Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

We come first to the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, Part 1. Members, this is the debate on clauses 4 to 12, “Urban densification policies and other matters”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The ACT Party had a number of questions on behalf of submitters that were raised in the committee stage, and they primarily related to how the bill was going to give effect to the objectives that ACT shares with the Government and with the National Party, which has jointly sponsored the bill—that is, in order to actually deliver the number of houses, somewhere between 48,000 and a 100,000-odd homes; and we’ve heard the Labour Party promise 100,000 homes on a campaign husting before. But, in order to actually deliver them, what were the problems the bill tried to solve, and was the bill, in the way it was written, actually going to solve them? Was it going to make it easier to build more homes? Was it going to get rid of some of the red tape? Was the bill actually going to simplify the planning processes for private developers and homeowners who might want to subdivide a property that has an existing family home on it and build another one on the back? Was it actually going to make it easier?

Our initial analysis carried out in the few days after the announcement indicated that the bill would actually make it harder to deliver more homes, take longer than the projects already planned and well advanced by many private developers, create a parallel consenting regime in addition to the Resource Management Act (RMA) consenting regime, which still developers must go through for all kinds of matters in addition to actually the shape of the house, and also introduced a new medium density residential standard that was an urban design standard for buildings in residential areas that had never been proposed or tested or consulted on. The problem with actually proposing and developing legislation in secret is that you never actually get to test your ideas out on the people who are most affected, and, actually, those businesses, those developers who have the capability and the capacity to build more homes and to deliver more affordable, better quality homes.

Developers came to the committee and they made it very clear that their projects—already well-developed, but of course not yet notified; no decisions taken as yet—actually were proposing to deliver, in some cases, 7,000 homes in Hamilton East on the Peacocke subdivision area or the Beachlands South development, one that actually features the New Zealand Superannuation Fund as a finance partner. They told the committee that, actually, this bill was going to make it much harder to deliver their projects because they would not be able to use all of the planning, all of the investigation, all of the technical work that they had done for their master plan developments, which include a mixture of terraced housing, apartments, low density. They would not be able to use that information to comply with the medium density residential standards (MDRS) standard that would be painted on to their subdivisions, because, essentially, it would increase the amount of infrastructure required, the size of the pipes, and the size of the pump stations by up to three times.

They told the committee, “If you want to build more homes, could you please give us an exemption for our high quality master plan developments delivering modern communities? Could you please give us an exemption for that—or at least, if you must bring us into the scheme, could we be allowed to proceed with our developments without having to go through the RMA? Could we use a fast-tracked planning process?” And, given the number of fast-track planning and consenting processes that this Government has proposed over the past few years, whether it’s the fast-track consenting for COVID19 special projects or whether it’s fast tracking for New Zealand Upgrade projects, this bill actually doesn’t give the private sector the opportunity to fast track. It reserves all of those rights to Government and to councils, and many councils also are seeking exemptions or significant modifications as well.

Thank you for the question from Simon Court. The point in respect of a large master plan development, for example, was raised at select committee, and that’s been reported to me. The recommendation of the select committee, which the Government has adopted, is that, effectively, those master-planned areas will get the benefit of the intensification rules that will flow through. So that is achieved, if they’ve got a plan in process, by way of a variation to their plan change. But, of course, they don’t have to build to the intensity; they’re just allowed to. This is an enabling bill, not a requiring bill.

Well, further to that point, I think possibly the Minister has missed two important considerations that people who actually build houses will be well aware of. One is that they may not necessarily have lodged an application at the present time but, none the less, invested large amounts of work, perhaps millions of dollars of planning activity, and a lot of time into master planning a development. So giving them any kind of, I guess, grandfathering clause, which sounds like what the Minister’s proposing, from the current time or sometime into the future, will still “sterilise”—is the word that’s been used in the select committee—some of the plans that are put in place.

The second thing is that the Minister is right, in one sense, in saying that this is an enabling bill. But one of the misconceptions that seems to have run through the Minister’s commentary on the bill, and the bill in general, is that it’s enabling allowing one standard of zoning density across a wide area. Actually, in a free society people often choose a range of different schemes in order to fulfil their needs. An example of that: some of these master plan developments have said, “We would like to have a lower density in some parts in order to sell sections that we don’t have to service at any great level of intensity with our infrastructure.” The so-called enablement that this Government is offering, saying, “Actually, no. That’s now illegal. You must upgrade all of the density that you had planned.”, throws out of whack the area structure plans—have you heard of area structure planning; that’s really important—all of the infrastructure planning that’s been done for a master plan development. So the Minister’s got to take this stuff seriously.

Unfortunately, it’s a consequence of the way that this bill was done. The Minister knows this, because he’s been approached by people who wanted to do more consultation with councils. He thought it was a good idea but he got rolled by Megan Woods—is the sad irony of all this. He knows what I’m talking about. I want to ask the Minister: is he aware that, first of all, putting back the date for applications that have already been made won’t help those that have been planned, sometimes for a long period of time at great expense, prior to application? Is he concerned he’s going to sterilise master planning that’s been done prior to application? And does he understand that, while the bill notionally is enabling, if it becomes effectively illegal to have some areas of some developments at lower density in support of an infrastructure plan for a development, he’s actually taking away the ability to plan in that way and will sterilise a lot of developments that have been made? Those two questions, please.

No, I don’t accept the assertion that’s made by the member.

How can the Minister not accept the assertion made by me—I can understand that; we’re both politicians—when it’s actually also an assertion that’s been made by a large number of people whose actual job is to build houses? This is the issue, right? He can refuse to accept an assertion by me, perhaps, but how can he refuse to accept an assertion made by people who actually build homes—you know, people that have master plan developments who’ve come to the committee and said, “What you are doing will sterilise or stop the development or severely delay the development of thousands of homes.”? So is he just refusing to accept the assertion made by me or is he telling those developers they don’t know what they’re doing?

I’m telling the member that he’s wrong.

If it’s the case, would it be too much of the Minister’s time to stand up and just maybe give an explanation just to those people? I wouldn’t want people to form the view of the Minister that he’s perhaps a little bit aloof or a little bit acerbic—a little bit like the voters of Otago did in 2005, as the Chair will know. So maybe what he could do is stand up and actually just give the people the benefit of his wisdom and say why I’m wrong, why it’s the case that people who have done a lot of investment in master planning but haven’t yet applied won’t be helped by grandfathering in applications that have already been made, and why it’s not the case that we’re banning low-density areas of master planned developments, which is effectively what the medium density residential standards imposition does, is not going to put out of whack their area structure plans, their infrastructure plans, all of the planning that they’ve done for these master planned developments. If you’d just get up and—you know, if it’s so obvious, get up and just tell us.

Madam Chair, I’m happy to say it again. But I actually addressed the same underlying issue when I responded to his colleague Mr Court.

💬 David Seymour: No, you didn’t.

I did. What this bill does in respect, for example, of an area that has been through or is going through a master planning process is it enables the development of the land within that development to be, essentially, three storied subject to setbacks.

💬 David Seymour: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that.

Well, if you know that, that’s the answer. It doesn’t require them to build it; it just enables them to build it, and it doesn’t stop the master planned development that has been approved. If it’s in a planning process and is yet to be approved, that process can continue, but a variation will probably make it more enabling for that developer rather than more restrictive. It is, of course, up to the developer whether they choose to take advantage of that more enabling planning framework and build more densely. They don’t have to, but they’ll be allowed to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, while we’re on the subject of master plans, it’s my understanding that the bill, because it does apply that medium density residential zoning, as an underlying zoning, for any private plan changes—there’s still a degree of voluntary nature in terms of whether the developer chooses to apply that. So, in terms of some of the private planning and upzoning that is occurring around areas like Templeton, Prebbleton, and Rolleston, this bill won’t do anything to prevent urban sprawl.

Can I ask the Minister whether he has considered Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 115, which is all about master planning? Because it picks up submissions from a number of developers and others who highlighted the change that has occurred in residential density, through section sizes getting smaller across the decades. So the quarter-acre “pavlova paradise” dream of a section generally provides about eight households a hectare. Then, in the post-war periods, we got about 30 houses a hectare. But, in areas like Hobsonville, where there’s been a commitment to doing master planning well, there are 30 to 40 homes per hectare.

So the Green Party SOP in my name is about enabling those developers which have gone to the trouble of having a master plan, so that you have an integrated development that recognises that you want green spaces, that you want a mix of densities but a preference for more dwellings at that higher and medium density, and that infrastructure considerations are also integrated. This SOP provides for a better opportunity for these master plans to proceed as a controlled activity on land that is already zoned residential in a district plan, so it’s not the rural to residential. But it does ensure that we get the master planning developments going ahead with a greater coherence than the bill currently enables, and it makes it easier for those well-designed developments to proceed, which would assist with the bill’s objective of getting more houses—more medium-density houses—faster.

So the bill as it came back from select committee, while it certainly accommodates private plan changes, does not have specific provisions which facilitate these master plan developments going ahead in accordance with the master plan.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and can I thank the member Eugenie Sage. She put a lot of work in as chair of the select committee that oversaw the bill. We’re not proposing having a mandatory obligation for a master plan to have a particular density in this bill; so we won’t be backing that Supplementary Order Paper. That’s not within the scope of what we’ve planned through this particular legislation. It is “enabling” rather than “requiring”—a point that I have made in an earlier contribution.

To the Minister in the chair, David Parker, you are absolutely correct: it is enabling legislation—and it’s entirely possible in this world that two things may be correct at the same time. It is enabling, but it also creates, through the enabling process, an imposition on master plan developers. We’re talking about groups that would spend, according to the Adare group, Beachlands South, which, again, as I said, includes the major funder New Zealand Super Fund—New Zealand Super Fund, right? They have sunk, by their estimates—by their estimates, the Adare group, Hamilton—$3 million to $4 million and three to four years in undertaking all of what they called the pre-lodgement work. Before you can even put your application in for a master plan development, you firstly have to have a planner look at the zoning, you have to have a geotechnical engineer, an ecologist, probably someone who knows something about bats look at the land that you propose to develop on. Each one of those technical reports costs between $25,000 and $100,000.

Once you’ve done your initial assessment, then you start your planning and your preliminary design. You go to council, you ask them, “This is our proposal. Can you see any major hooks and crooks in the planning and consenting approach that we’re taking?” And, you know, councils actually, even despite the fact it costs them money and they have to suffer a financial disadvantage for saying yes to people—and that’s a separate matter, infrastructure funding and financing—what they tell developers and applicants is, “Actually, there may be a few ways you can steer your development around some of the rules that will make it easy to get over the line. We would love to assist you in that way, because we also don’t want to spend a whole lot of our time going through your application having to litigate the whole thing. So get it right and then it’ll be easier for us to say yes to.” That process takes years and costs millions.

What these master plan developers have said to us, what they’ve said to the committee, is, “Actually, we’re just about at the point of lodgement. We’ve got all of our stakeholders on board, we’ve got the local ‘Save the Bats’ group on board, we’ve got iwi on board, we’ve got our local council planning team on board. All we need to do is tick the boxes and make sure, when this set of documents”—which I can guarantee you is far bigger than the set of documents sitting on the Table right now in front of you; if you stacked it all up, it’d be metres high—“when we lodge, we want to make sure that we haven’t wasted millions and millions of dollars in investment in planning and technical reporting.” But what this bill will do is tell them that all of that can go in the bin, because, when you come to council and you apply for your master plan development, all of the reports about “Will the bats be affected?” and “Will the stormwater system be able to cope and will the waste-water pipes be big enough?”—that all goes in the bin because they now have to allow for three houses, three stories, on every single lot in their subdivision. Yes, it’s enabling, this legislation, but it’s also disabling because it’s actually torching years and years of work.

Now, one of the members on our select committee, Rachel Brooking, is a Resource Management Act (RMA) lawyer, and I know that in a past life we—me as an engineer and Rachel Brooking as an RMA lawyer—may well have collaborated on projects just like this. So I’m confident that at least that member is well aware of the risks that I’m talking about, that they are real. So we propose a solution. When we get to the schedules, I’ll be proposing an amendment which, actually, if the Minister wants local councils to suffer under the medium density residential standards enabling—or disabling—provision—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! The member’s getting a little far away from Part 1. Thank you.

Thank you—thank you, Madam Chair. Coming back to Part 1: so there are some fundamental issues with the bill, which submitters pointed out to us. They have not been addressed by the amendments, and I just want to come to that very briefly. The committee only had a very early draft of the bill to consider. We spent many, many hours poring through it line by line and each day we were offered amendments, and right up until 24 hours ago the final bill was not tabled. So it’s been very, very difficult, not just for parties like the ACT Party, that wants to contribute to making better laws and improving public policy, but submitters, those affected, have had zero time to understand the effects of this bill. Minister, I’d like you to explain to them why you think that’s fair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d also like to make some comments and ask a couple of questions in relation to Part 1 of this bill. In particular, I’m interested to know from the Minister his thinking, and the thinking of his advisers, in relation to strengthening the qualifying matters that have appeared in the Government Supplementary Order Paper.

Now, at first reading, there were provisions for qualifying matters that would enable councils to exclude from the provisions of this legislation certain areas and properties that they felt, for a variety of reasons, were not going to be appropriate under this legislation. I for one, and I know that my colleagues on this side of the House in the National Party—we were actually quite pleased to see that there had been some movement from the Minister in this regard, and I’m keen to just understand a little about the rationale and the logic behind that and what the motivations were for extending some of the qualifying matters that, essentially, give councils more power, where they think justified, to exclude from the provisions of this legislation certain properties, or even areas within an urban environment that they feel—for instance, in terms of heritage protection—may not be appropriate.

Thank you for that question, the Hon Scott Simpson. This is dealt with in clause 77G, on page 11 of the tracked changes version of the bill, with some related provisions in the clauses that follow. The member is correct that there has been some change recommended by the select committee that we’ve adopted. There is some express reference to other qualifying matters that weren’t in the original version of the bill, including, for example, the vision and strategy for the Waikato River / Te Ture Whaimana o Te Awa o Waikato, and also matters giving effect to the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act or the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Act.

Perhaps more significant are some of the changes that were made to make these provisions more practical for councils to apply, which enable councils to reply on earlier work that they have done rather than having to do a separate assessment in respect of each case that comes before them. That’s probably the more important change that was made at select committee.

I should also say it’s not the intention to allow overlays on a whole suburb that aren’t related to a matter of real import. So, for example, if something is in a flood plain and there is a worry that a river in flood could mean that an area could be flooded, that could apply to a whole area, but if someone wanted to protect historic heritage, it would have to be done on either a building or a group of buildings basis rather than on a whole suburb basis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That’s a very interesting phrase that the Minister just used. He said it’s not the intention for the qualifying matters to extinguish medium-density residential zone or the standard of—it’s confusing because, when the regulatory impact statement was done, it was the medium-density residential zone. Then five months later, when all this came to light, it had morphed into a standard. And I’ve heard even the Minister and some of the other proponents of the bill from the National Party get that confusion, but there you go.

The qualifying matters that extinguish it from some areas have certainly been widened as the bill was introduced. You know, the qualifying matters really were on a per property basis, and it would have been totally impractical for councils to go through and identify, in the case of heritage, what exactly was important. But I guess the Minister said it’s not the intention that whole suburbs would apply. I guess one of the questions that might become pertinent quite soon is—I think about an area in, say, Mount Albert. It’s a nice suburb in Auckland, well represented, I hear. And, on the hill there, there’s some quite heritage-type homes, very nice homes. I suspect those people might go to their local MP and ask, “Why can’t our area be a heritage zone or have a heritage overlay that would extinguish the medium density residential standards (MDRS)?” So can the Minister just talk through what would be the process for deciding whether or not a heritage overlay was a qualifying matter?

In particular, what would he envisage being the role of the Minister in deciding whether indeed a heritage matter was a qualifying matter in a particular region? Let’s just use the side of Mount Albert. I don’t know if the Minister knows Auckland very well, but the north side, facing the sun, overlooking Mount Albert town from the actual mountain there—and I’ll just give the Minister a bit more time; he’s clearly seeking some advice. But, you know, that’s the question: what actually happens when a group of residents in a street on the northern slopes of Mount Albert insist that actually there should be a heritage overlay in their area and that should be a qualifying matter? And, come to that, what happens when some more people, just down the hill in Mount Albert, say, “Well, you know, the view shaft, our ability to see Mount Albert, is one of the things that makes Auckland special.” You see, lots of cities have rivers and lots of cities have harbours, but very few cities have 50 volcanic cones spread throughout them. A lot of Aucklanders view that as being something very distinctive and hence the view shaft—

💬 Simon Court: Some of us just view them as a quarry.

Yeah, and Simon Court’s said—he’s a civil engineer to his teeth—“Some of us just view those volcanic cones as a quarry.” I, of course, don’t have a view on that, but if I did, it wouldn’t include certain cones. But what I would say is that these are important questions. The Minister’s just said it’s not the intention that a whole suburb be a heritage zone. So can the Minister talk us through: a group of people on the slopes of Mount Albert go to their local MP and they ask, “What’s the process? Why can’t we get an overlay as a heritage zone that is a qualifying matter so the MDRS doesn’t apply on the northern slopes of Mount Albert?” Where does it get to, and what’s the role of the Minister in deciding whether or not there is a qualifying matter?

The Minister has no role. That’s a matter that’s delegated in the legislation to local government. In respect of the list of qualifying matters that’s set out at new section 77G, members will see that paragraph (h) to that clause says “that any other matter that makes higher density as provided for by the MDRS [or policy 3] inappropriate in an area, but only if section 77I is [triggered].” Section 77I then says that in respect of those further requirements, it also brings some related provisions in the existing National Policy Statement on Urban Development, and in effect, what that does is say that, for other matters like heritage, a site-by-site analysis is required by the council, whereas, for the other listed matters, they can rely on more general overlays.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So the Minister has just stated that he doesn’t have decision making of the qualifying matters, that that is a matter for local councils. And, yet, once a plan is proposed through the intensification planning process and it’s proposed by a hearings panel, if a council which represents its community finds that some of the provisions in this plan are unacceptable for whatever reason—whether they be heritage or because it interferes with other values that are recognised in the Resource Management Act—if they refuse to accept all of these measures, then that plan will be referred to the Minister to make a decision.

So that’s where it’s going to end up. It’s going to end up on the Minister’s desk. And, as the Minister pointed out in the House the other night, he may not always be the Minister. It’s been said elsewhere that the Minister for the Environment ends up being the “Minister of Everything”, and so any changes to resource management law must recognise that, actually, communities’ needs, wants, values do need to be taken into account. And if there is a community like Mount Albert or on the slopes of Mount Hobson, where I grew up, it decides that they want their community and their homes and their streets to look a certain way because there are values around volcanic cones—not all of them should be quarried; I just want to clear that up. Some of them actually have fantastic purposes, such as water care, water reservoirs, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at them, because those pieces of infrastructure have been so well integrated into the cones over the years, which means that the cones still have value, as—

💬 Hon Michael Wood: Hasn’t been to Three Kings!

—Three Kings, Mount Hobson. Again, a concrete water tank, as the Hon Michael Wood points out, on top of Three Kings, does have an iconic cultural value to many, and it’s important that communities get to choose which of the values they wish to see incorporated in planning law that affects them. So any planning, any plan, which is proposed under this bill, which ends up on the Minister’s desk, means that the Minister will have decision making.

💬 David Seymour: Yes, and why did he say he doesn’t?

So the question is—thank you, Mr Seymour. The question is: why did the Minister say that he doesn’t have decision making over qualifying matters when, ultimately, he will? And he no doubt was looking forward to this as the “Minister of Everything”, currently Minister for the Environment. Minister?

The discretion that the Minister for the Environment has is limited to the—

💬 David Seymour: No role—you said “no role”.

Well, no role in the way in which the member previously put to me.

💬 David Seymour: So this is “no role” but he has a role—righto.

Take another call if you want to put your question more specifically, because I answered it accurately in the first place. In respect of the point that Mr Court has made—[Interruption]—the processes that the council proposes—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order! Order! Order! Apologies to the Minister. Interjections should be rare and reasonable; an ongoing barrage of comments and questions is not acceptable, and members have the opportunity in this committee stage to stand and ask for a call.

It’s obvious that I’ve got under the skin of the leader of the ACT Party for answering questions. In respect of the point that Mr Court made, the process is that the council proposes a plan that they believe to be in compliance with these laws. An independent hearings panel then considers it. The independent hearings panel will go back to the council, and I would expect, nine out of 10 times, all of it will be approved. Sometimes there will be aspects of it that the council disagrees with. In respect of all of the parts that the council agrees with, they automatically come into effect. And, in respect of the part that is disagreed with, someone has to take a decision on that because there is a disagreement then between the independent hearings panel and the council, and, at that point, that point of disagreement is put to the Minister.

In respect of the point made about volcanic view shafts, that is a matter that can be taken into account by councils. It effectively flows through the matters of national importance, which are carried through by new section 77G in the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The select committee spent some time clarifying the application of the intensification planning instrument, which had been through the intensification streamlined planning process, which the Minister has just described, with the independent hearings panel making recommendations to the council.

Can I ask the Minister a couple of things. There was concern amongst some submitters that there is a potential for bottlenecks if the Minister is making a decision—Waipā District Council, for example, had said that their plan change through the existing streamlined planning process had been somewhat delayed. So what are the processes in place, if a number of councils are doing these intensification streamlined instruments at the same time and if there are differences between the council’s decision on the recommendations of the hearing panel, so they go to the Minister, to ensure that there aren’t bottlenecks there?

And has the Minister, in terms of the concern that the Green Party has about the centralisation of power in the Minister’s domain—we didn’t really get a clear explanation through the select committee process about why we haven’t followed, in this bill, the model with the Auckland Unitary Plan, where, if there are differences between what the independent hearings panel recommends and the council’s decisions, if the council doesn’t accept all the recommendations, there is an ability to appeal to the court, because it’s our concern that there is a restriction of access to justice because the ability to appeal to the Environment Court does not exist under this streamlined intensification planning instrument process.

In respect of the first of those issues, there is a resource constraint within any ministry if they have too much to do and we expect them to do what they’re already doing and pick up an extra job. It’s actually one of the reasons why the Government members on the committee didn’t agree with the suggestion that private plan changes should be able to go through this process, because that would have increased the volume of plan changes that came through in that regard; therefore, this process is limited to council plan changes.

💬 David Seymour: What? You just said we don’t want to build more homes because you’d have to process more applications.

“W-h-a-t” is what we heard from the ACT leader. If he can’t understand simple answers, take another call. That’s the reason: that private plan changes—it could overwhelm the system.

In respect of the question as to whether it should go to the Environment Court or the Minister, that’s a proper question to ask. The reason why the Government landed on it going to the Minister was that the discretion of the Minister is, essentially, limited by the two ends of the dispute, if you like: what the independent hearings panel thought and what the council thinks. They’ll have both put their viewpoints to it, the issues will have considerably narrowed, and we thought it was appropriate that we just get on with it and implement these upzoning provisions, because they’re so important. And, if we were to put that to the Environment Court, we can see that that could add another year, perhaps more, to the process, and we thought that that was inappropriate.

At its heart, this bill is actually quite simple: it enables three-storey developments at the centre of our largest centres, and we need that, and we need that not just in the suburbs where you can currently do that in Auckland, which are virtually all of West Auckland and South Auckland, but we need it in the isthmus, because that’s where so much of the housing and housebuilding opportunities are, and that’s, of course, why the ACT Party opposes it.

Oh, Madam Chair, so can we just get clear what the Minister for the Environment has just told the committee and New Zealand. He said that private plan changes should be fast tracked if they’re initiated by councils—that’s good—but they can’t be initiated by private developers. For example, some people may have seen in the New Zealand Herald last weekend that the first two pages in the paper were taken out by a developer with a development called Sunfield; 5,000 developments that haven’t been able to be fast tracked by the Government because—sorry, I just have to pause and get this straight. So the Minister said that they can’t allow private developers to access the fast-track planning process, because they’d be too busy and they’d be overwhelmed.

Now, if that’s seriously what the Minister’s says, let’s just get this clear. We’re here to try to make a law to make it easier to build more homes. But the Minister says that we can’t let just anyone apply to build more homes, because he might get overwhelmed trying to process them. I mean, if that’s seriously what he’s saying, then I think we’re starting to see the wheels fall off and the serious problems with a Government trying to plan the development of property and communities up and down New Zealand. That’s the basic problem. And, of course, there is an amendment on the Table, and it should be adopted, that will allow private developers to take advantage of private plan changes, because, hey, they can build homes too. That is absolutely critical.

There’s quite a lot more to say, but I just want the Minister to be clear that he’s not going to support private plan changes being able to access the fast-track consenting process because he thinks that there’ll be too many applications to be processed. Is that actually what he said?

The member described me as saying that private plan changes can be initiated by the council. I didn’t say that. Council plan changes are initiated by councils, not private plan changes. Of course, private developers get the benefit of the planning changes that are caused in all of these cities by the plan changes that are required to be brought forward by the council, because they can now build three storeys.

I think I’d just ask if the Minister could further clarify that, because I think the ACT Party is creating some confusion here. The Environment Committee spent quite a lot of time dealing with the provision in the bill as introduced that private plan changes that hadn’t had the hearing completed by 20 February 2022 would have to be removed. One of the major recommendations was that they could go through the intensification streamlined planning process if the council decided to adopt or accept them, and that they could also go through as a variation when they were re-looked at by the applicants. So could the Minister just clarify that there is scope for private plan changes to continue but that they are required to be accepted or adopted by the council or go through as a variation.

Yes, and, in fact, I had addressed that earlier issue. That is correct, and that’s preserved through the transitional provisions.

I move, That the question be now put.

That has got to be the most premature closure motion I’ve heard in all the times I’ve been in this committee—

💬 Barbara Edmonds: Repetition.

—in this House. The member now says that there’s repetition. I don’t think she’s quite grasping that this is a problem. I don’t think that her party grasp the subtlety of the matters that are being dealt with. The question I want to move to is, actually, the nature of the medium density residential standards (MDRS) itself. Now, this medium density residential standard, as introduced—for people who may be tuning into this at home, what it says is any residential section of any size can be up to 50 percent covered by three homes, up to three stories tall, 11 metres plus half the roof, and they can be a metre from your boundary, with a six metre then 60 degree height to boundary ratio, and no urban design standards outside of that basic description apply. Now, there’s a couple of other things: you’ve got to have a metre outlook outside a couple of your windows and three metres by three metres outside your primary window, but, basically, that’s it. If you comply with those rules, then no question.

I guess that it needs to be acknowledged that the Government has indicated that it would like to restrict that. So the biggest change they’ve contemplated would be to drag down the height. So it’s instead of six metres up, four metres up and then in at 60 degrees. It’s worth noting that—

Order!

💬 DAVID SEYMOUR: Yes?

Can I invite the member to return to Part 1 of the bill?

💬 DAVID SEYMOUR: Well, Madam Chair, Part 1 introduces the MDRS. Now, the details of it may well be in the schedule—

And so I’m advising the member to return specifically to Part—

💬 DAVID SEYMOUR: Oh, sure. No, no, no—I apologise, Madam Chair. I certainly am; I just wanted to give some context about what we’re talking about because it’s hard to talk about Part 1 without knowing about the—

Well, thank you for that, and the member’s time will be—[Members seeking call]

💬 DAVID SEYMOUR: She’s on her feet, guys.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member will have the opportunity to further develop his argument and his questions when we are dealing with Part 2, but now we’re dealing with Part 1.

💬 DAVID SEYMOUR: Madam Chair, thank you. I take your point, Madam Chair, but the questions I’m asking—

Order! The member will resume his seat, and I invite the member not to argue with my ruling, but I invite him to continue to with his questioning around Part 1.

💬 DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to be clear: I’m certainly not arguing with your ruling. All I’m trying to do is show how, actually, what I was saying—I’m just giving a bit of context—

Well, the member is now arguing with my ruling, and I am now warning him that he needs, right now, to return specifically to Part 1 of the bill. Thank you, David Seymour.

💬 DAVID SEYMOUR: Part 1 would introduce the medium density residential standard, the details of which I’ve just outlined. What I want to ask the Minister is around some of the assumptions behind what that will do, because I’ve looked at the regulatory impact statement and, without having it immediately in front of me, the gist of it is that they say that they haven’t done any bespoke analysis of what the introduction of this planning instrument and specifically the MDRS within it will achieve. What they’ve said is they’ve relied on, basically, literature reviews that say a couple of things: one is that, in some cases, residential land use regulations are a constraint on housing supply. Well, that is most certainly true. I don’t think anyone in this Parliament has argued that for longer, stronger, or more consistently than I have. That is point number one. Number two is that it’s not always true in all circumstances. Because the second thing that’s very important to understand in any kind of economic analysis is something that Alfred Nobel came up with 150 years ago; it’s called the marginal revolution—the idea that economists think at the margin. So just because something was true in some circumstances at one point doesn’t mean that it’s true right now. That’s why they should have done bespoke analysis in the regulatory impact statement (RIS) to give the specifics of that.

You take the reasoning that was used to justify the introduction of these planning intensification instruments in Part 1—well, you take the analysis that was done by, I think it was, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the accounting firm—and the basic logic of it is: well, when the Auckland Unitary Plan was introduced, the introduction of the mixed housing suburban zone and the mixed housing urban zone led to some development in those areas that was greater in terms of the floor area ratio; that is the amount of additional floor area. That was larger than it was in the areas that were left in single house zone. So the logic behind this bill—they don’t really compare any other issues in the RIS. The RIS starts from the assumption that it is zoning that is the constraint on home development, so they don’t compare any other issues.

They do this analysis from PwC and, I think it was, Sense Partners, the consultancy. They say, “Well, because upzoning in the case of the Auckland Unitary Plan five years ago led to additional floor area per metre of land being added, if we do even more up zoning, then in a linear fashion we will get even more floor area ratio.” That is such an error of logic. You can see the absurdity of it. It might be said, “Well, actually, what we need to do is, why stop at the cities? Why not make all of New Zealand subject to the medium density residential standard?” If we just keep extrapolating this, why get 100,000 houses? There could be millions, tens of millions, of houses. New Zealand could potentially become home to billions of people if only we applied the medium density residential standard to the whole country. But, of course, that would be absurd.

It would be completely absurd, because what people might say is that there would be additional constraints on developing new homes. People might point out—they’d say, “Well, we might not have roads to get to those places, so people probably won’t build houses there.” They’ll say, “Oh, well, there probably won’t be libraries near there, so people won’t want to live there.” They’ll say, “Oh, we’ll have to have schools there.” Then we’ll say, “Oh, OK, what about three waters?” That’s a big issue. The Government knows that, because it’s been deeply contesting it. So we have a real issue here where we’re getting major difficulties with the supply of infrastructure, the supply of community amenities, and we don’t think that we’re going to be able to use all of that medium density residential standard zoned land.

Then people might say, “What about other aspects of the supply chain?” Well, you still need to get building consent. You still need to get resource consents for earthworks. There are still other constraints, and then you’ve got to find builders. Then you’ve got to find materials. People might say, “Well, I don’t know if the zoning was actually the binding constraint.” Now, if you can accept all of that at the, admittedly, extreme version of the thought experiment where you zoned it in New Zealand, well, maybe, actually, we’re already at the limit of what we can achieve by simply upzoning more land, particularly in Auckland. The Minister should know this, because he said, “Oh, we need more three storey homes near the centre of the city.” That’s what the Auckland Unitary Plan does. It was a civil war in Auckland for three years. It allowed 430,000 additional homes to be built that are economically viable. They’re a million in theory, but then they allowed for those other constraints.

The problem is that there is no analysis. They haven’t done any analysis, thinking at the margin as good economists do, which is: is the restriction of zoned land the true constraint on building more homes right now? They’ve done the analysis of: was it the constraints of when the Auckland Unitary Plan was introduced in 2016? They’ve done the analysis of: can we show that generally in the past, in some instances, that’s been true? They’ve shown that, but they’ve never asked the simple question: what is the binding constraint on development right now?

Then people say, “Oh, but you know, I would have thought that it would just be good to remove restrictions in any event.” Well, that’s an interesting argument. See, those of us who actually want a freer society know that deregulation has to be done in a way that actually delivers results—that, actually, homes have to get built and can’t be held back by those other constraints, and secondly, it has to be done in a way that doesn’t needlessly antagonise people who might otherwise support policies of a freer society.

Unfortunately, this policy is going to fail. My question to the Minister is very simple: what analysis do you have that zoning is the binding constraint and not infrastructure?

One of the great things about the committee stage of Parliament is it really does expose the weakness of either the Government’s position or the Opposition’s position. And we heard at the start of that debate self-praise from the ACT Party claiming to be the most consistently in favour of removing planning constraints of housing development of anyone in this Parliament. He risks renaming himself the Dorian Gray of Parliament, because he should look in the mirror. It is so obvious that his actions here are the absolute opposite of, as he says, everything that he stands for.

Dealing with the assertion that there is no analysis as to whether this will work or not: there is a 150-page cost-benefit analysis, which I think is one of the best pieces of cost-benefit analysis that I have seen attached to any piece of legislation in this area of law. It is an outstanding piece of analysis that is grounded in economics—the economics of land markets, the economics of infrastructure. And it says in that report that there is less uncertainty in respect of the analysis in that report than there is normally because they have the good data from the mixed use zone in Auckland already. It’s prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Sense Partners, as the member correctly said—two leading analysts in this area. And the economists who have done this work within those organisations are some of the best economists in land markets and planning economics in the country, and they have put their name to the independently prepared cost-benefit analysis.

That cost-benefit analysis is absolutely clear. It shows that upzoning in areas, which enables people to build denser—doesn’t require it; it enables them—when people are given the choice to build more densely, the choice to have a more affordable home because it uses land more efficiently, uses infrastructure more efficiently, the choice to live closer to their work, closer to the shops that they use, when people are given those choices, they take them. Developers build to the choices of the people, because they know that if they build to that type of house they will find a buyer.

Now, I hear complaints about quality from members of the ACT Party. They haven’t quite said what some of the planning profession have said, that people will want to buy slums or live in slums—they haven’t quite said that, but that’s sort of the tone of what they say. Again, this is just an abrogation of their viewpoint that people should have the choice of being able to develop their land more intensively and the choice of buying a home that is affordable to them. Because, instead of the land content being half a million dollars per house or something, maybe the land content will be lower and they’ll spend more on a high-quality house because they’ll be able to afford a higher quality house because they won’t have paid these astronomical amounts for the land content.

In terms of what the cost-benefit analysis said, it showed that the earlier cost-benefit analysis of what would be the effect of the national policy statement on urban development and the effect of the mixed-use zone, those early analyses by other cost-benefit analysts, they undercooked it. The actual outcomes compared with the outcomes in those earlier examples of cost-benefit analysis understated how powerful this will be and how much this is important to affordable housing.

In terms of the numbers that they produced, they said that this piece of legislation will over the next, I think it is, five to eight years—is it?—result in between 48,000 and 105,500 extra houses being built in New Zealand for people to live in, and yet the ACT Party opposes it. In respect of how much of that is in Auckland, according to their analysis: between 27,900 and 53,700 units. Now, if the Supplementary Order Paper is adopted, that extra housing will go down by about 4 percent, because we have changed some of the boundary rules that will come up in a later part of the speech. But those are the numbers—those are the numbers. They are real.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So, with the bill enabling infill development across our major cities in the residential zones, one of the major concerns of submitters was the impact that that would have on trees and the loss of urban trees. One of the issues with a cost-benefit analysis is that the economists often find it difficult to put a benefit and a cost and evaluate those in relation to some of the intangibles: urban amenity that’s provided by trees, the shade effect, the reduction of the heat island effect, the reduction in stormwater flows that urban trees assist with, just what they contribute to our cities in terms of biodiversity and as habitat.

Now, the bill, in Part 1, introduces an ability for local authorities to make rules about financial contributions. The supplementary order paper (SOP) in my name, SOP 112, suggests that we make a change to the Resource Management Act (RMA) to enable district rules to provide for urban tree protection through the intensification planning instrument made through the intensification streamlined planning process. Because, as the Minister will know, it was the National Party who removed the ability of councils to have general rules which controlled the felling of trees in our cities and required instead a very detailed exercise of councils doing a site-by-site analysis, effectively, and scheduling individual trees with all the details of their street address and a legal description if there was to be a provision applying which required a resource consent for the felling of the tree. So the medium density residential standards, with their reduced front yards and side yards, is likely to see a continuation of what has been happening in Auckland, in Christchurch, in Wellington with the loss of significant trees. So could the Minister respond to SOP 112 and the ability that it suggests would require councils to use the intensification planning instrument to look at how you could better protect urban trees.

There were submissions also from planners who highlighted the ability of councils to use digital tools much more. We see that as including satellite imagery to actually identify trees that merit protection. The SOP requires that any new objectives and rules that were included in plans would have to be consistent with the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020, in particular objective eight, which is around greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and just the accessibility of communities to natural spaces. So this SOP is seeking to integrate urban tree protection with the bill’s framework around accelerating the supply of housing but ensuring that, at the same time as we are accelerating housing provision, we are also ensuring that our urban trees are protected.

Thank you. Can I acknowledge the heartfelt way in which the member advocates for the protection of trees in the Auckland area. Can I also agree that the current provisions in the RMA are not entirely logical. The amendment that was made by the last National Government to take away from councils the discretion or the breadth of discretion as to how they protect trees in some ways is inconsistent with the overall scheme of the Act.

That said, I also have sympathy for the dilemma that the National Party then had, because Auckland were rather inefficient in the way that they tried to protect trees. Instead of conducting analysis of which trees should be preserved, they had very general rules that applied to the cutting down of trees and also the pruning of trees. The effect of that was that a substantial proportion of total resource consent applications in Auckland, actually, in the end, were in respect of people getting a consent to cut down or to prune a tree, and it was excessive. I think it was so excessive that it was largely ignored in respect of the pruning rules. It also brought the overall RMA into disrepute, because people thought the RMA was silly if it had an effect in that way, and therefore the National Party responded in that way.

Now, we do have the opportunity in the revamp of the RMA through the Natural and Built Environments Bill to actually have another look at that and see if there is a middle way through there that can actually achieve a better outcome. But we propose that to be the vehicle, not this, and we don’t think that this should be the vehicle for that wider piece of work.

In respect of recommendations that the Environment Committee has none the less made that improve the ability to protect trees, there are some good recommendations that came from the select committee. I’ll mention two of them: maximising rear yards by allowing the building to come closer to the street—that will protect more trees in backyards that are larger trees than would otherwise have been able to be protected—and the other is the enabling of a group of houses in a development to group their open spaces and use it collectively. I think that that will both enable the protection of trees, but it’ll also encourage the growing of larger trees, because the agglomeration of those outdoor areas in respect of a development obviously makes for a bigger space that is more suited to more larger trees.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly agree one of the things that constituency MPs in urban areas know is that trees play a much larger role in day-to-day politics than most people ever imagined before they were elected. It is very important to get the balance between people who want to be able to go about their business and clear trees that are a nuisance to them and people who view trees as, quite rightly, a very valuable part of their community’s character in balance.

But I want to return to the Minister David Parker’s earlier comments, because he received an invitation to debate policy and then he resorted to a personal attack, calling me some sort of name that I’ve never heard, which probably reflects his generation getting on a bit. Then he said that—he didn’t actually give any examples of why he thought he was right; he just said that there was very good analysis done. Well, that, you know, in debating terms is called the appeal to authority fallacy. But I’ll put the invitation to him again. The analysis that he’s got says linear extrapolation: when we had this much upzoning five years ago in Auckland, we got this many more houses, so if we keep upzoning, we’ll get more houses in proportion. That’s what the analysis says, and I want to ask the Minister why he thinks that’s true. Is he not aware that just about anyone you talk to who’s actually in the business will tell you that there are other constraints, that the amount of zoned land is no longer the problem, at least in Auckland and at least in Hamilton, who submitted the same thing?

What they’re saying very clearly in the select committee and to people who take the time to go round and talk to developers and councillors and listen to people who are urban planning experts in the business—what they consistently say to us is, actually, there are now other constraints. If they’re right, then the Minister is wrong in his contention that he’s got very good analysis. Or perhaps the analysis is very good but it’s just very limited, because all it’s done is analyse what the effects of upzoning have been in a past time.

Then the Minister said, “Oh, there’s very good cost-benefit analysis.” I mean, let’s be clear: 150 pages; three pages were on infrastructure, and it was an extrapolation of a 2016 paper from MRCagney that was probably written by my old mate Stu Donovan when he was there, which said, in general, people being closer together is cheaper infrastructure-wise, ceteris paribus—everything else being equal. But what they didn’t go into was some of the things that have come up from the select committee, and let me just give you one example. You know, the reason why some areas are zoned for great intensification under the Auckland Unitary Plan and others aren’t is because those specific locations, not generally extrapolating a five-year-old study—and Michael Wood, he’s kind of knowingly looking up, because he’s a committed local MP, too; he didn’t lose a seat to Jacqui Dean in 2005, and he’s saying, actually, he understands that these localised nuances—yeah, he knows—are important.

Actually, there are areas where the independent hearings panel, when the Auckland Unitary Plan went through, said, “Look, you know, we understand why you’re advocating for lower density there, because it will be less efficient to have to serve that area and this area. So let’s have high intensity here and low intensity there.”

💬 Hon Michael Wood: Oh, desperate stuff.

That’s what the independent hearings panel found time and again. You know, that’s what people who actually work in councils, are actually involved in urban planning, actually do infrastructure, say. Michael Wood says it’s desperate stuff. Well, here’s the question: let me ask Michael Wood—here’s the opportunity—does Michael Wood not think that the independent hearings panel got it right? He’s walking out—he’s walking out. That’s unfortunately the kind of courage that the Labour members have for the fight here.

So I give the Minister another opportunity. He should stand up and ask the question—stand up and ask the question—

💬 Hon David Parker: Point of order, Madam Speaker. The member’s comments about the Minister just then were out of order for two reasons.

Speaking to the point of order, the Minister has a point, but what he might also like to consider is that it’s contrary to the Standing Orders to heckle while walking around the Chamber. So why don’t we just call it a draw?

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Speaking to that point of order, David Seymour, the Minister was actually on his way out of the Chamber, and I agree that it is actually not a good idea to be calling on and saying that someone is out of courage. The Minister’s probably got other meetings to get to. As you see, this is the time that members come in and out in terms of changing who is actually on duty in the Chamber. Can I ask the member to, in his 27 seconds, finish the speech that he was making on Part 1.

Well, certainly, Madam Chair. So, really, the opportunity is there for the Minister to explain, not including the three pages of generic material that were tacked on to the 150 pages he talks about on infrastructure—to actually explain what analysis he has that zoning constraints are the binding constraints on building new homes in cities like Auckland and Hamilton, because he hasn’t answered that question yet, and it’s critical to the whole premise of Part 1, that introduces these planning intensification instruments.

I’m sure the member won’t mind me saying that he obviously hasn’t read any Oscar Wilde in his life, so perhaps the better saying is he doth protesteth too much. The infrastructure bogeyman that the member raises is well addressed in the cost-benefit analysis and, I thought, was also addressed by the Infrastructure Commission. It’s so simply addressed. It doesn’t need a 20-page dissertation to know that more dense forms of living are generally cheaper to service, and that’s what the cost-benefit analysis says. It said, yes, local water or sewage infrastructure might be slightly more expensive sometimes—not always, but sometimes—than a new development at the margin of a city; that’s true, but roading expense is less, public transport expense is less, and overall infrastructure costs are lower. The Infrastructure Commission essentially said the same thing and then made the point: to the extent that there are infrastructure costs born of having to house more people, the infrastructure cost arises from having more people, not from the planning code.

I move, That the question be now put.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 106 be agreed to.

The question is that Simon Court’s amendments to clause 4 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 107 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Eugenie Sage’s amendment to clause 4 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 108 be agreed to.

The Hon Eugenie Sage’s amendments to clause 7 replacing new section 77O(1) set out on Supplementary Order Paper 110 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that the Hon Eugenie Sage’s remaining amendments to clauses 4 and 7 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 110 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Eugenie Sage’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 112 be agreed to.

The Hon Eugenie Sage’s amendment to clause 8 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 115 is out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that the Hon Eugenie Sage’s remaining amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 115 be agreed to.