On Tuesday I wrote an editorial about the housing crisis and this government’s approach to it through Kiwi Build. In it I essentially advised the government to get out of the building business and get stuck into all the things that stop builders building and developers developing. It might be worth me repeating my conclusions. I said that if they go into the building business they’re going to hit all the same problems private developers have had for generations.
If they want to speed up supply they should be spending time and money on the impediments. Rather than building houses they should be laying water and power onto greenfield sites and improving the infrastructure for intensification projects. They should be streamlining consent processes and helping councils gear up to cope with more work. They should be strengthening credit lines to the developers who know what they’re doing
They should be building transport and roading to these new developments rather than leaving new home owners stuck in traffic jams in the middle of nowhere. Well I don’t know if they were listening but it seems like they’re finally coming to the same conclusion. Yesterday Newshub reported a change in the language from Housing Minister Phil Twyford. The KiwiBuild promise was to build 100,000 affordable homes, but the word 'build' has now gone by the wayside.
Now in official documentation, it's been replaced with this: "KiwiBuild aims to facilitate the delivery of 100,000 affordable dwellings." Political observors are noting this is a broken promise and thrashing the government for it and that’s fair enough. But out of the beltway and in the real world I’d like to say this: I want to congratulate the government and Mr Twyford.
It takes a big man to admit that they were wrong. Even though it’s taken a year pointing out that the government building 100,000 houses was improbable and that the real impediments are in red tape and infrastructure and capacity it appears that someone with brains has been listening and thinking. So let’s get on with it Minister. You’ve wasted six months of this government's time because of a poorly formulated election promise and a memo to all, stop speaking in slogans.