Councils Holding the Country to Ransom

[TheLiberalLeft]

Hobsonville has heritage? Since when?

[speights boy]

Ahh.....

[Perry]

Just imagine what that
would be worth, today?

[TheLiberalLeft]

Oh yeah, that new Hobsonville Point area is well and truly designed in an aero-nautical style.

[eri]

i used to work on the old flying boat ramp

at catalina bay

but that big bird is a brit sunderland

http://timespanner.blogspot.jp/2010/...underland.html

[Davo36]

Are the inherently apathetic? Or have they
been ground down through frustrations in
trying to deal with bureaucratic parasitism?
Both constituents and those elected.

How'd the Marae Hearing go, Shalodge?

Well of course we've been ground down. But also, it's just the volume of stuff these councils are doing! To keep up with it all is impossible, let alone do anything about it.

[eri]

auckland in for very very big change

Deputy mayor Penny Hulse, who is leading work on the unitary plan, said it tackled many sometimes difficult issues. "We want as many Aucklanders as possible to have their say to ensure we get a plan for all Aucklanders."

Under the plan, the greatest intensification will occur in 10 "metropolitan" centres, where apartments of 18 storeys will be allowed. This is followed by 37 town centres, where four to eight storeys will be permitted.
Moving out of these centres into residential areas, the council has created a 250m zone for terraced housing and apartments of between four and six storeys.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10866735

[partya]

Development levies a thing of the past?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10867734

A nice thought!

[Wayne]

have to increase the rates then to cover the shortfall - they certainly won't be spending any less.

[Davo36]

Now that I've finished my development and am an investor;

Those damn developers should pay for all the infrastructure us ratepayers have to pay for to support their new developments! If anything, the development contributions should go up!

I'm joking of course. Good to see they might go, but as Wayne said above, the councils will just get around it in other ways. They won't stop spending money on themselves or their pet projects or anything.

[Perry]

The Productivity Commission found charges of up to $20,000/section for housing and
the contributions are seen as one factor affecting housing affordability and shortage

But isn't it nice - just for a change - that developers and PIs have avoided the limelight as the
bogey people who cause all the housing affordability problems? I can just see Flyernzl choking
on his muffin and snorting coffee all over the keyboard. (Instead of re-writing this post)

[eri]

Mangawhai's ratepayers association has instructed lawyers to take action against the Council.
They want the Court to stop the Council making decisions which raise revenue, hoping to push it into bankruptcy.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10868722

[Davo36]

Oh The Hypocrisy

The council is having a bunch of apartments and townhouses built at Wynyard Quarter in Auckland. Wynyard Quarter is the planner's little playground where they get to create exactly what they think should be built in Auckland, i.e. a microcosm for the greater Auckland area.

But wait, where's the affordable housing? You know for the poor people? Turns out the Auckland planners don't want any of that yuckiness:

Wynyard apartments will sell for $500,000 and up

By BernardOrsman

Wynyard Quarter is being developed as an area of waterfront restaurants and open spaces. Photo / Think Photography

Affordable housing will be missing when Auckland Mayor Len Brown unveils plans today for a swanky new housing development at Wynyard Quarter on the waterfront.
At Wynyard Quarter, the selling price for the smallest apartments, on what will be leasehold land, will start at $500,000, with small townhouses beginning at $850,000 and larger ones well over $1 million.
The Auckland Council and its waterfront agency have no plans for affordable housing on the council-owned 2.76ha development site, despite the rhetoric from Mr Brown's left-leaning council to increase the supply and choice of affordable housing.

Rest of Article


I especially like this bit:

Asked if he saw Wynyard Quarter as an exclusive enclave for the rich given the high value of the waterfront land, Mr Brown said: "In due course we will get through the appropriate configuration of housing choices and options."

So, at a launch of a council led development which he is championing, he apparently doesn't know what the mix of housing choices and groups are. Please.

[speights boy]

Good decision to keep them upmarket.

Cheap apartments for sale at Princess Wharf if that floats your boat.

PS: One just listed yesterday 50 m2, $99,000.

[Perry]

Minister Vows To Smash Auckland City Limits
By Simon Collins , Anne Gibson
Mar 7, 2013

New Housing Minister Nick Smith is vowing to break the "stranglehold"
of Auckland Council's policy of containing urban sprawl - a policy he
says is "killing the dreams of Aucklanders" by driving up house
prices. In his first major interview on how he plans to tackle the
housing affordability issue handed to him in January's Cabinet
reshuffle, he said his focus would be on opening up land supply
because land prices were the biggest factor putting home ownership out
of reach of many Aucklanders.

"There's no question in my mind that we have to break through the
stranglehold that the existing legal metropolitan urban limit has on
land supply," he said. But Auckland Mayor Len Brown hit back last
night, saying Dr Smith was advocating a flawed Los Angeles model of
"suburban sprawl and unbridled land availability". "I'm pretty
disappointed in the minister's positioning, and I am disappointed
because it reflects a philosophy or view of city development, and
particularly development of our city, that goes back to the forties
and fifties," he said.