shock both to French leftists who dream of socialist Scandinavia and to American conservatives who fear that Barack Obama is bent on “Swedenisation”. They are out of date. In the 1970s and 1980s the Nordics were indeed tax-and-spend countries. Sweden’s public spending reached 67% of GDP in 1993. Astrid Lindgren, the inventor of Pippi Longstocking, was forced to pay more than 100% of her income in taxes. But tax-and-spend did not work: Sweden fell from being the fourth-richest country in the world in 1970 to the 14th in 1993.

Since then the Nordics have changed course—mainly to the right. Government’s share of GDP in Sweden, which has dropped by around 18 percentage points, is lower than France’s and could soon be lower than Britain’s.
Taxes have been cut: the corporate rate is 22%, far lower than America’s. The Nordics have focused on balancing the book

You can inject market mechanisms into the welfare state to sharpen its performance. You can put entitlement programmes on sound foundations to avoid beggaring future generations. But you need to be willing to root out corruption and vested interests. And you must be ready to abandon tired orthodoxies of the left and right and forage for good ideas across the political spectrum. The world will be studying the Nordic model for years to come.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571136-politicians-both-right-and-left-could-learn-nordic-countries-next-supermodel

[Viking]

'Deterrent' flats fees slashed



Tauranga City Council Building. John Borren.
Fees that drove people to lie about their new home plans have been cut by the Tauranga City Council - saving house builders up to $27,000.
The council this week slashed the development fees on granny flats and abolished them completely where the self-contained flat was part of the main house.
It meant that baby boomers who were wanting an independent wing on their new home to accommodate aging parents have been spared paying additional fees ranging between $5600 at West Bethlehem to $27,000 at The Lakes.
The main protagonist for the change, Councillor Rick Curach, told the Bay of Plenty Times the fees had been such a deterrent that people were resorting to altering their new homes after they had been built.
The interior design was tweaked to create the independent unit, such as adding a couple of doors and installing a kitchenette.
He said that only 18 consents had been issued for secondary flats in the past five years.
"A lot of it went underground - that is what happened."
Although the council did not know how many people had failed to declare building alterations, Cr Curach said the minimal number who went through the proper channels showed how much of a deterrent the fees had become.
The only fees left standing were the $4300 to $5600 building impact fee for a one or two bedroom stand-alone granny flat.
It was a contribution towards the cost of city-wide infrastructure.
Gone were the more expensive subdivision impact fees that paid for everything local that the developer did not provide, including neighbourhood reserves and main roads.
This represented savings of between $3520 and $21,370.
Home builders in the city's other greenfield growth areas that want a self-contained flat will save $13,000 in Pyes Pa, $15,000 in Welcome Bay, $15,700 in Papamoa, $17,600 in Ohauiti and $19,200 in Bethlehem.

[Perry]

I wonder if Shalodge was involved?