Australia has long debated this housing idea, but in Auckland it's already working
Australia has long debated this housing idea, but in Auckland it's already working
In Auckland, the council has been running an experiment, and at the heart of it is a bold decision to remove restrictions around zoning — but the New Zealand election could change things.
I find it very interesting that this is a case where the left - which is generally pro regulation - is calling for a reduction in regulation because zoning regulation made things measurably worse in this case, and the supposedly "free market" right wants to keep zones highly regulated.
I don't think the left and right divide on this issue has ever been that clean. The left are generally anti-development (to maintain local characteristics and heritage) but pro high density developer (but always in someone else's suburb). The right have been pro-development but mostly in poor or outlining suburbs.
There's so much self interest at play it's hard to actually implement a good sensible centre policy.
I read an article on the NZ community just the other day about how they have gotten rid of their Negative Gearing. Interesting read: They have some dude with 20 houses in his portfolio talking about how it's not worth buying houses any more. Instead he renovates, because improvements to the homes are still tax deductible.
literally the perfect outcome
I have long called for something similar to this. Abolish low-density residential zones entirely. What Brisbane City Council calls "LMR3" (or "low-medium density up to three storeys") should be the absolute minimum zone. That zone allows the building of low-density detached houses if you want it, but it also allows three-storey small apartments and my favourite type of housing: row/town houses.
Up to 3 storeys is great because it hugely increases the actual lived density, without being subject to the sort of criticism of "towering over my house" that 5–7 storey medium density apartments often get. I mean, NIMBYs might try that anyway, but it just doesn't carry any water when you're comparing it with what is already a two-storey Queenslander.
So the very first step should be to replace all LDR with LMR3. After that we can start trying to up the density even more near train stations etc., if need be.
Regarding the article itself, it's fantastic to see an example of this being done and working in a country that has very recently had the exact same norms as us. As an urbanist we so often point to places like the Netherlands and Northern Europe, or even in this respect to cities like Vienna and London (real London, not fake London). But Aukland is much harder for an Australian to dismiss as being "a weird European city where people just do things different from us".
Recently, National flagged it would give New Zealand councils the power to opt out of the MDRS if it took office on October 14. And several of them will, given the chance.
Disappointing, but Aukland houses about a third of New Zealand's population—even more centralisation than we have, where the top three cities just barely make up half. And it sounds like Aukland was already on board with this even prior to the national government implementing it. So hopefully for NZ the national government changing its stance won't hurt too badly.
I'd be very interested to see a Kiwi's perspective on this. Anyone know of a Kiwi lemmy community where it's been discussed?
Will be a shame if it's roll back after the election.
I don't like the example photos in the article, where a block gets taken up by low height black-roofed houses/units across its entire surface area. I wonder if building using less of the surface area, but more stories (to make an equivalent number & internal size of places), would be a better option?