Regulations

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• Recognising that more government interventions and more bureaucrats will not provide better and more affordable housing.
• Reform the RMA to: reduce compliance costs and promote certainty of outcome; enable urban areas to develop multi-nodal centres of employment so as to reduce travel times, commuter distances, and congestion; enable people to buy rural lots on an “as is - where is” basis; focus on adverse effects on the natural and physical environment rather than on letting central planners direct and control how people live their lives. (more here)

• Remove legal and institutional barriers to the development of co-operative housing, eco-villages, self-built, sweat equity housing, shared ownership, and papakainga housing
  Supported housing for those in need. (more here)

Not set out on their website.

• Reintroduce estate duties to be paid via a progressive scale beginning with estates valued at over $500,000. (more here)
• Increase government funding of programmes to improve the liveability and energy efficiency of substandard homes, including insulation and heating retrofits and the removal of toxic materials.
• Increase the quality of current low cost rental housing through raising and better enforcing minimum building and maintenance standards in both the public and private rental sectors. (more here)

Not set out on their website.

• Pass Building Amendment Bill (No 3). This includes four key changes: Clearer accountability for building practitioners, building consent authorities, and consumers to make sure work complies with the Building Code. A new building consent system that is risk-based. This means the amount of checking and inspection is related to the risk and complexity of the work, and the skills and capability of the people doing the work. A Code of Ethics for Licensed Building Practitioners to encourage professional behaviour. An owner-builder exemption from the restricted building work rules, expected to come into effect in March 2012.
• Increase consumer protection with the Building Amendment Bill No 4. This includes: Mandatory written contracts for all building work over $20,000. Disclosure requirements for building contractors about their skills, qualifications, licensing status, and track record. Rules making principal building contractors fix defects in their work within 12 months. Increase penalties for failing to comply with building consent requirements. (more here)

• Investigate alternative local body funding arrangements with the aim of abolishing rates on domestic and commercial properties.
• Strengthen legislation to allow Housing NZ to evict problematic tenants more easily.
• Adopt a national strategy, including private sector funding, to insulate all NZ homes to at least 1977 standards, prioritising the homes of those with low and fixed incomes. (more here)