New Zealand news is replete with heartfelt articles foregrounding the agony of residents standing bravely in opposition to new housing developments (such as, most recently, this in Christchurch and this in Auckland). But what if the stories were told from another point of view? Hayden Donnell gives it a go. Residents set to move into new … Read more
New Zealand news is replete with heartfelt articles foregrounding the agony of residents standing bravely in opposition to new housing developments (such as, most recently, this in Christchurch and this in Auckland). But what if the stories were told from another point of view? Hayden Donnell gives it a go. Residents set to move into new … Read more
New Zealand’s housing market is going ballistic, defying economic forecasts and historic trends. Michael Andrew asks the experts what’s causing the clamour and what it means long term. Six months after Covid-19 first reached our shores, New Zealand’s economy has officially moved into recession. GDP is down 12.2% – the largest drop on record – … Read more
They’re two cities with identical amenities, identical schools and equally beautiful hinterlands. So why don’t more people choose the one where houses are half the price? A friend with a young family just bought a house. It was old, and needed a bit of work, but it was in a good school zone. It cost … Read more
Property Investors Federation spokesman Andrew King has suggested landlords hold off installing a heat pump for tenants, saying a change in government could see the law reversed, and that some tenants don’t actually want new heat pumps. He has Hayden Donnell’s attention. New Zealand has long led the world in two shameful categories: Hobbit movies, … Read more
It’s a way of living that is often mistaken for either a ‘hippy commune’ or a boarding house, but cohousing is slowly becoming a viable solution to New Zealand’s growing housing needs. It’s also a way of fighting the isolation and loneliness that is harming our collective wellbeing. The quarter acre section is a legacy … Read more
In the second part of a new event series looking at the future of Auckland, The Spinoff and Auckland Council host In My Backyard: Glen Innes, to ask what the suburb can teach the rest of the city about housing. Hayden Donnell looks for inspiration and innovation on how to house the city’s future. Auckland Council’s Unitary … Read more
In the second part of a new event series looking at the future of Auckland, The Spinoff and Auckland Council host In My Backyard: Glen Innes, to ask what the suburb can teach the rest of the city about housing. Throughout its history, Glen Innes has had the highest density of state housing in New … Read more
Architectural designer and housing advocate Jade Kake is leading a number of projects (and conversations) on the rejuvenation of Māori housing and land. Here she looks at the current housing climate and what needs to change before Māori can have agency over their housing aspirations. We’re at a really interesting point in time politically. The … Read more
Grandparents Mere and Ngaro Pita spent decades in a run-down home. A West Auckland programme for elderly residents helped fix that. Mere and Ngaro Pita’s West Auckland home is literally a labour of love. The proud grandparents live about five minutes’ walk from Kelston Boys’ High School with their four mokopuna. Originally from the Far … Read more
One thing that has set the fight for Ihumātao apart is the confidence with which multi-media digital communication has been deployed to spread the message far and wide. Peter McKenzie looks at the new tools of the revolution. The message was sparse. “Tomorrow, midday, Wellington Cenotaph, there is a rally against the confiscation of land … Read more
On the latest episode of The Good Citizen podcast, Jacqueline Paul talks to Jeremy Hansen about the housing crisis, inequality and the damage racist stereotyping is doing to Auckland. Landscape architect, housing advocate and aspiring local body politician, Jacqueline Paul (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga), isn’t sitting around waiting to be heard. She’s speaking … Read more
Our housing crisis is intimately linked to our prison overcrowding crisis, write Vanessa Cole and Ti Lamusse In May 2018, Charlotte was unexpectedly released from prison following a short period on remand. While in prison, Charlotte* lost her only source of income and the room she was renting. Her family were a major source of … Read more
Many people were disappointed about the government’s abandonment of the capital gains tax plan. But is there an alternative that could still open up the property market to those currently priced out? I’m just going to put my cards on the table – I am a supporter of a capital gains tax (CGT). I’m an … Read more
In what seems like an unlikely source of inspiration, a group of Howick singers have created a folk protest song about Auckland local body planning rules. Hayden Donnell steps in to assess a musical work that somehow combines his two greatest passions. The history of protest music is littered with songs that have seared themselves … Read more
Everything from competition around supplying materials to how many lights you have in a room can determine the cost of building a house, says Box co-founder Dan Heyworth. You’re not imagining things – the cost of designing and building really is going crazy. In February 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute studied the effect of implementing construction … Read more
New building consents in Auckland are almost keeping up with the region’s population growth, reports Greg Ninness of interest.co.nz. According to provisional estimates from Statistics NZ, Auckland’s population increased by 38,600 in the 12 months to June. Since Auckland has an average household occupancy of three people per dwelling according to the 2013 census, an … Read more
The show Renters is a morality play about the sufferings inflicted on landlords by their terrible tenants. Hayden Donnell talks to one of the show’s stars ahead of its seventh season, and tries to convince her to support pro-tenant rental reform. It’s impossible to dislike Pru Morrell. The star of TVNZ’s reality series Renters is … Read more
Auckland Council has nitpicked its way into rejecting two high-density apartment developments on public transport routes near the CBD. Hayden Donnell asks whether council’s consents department really believes in the vision of the Unitary Plan. The Unitary Plan was supposed to fix things. When it passed in 2016, huge swathes of Auckland were rezoned for … Read more
New Zealanders have woken up to a topsy turvy world this morning, with normally annoying commentators Mark Richardson and Mike Hosking talking a lot of sense, reports Hayden Donnell. Stash some canned food under your bed. Fashion your garden implements into makeshift weapons. Sprinkle the blood of a lamb or goat over your home’s threshold. … Read more
The objections of a few wealthy Mt Eden residents have succeeded in killing a much-needed central Auckland housing development. How does this keep happening? Dominion Road has been marked for major transformation with over a billion dollars to be invested in high capacity light rail that will traverse the length of Auckland’s most famous street. … Read more
Many of today’s concerns around home ownership and urban planning were found in centuries past, writes Jeremy Moyle Current anxieties about city planning and the possibility of home ownership can seem like particularly modern issues, but their origins are old – really old – and the concerns of 19th and early-20th century New Zealand sound … Read more
Are people who earn decent salaries too privileged to be thrown a bone by the government? Jenée Tibshraeny thinks not. This story first appeared on interest.co.nz. I would like to thank Housing Minister Phil Twyford for validating my generation’s “Ponsonby problems” as real ones. By setting the income caps for KiwiBuild eligibility at $120,000 for a … Read more
The government says new data suggesting foreign buyers have a much larger role in the housing market than previously thought is “a vindication” of its foreign buyer ban. But that doesn’t mean the ban makes any sense, writes Guyon Espiner for RNZ. It’s a great bumper sticker. Ban foreign buyers! It’s simple, it resonates and … Read more
Auckland’s golf courses are huge tracts of heavily subsidised land lying vacant in the middle of a housing crisis. We need to seize them all back, argues Hayden Donnell. Some of the proposals to fix Auckland’s housing crisis are debatable. Jailing all Boomers. Seizing Howick under the Public Works Act. Permanently exiling the land banking … Read more
Labour’s inexplicable timidity risks turning the much-vaunted KiwiBuild policy into a damp squib, argues Guyon Espiner for RNZ. The most ambitious interventionist economic plan pursued by a New Zealand government was named after a race. Think Big won the Melbourne Cup twice in the mid-1970s, making quite an impression on Allan Highet, a long forgotten … Read more
We all agree on the ambition – the question is how. 2Degrees Mobile founder Tex Edwards says the market has failed and lays out the case for more government intervention. What is the problem with housing in New Zealand? Most young people, and families who intend to buy one during their lives see them as … Read more
On Tuesday, economist Eric Crampton argued that legislation to prohibit foreign property buyers will do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis. Today, he lays out all the other reasons why the ban makes no sense. Yesterday, I wrote about how New Zealand wound up with a ban on foreign homebuyers. I said the policy was … Read more
How will the government’s Kiwibuild plans in Mt Albert look once they’re fully built? Urban designer Matthew Prasad casts a critical eye over the project. It’s only been a week since the government’s first Kiwibuild development announcement, and there has been a lot of talk and hypothesising about what form the development may take at … Read more