Pulling up the ladder after you.
Economist Brad Olsen says a fight against an apartment development on Auckland’s North Shore is a perfect example of why young generations feel they are being “screwed over”.
A proposed development in Beach Haven in Auckland is being opposed by some residents who argue “bedroom commuters” would not connect with, or be a part of, the community.
The development would include 81 apartments in four three-storey buildings across a 7000 square metre site.
Some Beach Haven residents say the area already has too many cars, and there is not sufficient infrastructure in place to cope with the development. One complained they didn’t want to see different houses on her daily commute, while another was concerned there was no supermarket.
Infometrics chief executive Olsen says the conversations he is hearing about housing development in Auckland “are some of the most selfish I have ever heard”.
“The lack of empathy, the lack of compassion, the lack of understanding is maddening. I don't know where these people get off. I think it really shows a huge lack of giving a damn about fellow Kiwis. There is no other way around it.”
Olsen says it shows there are some people who do not care about the next generation.
“And that’s the long and the short of it.”
Auckland has long been the face of New Zealand’s housing crisis and the North Shore is one of the least affordable parts of the city to buy homes in.
The house-price-to-income multiple of the North Shore, defined as the ratio between median house price and median annual household income or median multiple, was calculated at 11.48 in December 2022 and 11.91 in December 2020. A median multiple of 3.0 or less is considered affordable.
It is also one of the more expensive Auckland places to rent. The average rent for residential properties on the North Shore managed by the region's largest real estate agency, Barfoot & Thompson, was $671.61 per week in December of last year. This was an increase of 2.56% on the prior year, the agency said.
Documents submitted in support of the Beach Haven apartment plan by architect Kevin Brewer said the site was 700 metres east of the Beach Haven wharf and “an easy walk to ferry services”. He said the site was an easy walk to shops and a bus route which connects directly to the Auckland central business district.
Olsen says a lot of Auckland's challenges and concerns come back to housing and increasingly, "the way that housing pans out will shape how the economic future of an area goes as well".
The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment says transforming New Zealand's housing market would unlock productivity growth and improve housing affordability. It says this economic shift away from housing would overcome the shortage of housing, and focus capital investment towards more productive areas.
Kaipātiki local board chair John Gillon campaigned in the 2022 local body elections on his record of halting development in the area and says he “fought the unsuitable Zion Rd and Tizard Rd developments that were in breach of the Unitary Plan”. He was the top-ranked candidate in the local board with more than 9500 votes.
There were ten apartments planned for a site in Tizard Rd in 2019. The Zion Rd site would have seen 85 units built.
Gillon reportedly told Beach Haven residents in those cases locals had pooled together funds and hired a lawyer.
Writing on the Greater Auckland blog, Steve Cauldwell wrote that fighting new housing “can’t and won’t fix our infrastructure woes”.
“Neighbourhoods are already overrun by cars to the detriment of other options, and snarled with traffic at least twice a day. Ageing or failing infrastructure needs to be upgraded regardless of how many people are using it."
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