A critical commentary on the government's housing policy in Auckland, focusing on the missteps in housing number projections, lack of local insight from Chris Bishop, and the unintended economic and public backlash resulting from top-down, non-contextual planning.
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Now, the Auckland housing number, the government's housing vision now looks like a school project basically gone wrong. Wrong. Chris Bishop, by anyone's standards a competent, if not excellent, political operator, appears to have come unstuck on Auckland housing. His two million homes got the sort of reaction anyone with anything to do with Auckland might have expected. So after a lot of gnashing and expletives it got readjusted to 1.6, and now, if you can believe it, it's down to 1.4. The real issue, of course, is the number, and all numbers are huge, so they freak people out. Not helping is the fact Bishop is not from Auckland, he's from the Hut. The Hutt, which doesn't mean he can't make decisions on Auckland, it just means he doesn't seem to know what rucks Auckland is up and the obvious suggestion is made that maybe that's because he's from Wellington. Making it worse is the government has a minister for Auckland but he seems to be nowhere to be seen and one wonders whether he was in bishop's ear at any point suggesting bandying around large numbers and causing confusion about high rises in suburbia wasn't the smartest thing he could have done. Not helpful either for the government given it's election year of course. Like it or not, elections are won and lost in the country's biggest city, an economic engine room. Also about to land is a report on volcanic view shafts, another of Auckland's special features Bishop doesn't seem to get. We can delve into it another day, but in a sign Bishop is all about bottom lines and not the real world, the report suggests there is $4 billion worth of lost productivity because of these view shafts, which averages out to $2,500,000 a house. The inference being if we just got on and built stuff, even if they are high risers smack bang in the middle of your Rangitoto view, we would be off to the races economically. I can tell Chris, even before the report is released, this will go down worse than the original two million homes idea. In really simple terms, if the National Party, and by default the Government, want to piss a large number of Aucklanders off, let Bishop loose on the place and we'll catch up for a drink. drink at the opposition benches.
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costs productivity and undermines housing plans
Mike's Minute: The Govt's housing vision – a school project gone wrongSpotted something wrong on this page? Report a correction.
