housing
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KiwiBuild
Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, November 18th, 2012 - 216 comments
100,000 new entry level homes. The biggest public building programme in over fifty years. Hope for young families and households. A massive boost to jobs and the economy.
This is a historic policy.
Changing Labour: significant issues
Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, November 18th, 2012 - 4 comments
These are exciting days as the Labour Party becomes more democratic. In their reports on the Conference, the MSM are failing to focus on the important issues: ones requiring a new direction from the Left, such as damaging white collar fraud and the urgent need for affordable housing.
Auckland housing market bubbling
Written By: - Date published: 2:40 pm, November 15th, 2012 - 34 comments
Like many other well-paid people in their 30’s. Lyn is getting depressed watching a toehold Auckland property disappear out of her grasp. Of course the well rounded gits in Wellington will get ‘worried’ about this and want to make property available 50kms away. But spending an hour or two of your life driving each day is hardly useful to anyone apart from the land bankers, property developers and used car sales who seem to be of such importance to the National party.
Looking for a new left direction: more than just one housing policy
Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, November 14th, 2012 - 218 comments
A policy focusing on increasing state housing and affordable rents would be a good start. However, my current criticism of Labour leadership focuses on the policy direction of the leadership team. This requires more than just one policy. A bold new left wing plan is needed to deal with the difficult challenges ahead. Updated
Hard times & demographics
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, November 9th, 2012 - 14 comments
With the crises in housing and unemployment, there are worrying trends of increasing marginalisation and struggle for selected demographic groups, such as women, Maori and Pasifika people. Meanwhile, there has been a recent increase in male unemployment. This probably is because there are fewer secure, well-paid, full time jobs available.
Housing crisis day of action today
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, November 7th, 2012 - 17 comments
Today is Housing Crisis Day of Action with a march on parliament in Wellington (see Facebook page). The government’s plan will benefit private developers and property speculators, and involves risks of “cutting red tape”. Instead, they should be building more state houses. Updates: General Debate. John Banks heckled by protesters.
Housing NZ to build to sell
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 31st, 2012 - 22 comments
Housing New Zealand is going to build some affordable houses in Christchurch and then sell them. It’s not a bad idea. In fact, if it were done right and en masse, it should have been a centrepiece of National’s empty ‘affordable housing’ announcment. But I fear it won’t be done right. It’s not enough just to build affordable homes: you need to make sure landlords don’t snap them up.
On the tip of his tongue
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, October 30th, 2012 - 36 comments
It was almost funny listening to Bill English on Checkpoint. He had identified all, or at least most of, the problems with housing in Auckland: in short, nobody’s building affordable houses, the prevelance of bespoke houses pushes up prices, and speculative capital raises them even more. But his solutions were all, well, not solutions: try to make consenting even quicker, more sprawl.
Sprawl does not equal affordability
Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, October 29th, 2012 - 85 comments
Listening to the Nats on housing affordability, it’s pretty clear that their only plan is to allow more sprawl. So, let’s say this clearly: sprawl is expensive, not cheap, and it is not lack of housing but over-investment in house price speculation that leads to high prices. National’s ‘solution’ is for the country to needlessly spend tens of billions.
The false economy of sprawl
Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, October 24th, 2012 - 95 comments
Housing is too expensive. It has been driven up by ‘investors’ in pursuit of a safe, hands-off, tax-free return. 8% of the people own about 40% of the houses. That’s the problem – over-allocation of savings from the upper-middle class into housing pushing prices up, out of reach of the middle and working class, who become their tenants. The Nats’ solution: more sprawl.
“Privacy assured!” Politics, the police & surveillance
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, October 16th, 2012 - 27 comments
Public trust in the police is at a new low. But what of the trust in our government? How much collusion is there between the police, government, spy agencies and foreign governments? However, citizens are also using the technologies of the surveillance society to hold the government and state authorities to account.
Harawira’s arrest
Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, October 12th, 2012 - 70 comments
On any other morning Hone Harawira’s arrest would be the big political news story of the day.
Affordable Housing: the way forward?
Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, October 7th, 2012 - 29 comments
There is increasing concern about New Zealand’s housing situation, with an escalation in homelesssness, people living in totally unacceptable conditions, and the lack of sufficient affordable housing stock.Update: Government close to unveiling plans for “cheap” housing on city fringe and ‘brownfield’ sites.
Who’s heading in the right direction?
Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 10th, 2012 - 13 comments
While Labour and the Greens are laying out concrete policies to tackle poverty and its consequences that lead to life-long problems (child payment and home insulation from the Greens, food in schools and reading recovery from Labour), National MPs are acting as slum landlords, refusing to spend a few thousand dollars to bring their rentals up to standard.
NRT: Nats sit on their hands as Chch housing crisis grows
Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, September 5th, 2012 - 27 comments
There’s a major housing crisis in Christchurch. People are living in unsafe, cold houses and their health is suffering. Rents are at criminal levels. And people are still fleeing the city. So, what’s the Government doing about it? As I/S at No Right Turn reports, OIA requests show that they are doing nothing and leaving it to the market to house people after a national disaster.
Stranded in suburbia
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 20th, 2012 - 30 comments
We know that more sprawl is actually twice as expensive to the rate- and tax-payer than increasing density within existing urban limits because of all the additional infrastructure that’s needed. But there’s added cost to the residents of the sprawl as well. Not just more time lost to commuting, but a more oil-dependent lifestyle that’s […]
Key’s legacy
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, July 16th, 2012 - 40 comments
Which will be remembered as the greater crime in Key’s legacy: selling off our strategically vital and profitable energy assets leading to higher power prices or standing by and doing nothing while another housing bubble fueled by cheap foreign credit leaves us more indebted and with lower home ownership? Or the smug, absent grin he wore throughout?
Resource optimisation
Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, July 6th, 2012 - 84 comments
You might have heard of this new TV series called The Block, where they get 4 couples to compete to do up dilapidated houses. It’s the most expensive non-fiction programme ever made in New Zealand. It’s vacuous, contentless garbage. But what gets my goat is they took 4 perfectly OK, not flash but OK houses, and munted them so that they could be done up on TV.
Property rights should not trump human welfare
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, July 2nd, 2012 - 9 comments
I/S at No Right Turn on Pita Sharples’ suggestion that Christchurch’s homeless squat in abandoned red-zone properties rather than sleeping in their cars.
The cost of sprawl
Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, July 2nd, 2012 - 27 comments
House prices and rents are rising quickly in Auckland. The reason is pretty simple: from 2008 to 2011, it added 70,000 people and only 10,000 houses. The shortfall will have been worsened by the exodus from Christchurch since then. While the population’s growing, more houses are needed. But is the Right’s answer – more sprawl – the way to provide them?
Housing bubble round 2
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, June 13th, 2012 - 27 comments
Another housing bubble. Just what we need. House prices up 5.4% in a year, 7.8% in Auckland. Inflation is 1.6%. Billions are being funneled into housing by banks who can make a buck off importing cheap credit from offshore and lend it to homebuyers here. The government could act. But this is National, does anyone expect solutions from them anymore?
Postcards from the “brighter” future
Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, June 5th, 2012 - 18 comments
Hey John – where’s our “Brighter Future”? Hey National voters – was this what you voted for?
CGT Now!
Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, June 5th, 2012 - 32 comments
The “tradeable” sector is still shrinking. The property market is heating up again. We need a capital gains tax now.
McCarten: Waging war on working class
Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, May 22nd, 2012 - 11 comments
Matt McCarten’s latest column is a must read. There is something nasty going on…
Minister pleased with anemic economy
Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, May 18th, 2012 - 38 comments
You have to take your hat off to National’s spin doctors, coming up with the plausible-sounding nonsense line that low interest rates mean affordable housing isn’t needed. But it led to this- Phil Heatley: “we’re pleased that we’re managing the economy such that interest rates are so low”. Ten minutes earlier, Tony Alexander: “lower interest rates reflect the weakness of the economic outlook”.
Poor people NIMBY
Written By: - Date published: 5:27 pm, May 17th, 2012 - 41 comments
John Key is doing his best to keep poor people from coming to his electorate. Whilst it’s not like he visits there often himself, he’s still aiming to keep poor people committing the “economic vandalism” of living in a nice suburb – where apparently only the rich should reside.
A Butcher’s Shop, a Toy Shop, a Candy Store and a Childcare Centre
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, April 25th, 2012 - 14 comments
Steven Joyce’s personal fiefdom of Economic Development, Science and Innovation, Building and Housing, and Labour is confirmed. Now for the redundancies…
Christchurch rental crisis
Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, April 18th, 2012 - 61 comments
According to Gerry Brownlee it isn’t happening.
Hidden away
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, April 11th, 2012 - 27 comments
Hidden away at the end of this story, hidden away out of most media view, hidden away from Housing New Zealand, and from society… ordinary people being shafted by National’s cuts.
Trading Futures
Written By: - Date published: 3:46 pm, December 2nd, 2011 - 74 comments
This post is intended to do more than merely generate discussion. It’s a serious proposition seeking action. Its intent is to lay out or sign post (at least some of) the basic or necessary legal and social structures of a Community Collective comprised of both workers and housing collectives that would enable people to assume meaningful control over aspects of their futures.
State house evictions
Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, November 12th, 2011 - 54 comments
In 2005 Labour wrote to State House tenants with a warning “Don’t let National sell your house.” We were criticised for scaring people. Now Tamaki residents have got the real letters. And the boot. Same old National.
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