The Government has signed its first Memoranda of Understanding to negotiate ‘city and regional deals’ with Auckland, Otago/Central Lakes and Western Bay of Plenty.
Earlier in the year, councils were asked to submit up to five projects that would help create economic growth in their area. Eighteen proposals were submitted.
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop, in a statement published on Wednesday, says the deals would be 10-year partnerships between local and central government.
The deals would be a way to progress “joint priorities including economic growth, enabling abundant housing, better management and utilisation of local assets, and closing the infrastructure deficit”.
In March, Bishop previously said “delivering a long-term vision for regions will ensure they remain focused on delivering what matters most to ratepayers, including critical infrastructure like housing and transport”.
In a statement on Wednesday, Local Government Minister Simon Watts says all three areas have economies with significant potential for growth.
Negotiations with the three areas will start and it’s expected a first deal will be made by the end of 2025.
In choosing the areas, Watts says there was a multi-agency assessment process which included reviews by independent experts.
This comes at a time when the Government has been tough on local councils. In June, it was announced that the Cabinet had agreed to implement a rule that allows them to modify or remove provisions in local council plans if they “negatively impact economic growth, development, or employment”.
During negotiations, the Government will be looking at:
- Improved central government coordination
- Early collaboration with councils on system reforms and improvements, looking at things like zoning, streamlined planning and land acquisition processes, and regional spatial planning
- Providing councils with funding and financing tools which could include the use of sharing of mining royalties and giving access to government experts so they can help councils use tools such as Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act Levies
- Supporting regions to unlock growth sectors such as technology, aquaculture, tourism and renewable energy
Watts says regions will be expected to adopt central government reforms including things like Local Water Done Well, Going for Housing Growth and transport governance reform in Auckland.
Bishop says the Government expects local government to provide a better structure for regional relationships with them, and to improve asset renewals, maintenance and management including ensuring a pipeline of future infrastructure work.
“We also expect that councils will go above legal and regulatory minimum requirements to unlock housing growth including around rapid transit corridors and where central government has invested in infrastructure.”
The Government also wants regions to explore new and existing tools such as targeted rates, Infrastructure Funding and Finance Act Levies, Development Levies, asset recycling and to make their places attractive spots for international investment opportunities, Bishop says.
When talking about the three areas, the Auckland region is made up of Auckland Council while Otago/Central Lakes includes Queenstown Lakes District Council, Central Otago District Council and Otago Regional Council.
The Western Bay of Plenty is made up of Tauranga City Council, Western Bay of Plenty District Council and Bay of Plenty Regional Council.
4 Comments
Man the lobbying from fringe landholder developers must be strong. Will be interesting to see if this is used for the benefit of all, or to enrich the few.
It is a very strong lobby and the government has seemingly stepped up with these new funding sources.
Auckland has an urban fringe containing lifestyle blocks where there are almost no large scale rural properties adjacent to the suburbs. This posed a problem to fringe developers, because it made that land expensive and small. When the Super City formed up the Auckland developers saw an opportunity and bought up big around the exurbs (Huapai, Pukekohe, Silverdale, Clevedon...) where there were large amounts of cheap land.
Auckland then banned most development at the edge of existing suburbs and said the future sprawl was to be exurban.
The problem is Auckland has found out it costs much more to build mega-sprawl over a wider area than it would over the much smaller area closer to the city (where they have banned it). So now Auckland needs to find a new bunch of suckers to fund the mega-sprawl - hello NZ government.
People rarely do things on such scale unless they have profit as motive.
A lot of these workers can go to Australia if they want to - we don't want skilled workers in NZ contributing to housing supply. We need to slow down house building to protect owners and banks from the downside risks of falling value.
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