Housing New Zealand, now rebranded as Kainga Ora, has been given power by the government to issue its own building consents. A branch called Consentium has been set up within the organisation, which will also carry out its own inspections and code compliance certification.
This is because the government has finally recognised that the process to get consents from councils is a major factor in housing affordability. The costs, delays, uncertainty and bureaucracy have been just as much a hurdle for a large and powerful government ministry as they have for the general public.
The previous National government had identified the council resource consent process as a major factor also. They introduced Special Housing Areas to give MBIE the power to sidestep council district plans and grant themselves resource consents in order to speed up the painful and costly process of obtaining planning permission. I do not understand why it should be difficult to build houses in residential zones, but it is clearly a source of income for councils.
Unfortunately, one of Labour’s first actions was to cancel Special Housing Areas and replace them with the flagship Kiwibuild policy. Twyford geared up for mass-produced houses but ran into council obstacles. The end result was that the government bought most Kiwibuld houses from developers who had already worked their way through the system. This was yet another clear admission of where the fault for the housing shortage really lies.
I congratulate Kainga Ora on finally making real progress on the underlying issues, but I wish the government would help the rest of us, rather than changing the rules for themselves.
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