Urban Development Bill

I move, That the Urban Development Bill be now read a second time.

This omnibus bill provides Kāinga Ora, New Zealand’s housing and urban development authority, with functions, powers, rights, and duties to enable it to undertake its urban development functions. The bill complements the Kāinga Ora—Homes and Communities Act, which established Kāinga Ora as a Crown entity on 1 October 2019 and set out its objectives, functions, and operating principles. The purpose of this bill is to facilitate urban development that contributes to sustainable, inclusive, and thriving communities. Kāinga Ora will work in partnership with iwi, local government, developers, and others in the urban development sector to deliver communities that provide a diverse mix of good quality, affordable housing choices and good access to jobs, transport, public amenities, and open space.

I want to thank the Environment Committee for its work on this bill. Their efforts have improved the bill. I would also like to thank the members of the public who took time to make written and oral submissions. A majority of submitters supported the bill’s direction. Some suggested ways that its provisions could be improved in terms of how they work in practice, and the committee has taken these concerns on board. I want to acknowledge the wealth of technical expertise offered both by local government and industry practitioners. Their contributions were invaluable and have led to improvements in the bill.

Even before COVID-19, New Zealand’s cities faced some formidable challenges such as flattening productivity and difficulties in accommodating growth in transport, particularly, and many, many parts of the country have grappled with dysfunctional housing markets, shortages of housing, and very high-priced urban land. These issues remain. We’re making good progress on them, but it’s become even more essential that we address them in the current post-COVID environment. Along with the other tools in our Urban Growth Agenda reforming the way we finance and fund infrastructure for urban growth and freeing up the planning rules so that our cities can grow up and grow out, we also need to find ways of ensuring that large-scale and sometimes complex urban development projects can be facilitated.

This bill will work alongside the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill, and when both of them are passed, they will, together, progress much-needed development and infrastructure in our towns and cities. While some of their objectives overlap and both include streamlined Resource Management Act (RMA) consenting, the Urban Development Bill is different in its targeting. Large-scale transformational projects are key to creating well-designed cities that provide for our future needs. The big challenge for New Zealand cities in the 21st century is that we must enable second-generation growth, quality intensification. In cities that were often designed and built in the middle decades of the 20th century, the challenge now is to build a more efficient and more sustainable and livable urban form. That’s not always easy, because of the fragmentation of land title, the problems with ageing infrastructure, and the complexity of having multiple stakeholders, communities, residents, and businesses in existing, built-up cities.

This bill gives Kāinga Ora the tools and the mandate and the duties to enable that role to be played. It allows Kāinga Ora to initiate, facilitate, and undertake a special type of complex, transformational urban development. The bill describes them as specified development projects. For those listening to this debate, we’re talking about projects that entail the building of whole new communities on a scale that will deliver thousands of new dwellings, new transport infrastructure, and places for businesses and industry and residential development.

The bill gives Kāinga Ora access to a tool kit of development powers and access to land acquisition powers when undertaking any kind of urban development project. The tools will enable Kāinga Ora to develop multiple aspects of the urban environment with greater certainty, integration, and speed. The specified development project process is at the heart of the bill. It brings together multiple disconnected development processes and enables them to be accessed through a single, more streamlined process without losing important checks and balances. It brings together all of the powers that local government currently wields, but in one place, in a joined-up and streamlined way, for the express purpose of speeding up complex, large-scale development projects.

The tool kit of development powers that come with a specified development project include streamlined RMA planning and consenting processes, powers to build and change network infrastructure such as roads, three waters, and public transport, and the ability to create or reconfigure parks and reserves. These are the kinds of tools that enable a development project to become a community.

Kāinga Ora will have new mechanisms to fund urban development, including targeted rates, development contributions, betterment payments, and service charges. It will also have access to land acquisition powers, which can be used for specified development projects and, more widely, on all of its urban development projects. Each of these powers is designed to address a specific barrier to development that currently exist. These powers will be applied flexibly, based on the needs of each individual project, and—importantly—subject to appropriate checks and balances.

There are a range of checks and balances in the bill. We’re very conscious in designing this legislation that Kāinga Ora, with all of these tools brought together in one place, is a powerful entity at the service of urban development, and it’s important that the property rights of incumbent owners in a development project—it’s important that the community and the local residents and the community of interests that may be affected by developments on this scale all have a say in the process and their rights are respected.

The bill recognises the importance of protecting the environment and ensuring good access to open spaces. It provides for the protection of significant environmental interests, alongside historic heritage and cultural considerations, and there are multiple points along the process that is set out in this bill for the creation of these specified development projects at which concerns can be raised and issues debated and interests protected during the process.

The bill recognises the aspirations that Māori have in urban development as potential development partners, as people significantly impacted by the historical and current pressures in the housing market, and through Māori connections with the land and natural resources in a project area. The bill establishes protections for Māori land and it includes engagement requirements designed to ensure that Kāinga Ora identifies and supports Māori aspirations for urban development, including by providing opportunities to participate in development. That’s important because from one end of this country to the other, iwi and other Māori organisations—particularly in the post-settlement era—are some of the most active investors and developers in large-scale urban development projects.

Kāinga Ora will work in partnership with iwi, local government, and the private sector, and we’ve taken on board the longstanding concerns about this kind of legislation from the private sector and from local government—fears that this could see them being crowded out. The specified development project process is designed as a joint venture vehicle that can include private developers, can include iwi, and can include councils.

The committee received 133 submissions on the bill. Those submitters represented groups and individuals with an interest in housing and urban development, and, as a result of those submissions, the committee made improvements, particularly around engagement and partnership. The first significant change made to the bill was to emphasise the importance of early engagement, reinforcing the importance of Kāinga Ora undertaking that engagement in a way that reflects the needs of all people involved.

Submitters raised the need for Kāinga Ora to partner in order to be successful, and that principle has been greatly strengthened in the bill. Submitters raised concerns around infrastructure requirements, particularly the possibility of councils inheriting infrastructure that might not be fit for purpose—it could either be gold-plated or substandard—so there are provisions to now ensure that Kāinga Ora identifies the technical design standards for that infrastructure before it’s actually built.

The changes recommended by the committee, in my view, significantly improve the bill and support its general purpose. This bill will allow us to deliver more and better housing and will allow our cities to build great new urban neighbourhoods and communities for people to live and work and play. I want to thank the members of the committee for their work on the bill. They’ve improved it and, on this basis, I commend the bill to the House.

As with so many things that the Minister Phil Twyford says, National finds it very difficult to disagree with his good intentions and the goals that he has for this bill. What we worry about is this bill’s ability to deliver on those objectives. We supported this bill at its first reading, and we did so for the very principled reason that we support the concept of urban development authorities and the Specified Development Projects that they can carry out.

New Zealanders—many will be aware of international cities where vibrant new suburbs have emerged, whether it’s the Docklands or others, as a result of this sort of an urban development project. We recognise the need for vehicles that allow for brownfields urban regeneration in areas where more can be done if the sufficient powers are in place. We recognise the urgent need in New Zealand to accelerate housing development, particularly housing development focused around transport and other amenities, and we recognise that right now it is almost impossible to do that in some areas, that powers are required to assemble parcels of land, reconfigure infrastructure, and allow the assembly of public and private buildings. We don’t think a piecemeal and incremental development approach is sufficient, and so it was that the last National Government initiated a discussion document process to draft this sort of legislation. There were reports from the Productivity Commission recommending this sort of a process, and National, I believe, in Cabinet had initiated a bill of this sort.

So it is in sorrow that I stand here and say that today National can’t support this bill at its second reading, because we do continue to support the need for urban development powers and urban development authorities, but we don’t think that the Government has done a good enough job of this. We have three major areas of concern. The first is the context in which this bill is being progressed, the second is the detail of the processes this bill sets out and the complexity thereof, and the third is the balance this bill provides between State power and private property rights or the ability of private developers. I will take you through each of those three major concerns.

Select committee scrutiny of this bill, as the Minister mentioned, brought forward many submissions. While I wasn’t part of that select committee process, I have taken the time to read through those submissions and to speak widely with those involved in housing development and urban development in New Zealand, those developers, local authorities and others. What has come through as a consistent theme when discussing whether or not people support this bill is an overwhelming concern about the extent to which the Resource Management Act (RMA) is continuing to hold back much-needed development. The concern here is that that should be the first-order priority of any Government seeking to speed up development. In fact, the disdain for the RMA unites detractors from left and right in an almost unrivalled fashion—in fact, you know, in recent times, possibly only rivalled by the ability of Dr David Clark to unite detractors from left and right. What we hear from those concerned about the RMA is that the Government has been quick to move on some of the press release - type issues, such as KiwiBuild promises of 100,000 homes, but has been entirely negligent in its progressing of meaningful reform to planning law.

The reason that is significant for this law is that, essentially, what this law we are debating today does is it says we acknowledge that the RMA is incredibly complex and so, in some specified cases, we’ll let people cut through it. We’ll let people get through all of that complexity in a fast-forward way. Of course, what this creates as a concern is that if you’re doing that for one very specific subset of Crown-led projects but you’re not doing it for other development, we could potentially have very uneven benefit across our community. For example, there is no way that this bill can ever assist the small developer who wants to do a small development. It can’t assist those who wish to do a private development without Crown involvement. It can’t assist those who don’t get to the front of the queue with Kāinga Ora. So we see that this bill is a poor substitute for the wholesale planning law reform that New Zealand so desperately needs, and we believe that without that wider system change, the benefits of this bill are inherently limited.

We’re further concerned that it does tip the balance towards Crown-initiated development in a way that could hold back new development for New Zealand, because while the Minister points out that yes, of course, private developers will partner with the Crown in these Specified Development Projects, the reality is not all developers will pass the Crown test. Some will miss out on the ability to partner and therefore will miss out on access to a huge range of powers from which private benefit can be gained, from which profit can be gained, and from which development can happen. We don’t think that that is fair, and we support more wholesale planning reform.

The second area of concern that I flagged was that of complexity. As you know, the devil is always in the detail of these things, and, for this Government in particular, the devil is in the delivery. This bill agglomerates powers that are currently dispersed among multiple Acts and organisations, and it also incorporates some novel things, including an engagement process. Submitters identified on many occasions that this could give rise to legal ambiguities and omissions. Now, the Environment Committee, I’m sure, has done a very good job and did identify many of those admissions and many of those complexities, but there is a high risk remaining of technical difficulties in this bill. That’s not a small issue, because those technical difficulties could have a very material impact in terms of delaying or sabotaging the development projects that could be under way.

To give you a sense of that, I just want to refer to the submission from the New Zealand Law Society, that noted that the list of principles that need to be applied for special development projects is long and, without an explicit hierarchy, could be very difficult to apply. They recognise the potential for conflicts between different Acts and, for example, around rating issues and development contributions. Parliament’s own Legislation Design and Advisory Committee highlighted that aspects of the bill may make it difficult to understand and lead to uncertainty or errors. This House must take note of those concerns very seriously, because those are the sorts of concerns that some commentators had way back in the day, back in 1991, when the Resource Management Act was introduced. Today, I think we can all agree that all of that has come true, and so we on this side of the House flag our concern that the complexity of this bill may undermine its good intent of fast-tracking development processes.

We also have concern—and this comes both from submissions and from discussions with those involved in urban development currently—that the way this bill sets about its process actually could be so slow and difficult so as to not warrant the additional powers it gives the Crown. To quote the Urban Development Institute of New Zealand, it “threatens to significantly undermine, if not entirely negate, the value gained from deployment of the UDA [process].” That is because the process is pretty complex. Kāinga Ora has to do an assessment of goals, it has to engage stakeholders, it has to do an assessment report, then it goes to the Minister, who does an Order in Council, a governance body is formed, then boundaries are progressed, the councils are engaged—they have to be on the governance entity—then a draft development plan goes out, it’s notified for consultation. There’s an independent hearing panel, the hearing panel hears things, then the hearing panel makes recommendations about things that need to be ameliorated, and then it goes back to the Minister. My point here is that this isn’t some simple fast-forward cut-through, and the potential for major projects to fall over or to be subject to huge complexity and delay remains.

Finally, I flagged the issue of private property rights, and I think perhaps, given the shortness of time remaining, I am best to highlight the submission from another who said simply that the way that the private property rights are impugned on here is that, yes, there are land acquisition powers that have always existed under the Public Works Act, but the difference here is that the way it is done potentially encourages Kāinga Ora to land-bank before a Minister has made a decision about a Specified Development Project. The concern here is that the Crown will acquire land, will therefore create profit for private developers at the expense of those who had land in the first place, and there are questions raised about the compensation mechanisms that are introduced.

So National continues to support this in concept, but the devil is in the detail. We oppose the bill.

This is a really good piece of legislation, and to put our head in the sand and say that it would be too difficult would be completely wrong. The coordination for the use of land, infrastructure, and public assets to maximise public benefits in these really complex urban developments is a great thing that this bill addresses. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The shortness of the contribution of the member Jan Tinetti, who’s just resumed her seat, gives insight to people who are watching and listening to this debate into the shallowness of the detail around this bill. At the select committee that I had the opportunity to sit on—the Environment Committee did consider this bill—there were lots of submissions, and the bill that has come back to the House as a result of the report of the select committee, as the Minister has acknowledged, is a much improved bill.

It needed to be a much improved bill, because there were remarkable failings in the bill that was presented to us at first reading. We wanted to support it. In fact, we did at first reading. We wanted to, because the concept of an urban development plan is a good one. It’s a good concept. It’s something that other countries have done very well. They’ve adopted different models, but this particular model is one that comes from a Minister who has a reputation that precedes him. That reputation is not a good reputation for actually achieving things, getting things done, or actually delivering on the PR statements that go out with commentary on bills like this.

Indeed, my colleague Nicola Willis has correctly and clearly identified the three main issues that the National Party Opposition has with this bill. They are essentially around the context of the bill, the detail of the bill, and, thirdly, the balance between State power and private property rights. I want to spend a minute or two addressing a couple of those issues that Nicola Willis addressed in her speech a few minutes ago, because at the root of the issue that we have with this bill, on this side of the House, is essentially that it defaults to the hardy annual of most left-leaning Governments around the world, and certainly those with a socialist bent of the sort that we have in this Government, and that is that Government knows best, that big Government is best, that big central authority is best.

Actually, that’s not the way that we see it on this side of the House. We don’t take the view that actually it’s always Government that knows best. We actually do think that there is a very good and proper role for the State to have a guiding principle approach to urban development. That’s what we would support, the concept that we support, but we don’t support the centralisation and issuing of big Government proclamations, really, that will see the challenges between private property interests and those of the State balanced unevenly in terms of big Government State control. For that reason alone, let alone the others that we have problems with, that’s a good reason to oppose this bill.

Now, the State agency Kāinga Ora is a Crown agent and it has two main purposes, and that is to be a public housing landlord and to lead and coordinate housing and urban development projects. Those, by definition, are projects that would normally have difficulty getting off the ground under standard planning and development rules. That’s really the nub of the problem, and that goes to this issue of context that Nicola Willis was talking about.

The real issue here is root and branch reform required of our planning legislation in the form of the Resource Management Act. Just last night, we passed legislation that related to—I think it was the 19th significant amendment to that piece of legislation in its near 30-year history. The RMA, the Resource Management Act, our primary statute for planning and environmental protection, sadly—and it does pain me as a New Zealander that our primary environmental statute and our planning legislation should be treated with such derision and ridicule by New Zealanders of pretty much both sides. I think Nicola Willis made that point in her speech—the derision that occurs from both the left and the right. Sadly, now, the initials “RMA” may have entered the lexicon of KiwiBuild and light rail as being largely considered by New Zealanders as something of a joke and something not to be taken seriously. And I don’t think that our planning platform legislation or our environmental protection legislation deserves to be the subject of ridicule and contempt by ordinary New Zealanders up and down the countryside. We can surely do better than that.

So I want to just refer to a couple of comments that were made by worthy, credible submitters at the select committee who actually went to a lot of trouble to point out the complexities and the issues and the challenges that this legislation presents. One of them was Auckland Council, and Auckland Council submitted that the bill actually undermined the network planning that already existed. Auckland is an area where actually we do need some new urban development planning rules, and probably in no other urban environment in the country more so do we need sensible legislation in this area than in Auckland. But they said, and I think that as a House we need to respect and understand their position, that the bill undermined network planning and may confuse and complicate existing planning arrangements.

So they’re effectively saying that this piece of legislation is going to make it harder for them rather than easier, that it’s not going to help, that it’s not going to have the desired outcomes that the Minister wants to see. And I think that’s a sad thing. So when the country’s largest urban local government indicates that they find this piece of legislation potentially undermining existing situations and then making things more complicated, then that’s not a very good position.

But there is more. The New Zealand Law Society made the point that they were concerned that the list of principles was long, too long, and without an explicit hierarchy and that they could be difficult to apply. Now, I respect the wisdom and the knowledge of the New Zealand Law Society, and I think they made good points. I think that they made valid points in terms of criticising this bill. There isn’t an explicit hierarchy of decision making and it’s going to be largely left to central government, the Minister, and again it comes back to that issue of big Government: Government knows best. The Law Society went on to say that given the number of Acts that the bill is intended to interface with, the potential for conflicts between Acts is high and it would be useful for the bill to clarify how it relates to provisions of the Local Government Act, especially as to the settings of development contribution and rating issues.

These are important points. These are not small matters that are—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Trivial.

—trivial, as my friend and colleague Andrew Bayly says. These are not small matters. These are important matters that I would have thought a Minister bringing a piece of legislation like this to the House would have considered, would have taken into account, would have had his officials say, “Look, haven’t we got a bit of a problem here? The Law Society is saying there is an issue here. Wouldn’t it be good to actually get officials to do a little bit of work on it?”. And even though the select committee did work on it, did make some changes, did make some recommendations, that has not been taken up by the Minister and there are still issues with this bill. So that also goes to the reason that we will be opposing this legislation.

Finally, I want to just go back in time a wee way, because as this Government draws to the end of its term in office and prepares to pack up their offices and bundle up their papers and documents and move back into this side of the House, it doesn’t seem too long ago—well, actually, it was; it was nearly three years ago—that the Speech from the Throne was given after the 2017 election. And in the Speech from the Throne, it says this, amongst other things—and there are so many things in the Speech from the Throne that haven’t been delivered on, that haven’t been fulfilled, that haven’t been achieved in terms of the promises made, the lofty ambitions, and the aspirations of the speech are undelivered. But one of them was, and I quote, “This Government will remove the Auckland urban growth boundary and free up density controls.” So do we still have an Auckland urban growth boundary? Has there been a removal of the Auckland growth boundary? No, absolutely nothing has happened.

So, again, another example of non-delivery, non-ability to actually do what they said they would do, in a way that New Zealanders now find so sadly disappointing because, effectively, they thought things were going to happen. The delivery hasn’t happened and what we’ve had is now a record, as I said earlier, that precedes the Minister’s reputation for non-delivery, not doing anything, and failing to achieve the results.

We oppose this bill.

New Zealand First rises to support this Urban Development Bill, this much-needed bill, to allow Kāinga Ora to have the tools to do much-needed urban development. I think in the 1970s, actually, we were building more houses than what we are now. It’s clear that there has been regulatory failure. I’ll commend the Minister for Urban Development, actually, for taking some action here. We’ve heard some fine words from Scott Simpson and Nicola Willis, but Scott Simpson was in a Government that completely failed, in nine years of power, to do anything about the Resource Management Act.

This Urban Development Bill seeks to address some of this, for a very specific issue. We’ve had massive population growth, particularly in our largest cities, and we need to build more houses. So we will get behind this bill. It does have significant powers—I note even things like being able to set their own bylaws and the like. So there is significant powers, but we are satisfied that the checks and balances are there in the appropriate community consultation and the like—iwi, local government, and the private sector as well. So New Zealand First will support this bill. Thank you.

Mr Speaker, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be talking on this bill, the Urban Development Bill. I must admit I’m a bit surprised that Government members are not taking the opportunity to explain and talk about this bill. They seem to be taking very short calls. We’re in the middle of urgency, this special day when MPs have been held back in Parliament in Wellington to debate what is considered to be highly important bills to be pushed through. I personally find it slightly insulting that many of the members on the Government side are not taking their full calls or even attempting to take anywhere near a full call.

But on that note, this bill, which is an important bill that we are discussing today—this is probably the most important bill that we are going to cover today in Parliament. This is an important bill, and, as I’ve said before—

💬 SPEAKER: Just making sure the member had the right bill. It’s quite a lot fatter than the one he was waving around.

Yes, I have, Mr Speaker, but thank you. This bill is very important, and as the speaker said before, we supported the first reading of it. We’ve seen many fine examples of these urban development authority (UDA) developments around the world. You can think about London dockland—that was a wasteland which is now totally covered in highly desirable commercial buildings—West Sydney, Melbourne, and all those sort of places. So the concept’s proven it can work well, and, essentially, what this bill is about is speeding up the process for, first of all, after you’ve done your feasibility, consenting it, and then putting in place the appropriate structures, whether it’s infrastructure or urban planning or the transport arrangements that go with it, together to make sure it happens much quicker. So, obviously, we understand that concept and we support it.

The issue I think people forget—and I’ll just remind that last speaker from New Zealand First, Mark Patterson. He’s got no sense of history—and when I say “you”, I’m talking to the previous speaker—because it was New Zealand First that actually stopped the National Government from actually reforming the Resource Management Act (RMA), and it would have been helpful if we could have moved forward. One of the issues that we’ve got with this bill is that it is about the RMA, and the issue with this is that I think the context missing in this conversation—I think there’s a view that the Government can solve a lot of the housing issues. The reality is, if you look at the analysis of how many houses are built in New Zealand, the broad breakdown is that the top largest builders in New Zealand account for about 25 percent of all the builds in New Zealand; the Government normally only accounts for between 1 and 3 percent.

💬 SPEAKER: Order! I apologise for interrupting the member. It is lunchtime. The House is suspended until 2 o’clock.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Tēnā rā tātou katoa. The House has resumed. Members, before the lunch break, we were debating the second reading of the Urban Development Bill. Andrew Bayly had the call and he has seven minutes and 11 seconds remaining.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Yes, I was sort of cut off part-way through my discussion on this bill. What I was explaining was there’s sort of an assumption that Government can play a large role in housing construction in New Zealand, and whilst it’s important, it’s not as significant as many of the Government members sort of seemed to imply in their earlier speeches. For instance, the top 20 builders in New Zealand, basically, account for 25 percent of all new house builds. Then we’ve got the Government sector—that accounts for between 1 and 3 percent. Then the rest, the 75 percent - odd, is actually made up of one-, two-, three-person small building firms. So I think this bill’s got to be seen in the context of this.

These types of urban development authorities are primarily used for urban regeneration, large-scale projects, where there’s contiguous landholdings that can be assembled into a package, and, from there, to make sure townships are regenerated and with close proximity of housing developments. For that reason, that’s why we support urban development authorities.

The issue about this bill, though, even though it’s been substantially worked on by the Environment Committee, is a lack of clarity around how it’s going to interact with a number of other bills. Obviously, people refer to the Resource Management Act (RMA), but it’s not just the RMA; there’s a whole host of bills that this one seeks to find a pathway through to enable this urban development authority—and then we talk about special development projects—to actually occur. There’s some concern whether, in fact, the bill will actually work, and that’s one of the issues.

But I think the biggest issue, and I know my colleagues have discussed it, is this issue around the rights and power of this new entity to be able to undertake those new developments. I think one of the most concerning things—and I’m looking at the Minister now. This bill provides for the urban development authority to become a BCA, a building consent authority, such as Auckland Council, such as most 68 councils around the country. One of the issues that is happening right now, and I’m sure the Minister is aware of it, is that this entity, Kāinga Ora, is actually in the process of going and nicking all the good staff out of Auckland Council’s consenting team and luring them across, paying between $10,000 and $15,000 more than they’re currently earning at Auckland Council. So rather than adding to the sum total of new consenting consent people in New Zealand, what’s happening is this Government agency is nicking staff from another council entity, and I think that’s a real problem—it’s a real problem. It’s a problem when you talk to Auckland Council, and I know they’ve had discussions with you, but I think one of the issues about this authority—

💬 Hon Phil Twyford: Andrew, lift your horizons up. Don’t get lost in the detail.

No, I’m not lost in the detail, because that is what’s happening right now, and, actually, what it means for developers—and this is the next thing.

The biggest issue I have with this bill, personally, is that what the Government has done through this bill is solve the RMA and consenting issues for itself, and I know for a reason, but for developers who undertake most of the work, the private sector, they will still struggle to operate under the existing framework, and that has not been dealt with. If you really want to do a lot of urban regeneration and a lot of urban development around housing, that is the core issue. I take your point that this does some improvement for UDAs, but we have not dealt with the most crucial issue that all developers have in terms of being able to undertake developments quickly, get consent through, and often we have a lot of problems with that, with all the risk that goes with it, and I think that’s why this bill is actually—we haven’t addressed the central issue, and that is one of the reasons why we’re opposing this bill.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party is supporting this bill because we know how important good urban development is to our communities and to the future of our climate. Here in New Zealand, we’ve had quite fragmented provision of housing. It’s been expensive, it’s led to incredibly expensive transport costs, and sometimes, in the big rush and focus to create affordable housing, it’s possible to lose sight of the fact that if you create a lot of cheap housing on the fringe with higher infrastructure costs and higher transport costs, a need for households to own more vehicles, you end up losing all of the benefits of the more affordable housing with more expensive transport. What good urban design delivers is complete neighbourhoods with affordable, energy-efficient housing; amenities like shops, schools, parks, places where people can work; excellent public transport; safe walking and cycling links, so that you can stay within the community but you can also get to other parts of the city. That was simply not going to happen without significant change and the ability for the Government to step in and provide greater leadership. Because what we have been seeing is a lot of subdivision out on the fringes, full of houses, nowhere near shops, nowhere near schools, no parks, absolutely car dependent, and that was going to continue to happen. Of course, the cost of that to the economy, to people, to the planet is enormous.

Here with good urban design and good urban development we have a fantastic opportunity to create the kind of communities that New Zealanders actually long for, and they just haven’t been provided those opportunities. I know so many young people who want the opportunity to live in a walkable neighbourhood. They don’t need a big, stand-alone house with a yard if there are nearby parks and green spaces. In fact, what’s far more important to many young people is that proximity to their friends, proximity to where they work so they can spend less time commuting and more time doing the things that they really care about.

So we in the Greens, of course, did have some concerns because any time you centralise power like this, there is the potential for the needs and desires and aspirations of the community to be lost. So some of the improvements that the Green Party made, and that we’re very, very proud of, are ensuring that there will still be an absolute focus on Te Tiriti and the rights of tangata whenua as partners and kaitiaki.

We also ensured that in the purpose and principles of the bill good urban design was a major part of it. I mean, there is simply no point in us amalgamating and giving these powers to a Government agency if it’s not going to be tasked with delivering the public good. I think one of the reasons we haven’t had the benefits of integrated development is because, when you have private developers, the incentives are to maximise their profit, and that’s fine, but not if it’s at the expense of the things that we actually care about. So we want to get the incentives right so that private developers are delivering what the community wants and needs; that we’re doing it in a way that protects our water, our soil, our climate, our air for future generations; and just to enhance the very wellbeing of how we live our lives right now. It’s an absolute no-brainer. It’s something that I think most New Zealanders could absolutely agree with.

So having good urban design and bottom lines for protecting our environment—because once we start to chip away, chip away with more development that slowly takes away the green belts around our urban areas, slowly might chip away at our incredibly valuable agricultural soils, we could have found ourselves in the situation of not having access to the very things that we love about New Zealand and that we want in our communities.

I see this legislation as a positive move forward that will enable us to deliver quality, affordable housing with the types of smart transport connections that are affordable, frequent, good for the climate. I really, really do hope that when we start to see the types of projects that are enabled by this, there will be an excellent opportunity for community to really be involved and to be there at the beginning of the structure planning so that we can start to see the types of neighbourhoods that all New Zealanders would love to live in. Tēnā koutou.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am taking this call to oppose the Urban Development Bill in its second reading. We supported this bill in the first reading, and we supported it because we wanted to hear from submitters in the select committee process, and we wanted to work on this legislation to make it fit for purpose legislation. But what we saw during the select committee process was that there were several concerns that came through, and those concerns matched with the concerns that we have, and that’s why we have decided to not support this legislation going forward.

We fully understand the intention of this legislation, and we support the intention of this legislation—that is, urban development—and before the last election we started the process of forming an urban development authority and we started a consultation process as well, and so that’s why we decided to support this legislation in the first reading, because this legislation is intending to coordinate the use of land and also infrastructure to maximise its benefits for people. During the select committee process—I’m not a member of the Environment Committee, but I’ve gone through what submitters had to say—I see that there were 134 submissions out of which the select committee had the opportunity to hear from 52 submitters. I was listening to the Minister when he made his speech, and the Minister said that most of the submitters supported the direction of this legislation. So, yes, we also support the intention of this legislation. That doesn’t mean we support this legislation, because we believe that the mechanism that this legislation is using to deliver what it intends to deliver is not going to work.

So because of the statement by the Minister that most submitters supported the direction of this bill, I would like to dissect what submitters had to say. So if we break down what submitters had to say, and if I just break them down under different headings—that is supported or not supported—then we see only about 20 percent of submitters supported this legislation. Around 29 percent—I’m rounding the percentage up—of submitters didn’t support this legislation. So going from one extreme—that is, 20 percent supporting—to 29 percent that didn’t support this legislation, in the middle there are a lot of submitters that have said that they support the intention of this bill, but they had some reservations, and that number is 27 percent, and 21 percent had no clear position on this legislation.

So that just shows us that this legislation, though the intention is there, is not going to deliver what it intends to deliver. There were some common themes that came through on various parts of this legislation from various submitters. Resource Management Act: we have heard from various speakers on this legislation before, and yes that came up again and again, because submitters thought that it was important that the Resource Management Act was taken along with this legislation. We cannot find a solution without looking at the Resource Management Act, because we know that when the Resource Management Act was implemented, for those days it was fine, but now we have seen this huge population growth—we are over 5 million people. I’m based in Mt Roskill and there are a lot of Housing New Zealand houses being developed—old houses are being demolished and replaced with new houses, and I’m a big supporter of the mixed housing model. So we need those houses coming up in Auckland, because that’s where we are seeing big population growth, and we need infrastructure to support that kind of growth. But for that, we have to tackle the Resource Management Act, and this legislation is trying to find a way to tackle this issue without tackling the Resource Management Act, and that’s why we don’t have confidence that this legislation will be able to deliver what it intends to deliver.

The second thing is about partnerships with various organisations. If we look at the submitters, most of the submitters were organisations, because we know that this legislation is to bring changes at central government level and also local government level. So excluding all the local government submissions, if you look at the submissions most of them were from organisations. These organisations are keen to understand how partnerships will work. So partnerships with private organisations are important to deliver this important objective of this legislation, and we didn’t get enough clarification in the select committee process that that will be possible.

Then private property rights were another issue that came up. Private property rights are important for people. We know that, yes, Government can acquire private property under the Public Works Act, but in this legislation the way it is put forward looks like it is going to minimise those rights that people have on their private property. We want to encourage people owning private property—they should feel very proud, they should not feel insecure owning a private property.

The Green member who spoke before me, the Hon Julie Anne Genter, talked about an efficient transport system and also providing an enabling environment for communities. Actually, that was something that did come up, because this legislation doesn’t speak enough to affordability of houses, and it doesn’t speak enough to low-emission transport systems or safer, efficient transport systems. It doesn’t speak enough about that enabling environment that the member talked about to provide for communities, because in communities we have people that are in different age groups, there are children and there are seniors, and we want to see that there are amenities and things provided in terms of infrastructure to support these different age groups, and this legislation doesn’t speak enough to provide for all these things. And that’s why we have decided not to support this legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I rise to speak in support of the Urban Development Bill. My electorate is Mt Roskill. I live there; I know the community well. One of the most positive things that is happening in Mt Roskill is that through Kāinga Ora we are leading a comprehensive urban redevelopment of our community to provide the affordable housing that our local families need and to do exactly the kind of integrated planning that the member speaking prior, Parmjeet Parmar, just referred to—new and improved roads, parks, community facilities—all the rest of it, to actually build a community that people want to live in and that can cater for the urban growth that is happening in Auckland and in many of our main urban centres.

This bill is one of the key structural elements that will help us to deliver that on a wider scale and deliver the affordable housing that New Zealanders need. This Government’s record is strong in this area. Pre-COVID we had record building consents going through the system. We’ve got Resource Management Act reform on the move now, after 25 years of inaction. We’ve got a record number of affordable and public houses being built, better insulation standards and health standards for people in housing, and this piece of legislation will help us to build even more of the houses in the context of good communities that our people need. I commend it to the House.

I call Simeon Brown—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call in the Urban Development Bill. I find it quite interesting, the member for Mt Roskill talking about this Government’s record on housing. Dare I remind the House about the Government’s record in regard to “Kiwi Fail”—I mean, sorry, KiwiBuild, where they’ve delivered, I think, 380 houses—

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Is the architect here?

Yes, the architect of that project is in the House, and it’s great to see him here. But 380 houses, when they promised 10,000 per year. What a fail. And of course we’ve got light fail as well—I mean, light rail, which is another shocker.

💬 Dr Parmjeet Parmar: To Mt Roskill—light rail is going to Mt Roskill!

That also goes through Mt Roskill, doesn’t it? Well, it should be there by now; we’re only 85 days from the election; I’m sure the local member is working very hard trying to get “light fail” through his electorate along with “Kiwi Fail”, because they are certainly his priorities.

The National Party will not be supporting the Urban Development Bill. Whilst we support the intent of the urban development authorities and the need for reform in this area, the reality is that this Government is kicking the can down the road with what the real issue is, which is fixing the Resource Management Act and making the long-term changes, which not only benefit the Crown and Crown development through Kāinga Ora, which is what this bill will do, but also ensure that the planning rules and processes are in place so that private developers are given the same opportunities to be able to have faster consent processes and be able to realise the benefits that this bill seeks to provide. This is something which is not provided in this bill, and is something that needs to be done to ensure that our legislation actually provides wholesale reform so that we can actually have better housing, built faster, and at a lower cost. Unfortunately, this Government is not tackling those real issues which the National Party will be doing in 85 days, once we’re elected to Government.

💬 Hon Members: Ha!

And I hear them laugh, but seek.co.nz—take a look: you might need a job soon; that’s for the members across the aisle.

The other issue in regards to this bill, which I know a lot of people submitted on—but also a range of people in my electorate of Pakuranga have approached me around—is the balance that this bill gets in regards to the balance between urban development goals and the recognition of property rights. This bill does grant Kāinga Ora significant land acquisition powers, and whilst these powers are largely similar to the land acquisition powers set out in the Public Works Act 1981, it does differ in some significant respects. There is significant concern around this, particularly regarding the reduced offer-back arrangements, which will impinge on property rights. This is an issue which I know that a lot of communities up and down New Zealand will have concerns about. I know in my electorate of Pakuranga, the area around Howick, Stockade Hill, is an area which has significant historic and heritage aspects to it. Those communities are concerned about how these powers may be used, and that is another reason why the National Party won’t be supporting this bill, because there needs to be better balance in that regard.

So we have a number of questions around the powers, we believe there needs to be more scrutiny of these powers, and for those reasons, the National Party will not be supporting this bill.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s a funny old game, isn’t it? The Environment Committee, which I chair and which is probably one of the most hard-working committees in this House, has been sitting pretty much all this week.

The National members were really good on this bill. They worked through it. They tidied it up, took on suggestions, gave suggestions, made sure that the powers of the various authorities involved were suitably limited, made sure that the rating powers weren’t too extensive, and made sure that any excess in the special levies went back to where they belonged, and we have a fantastic bill that’s come out of the select committee, in a fine form—and now they come to the House and don’t support it. That’s really surprising, but I want to thank them for the great work they’ve done. They’ve made this bill better, and there’s going to be better housing developments in New Zealand because of it. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a good effort, and I would acknowledge the Government for that. This highlights some of the complexity we have in the planning and development space, but, unfortunately, creating this Urban Development Bill isn’t fixing the underlying issue. We’ve already heard from this side of the House a number of concerns around the Resource Management Act and how that fits in, and that is where we need to see some serious reform. Unfortunately, the Government has indicated they’re looking to review that, but that won’t happen this side of the election, of course, so this isn’t really landing in the right space.

Whilst we commend the effort in terms of trying to create a system that enables a better planning environment and facilitates that development in an expedited way, the challenge here is, in part, that it is tacking another piece of legislation on to the side of that overall framework and it’s not addressing the underlying issue, it’s not providing the right solution, and, actually, in this particular situation with this bill, the risk is that it shifts the power too much in favour of Crown-oriented or Crown-initiated developments. In a time like we’re facing at the moment, where there are significant challenges on the horizon, the economy is facing a major uphill battle, we need to be encouraging private investment, private businesses, as much as possible and facilitating them to pick up the mantle and move forward with projects. Our concern is that this doesn’t achieve that, and it actually skews the balance more in favour of those Crown-initiated projects, which is a concern as well.

It also seems to be overly complex in a number of facets, and we heard, actually, Auckland Council submit on that, and also the Law Society raising some concerns in that regard, with the number of Acts this reaches across and the risk of conflicts arising out of that.

So, look, on the face of it, a good effort, but, unfortunately, not the right piece of legislation we need at this time, so we can’t support it. From this side of the House, our position remains that we need more wholesale reform of the Resource Management Act to facilitate that better development, and that will be our focus post-election, should we have the opportunity. So we do not support this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand and speak on this bill. This is a really important bill, because as we came into Government we’ve inherited a huge housing crisis. Certainly down in Invercargill, our State houses were sold off. We’ve got an acute shortage of housing across all different housing classes. And what this bill will do is it allows Kāinga Ora to be that development authority that can pull together and do streamlined and integrated large urban development projects.

It’s an incredibly technical bill and I want to thank all of those who made submissions on this bill. We had about 133 people that submitted and, as a result, this bill has ended up a lot better. I also want to really just acknowledge the work that our officials did because, again, as I say, an incredibly complex bill, but they worked really hard and we ended up with a good result. So it’s a pleasure to support this bill and I commend this bill to the House.

Amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority agreed to.