Is the 'density done well' dream dead?

Christopher Luxon's housing about-face could mean less urban housing, more city-edge sprawl.

Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Friday, May 26, by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.

In today’s edition: Orr defends cautious OCR decision; DeSantis ridiculed for campaign launch debacle; and the Gone By Lunchtime team dissect the week in politics. But first, what’s behind National’s u-turn on density?

Image: Tina Tiller

From an ‘emphatic yes’ on housing density to ‘we got it wrong’

Christopher Luxon was only a couple of weeks into his National leadership when, in December 2021, he gave his backing to a law change aimed at dramatically increasing housing density in our major cities. His deputy Nicola Willis, the bill’s sponsor, called the bipartisan legislation a “win-win” for home buyers and renters alike. “Today National and Labour are coming together to say an emphatic ‘yes’ to housing in our backyards,” she said at the time. The amendment to the Resource Management Act obliges councils to allow construction of up to three dwellings of three storeys – townhouses, in other words – on most urban sites, and had been welcomed as a game-changer by housing advocates. On Wednesday, Luxon said his party had got it wrong. Greenfield development should instead be the focus, he told audiences in Auckland (and again yesterday in Queenstown), and councils should regain the right to determine density controls for their own urban areas. 

The councils bite back

Luxon’s u-turn is not only a response to homeowners worried their neighbourhoods will be subsumed by a tidal wave of townhouses. Councils have also voiced their disapproval by watering down parts of the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS). In Christchurch, the council voted not to adopt them at all, eventually passing a new set of standards that exempt almost half the city’s residential properties from the national rules. In Auckland, the council used a “special character” loophole to exclude most of affluent suburbs like Grey Lynn, Ponsonby and Devonport from medium density builds. And Hamilton City Council has tried to claim the entire city should be exempt, “because it all feeds into the Waikato River catchment,” reports Sharon Brettkelly of RNZ’s The Detail. So where should all the required housing go instead? Luxon wants more of it on former farmland, and according to urban planner Malcolm McCracken, that’s a big mistake: “Can we afford to invest in and subsidise greenfield growth? From both a financial and emissions reduction perspective, the answer is no.”

‘Once again the outer suburbs get absolutely shafted’

The Spinoff’s Ben Gracewood is among those incensed by Luxon’s about-face. He’s seen his Te Atatu neigbourhood become a traffic-snarled building site in recent years but had believed it was for the greater good. Now? “Once again the outer suburbs get absolutely shafted… We’ve taken one for the team and are crammed here in our dormitory suburbs while the other half of the team sip lattes and Lime around like nothing has changed.” On his Kākā newsletter, Bernard Hickey says that even if National doesn’t become the government, the damage may already be done “because the opponents of MDRS at council level, and the potential developers and off-the-plan buyers, will know to run a mile if their plans depend on MDRS”. In a fascinating piece on his Museum Street newsletter, republished on The Spinoff, Henry Cooke looks at National’s internal divisions over housing intensification, and says it’s a u-turn they may live to regret. “The best way to breed new right-wing voters is to give them a mortgage,” he writes. Without the MDRS, that home owning dream may be even further out of reach. 

Kingmaker? What kingmaker?

For now though, National’s prospects are looking rosy. Last night’s 1News Kantar Public poll has National up three points to 37% and Act steady on 11%. Converted into seats in parliament, National would pull in 47 and Act 15, for a total of 62 – enough to form a government without the need for Te Pāti Māori as a kingmaker. One poll is just one poll, of course, so The Spinoff has created some spiffy data visualisations showing the results from the last five polls, and the changing fortunes of the left/right blocs since the 2017 election. 

Is red meat a relic of the past or food for the future?

The role of different proteins in our diets is an often contentious topic.
New Zealand is known for producing quality red meat – but what exactly are the benefits of including it in our diet? What does the word bioavailability actually mean? And what can I do to help food shortage and over consumption issues?

We asked two top scientists to discuss their new research with Beef + Lamb NZ, which aims to dispel some red meat misconceptions.

Read the story on The Spinoff now. (sponsored)

Orr defends surprisingly cautious OCR call

As banks raise mortgage rates in response to this week’s 25 point increase in the official cash rate, Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr has been explaining the thinking behind Wednesday’s decision. At a select committee meeting, opposition MPs quizzed Orr and his colleagues on “what gave them confidence high net migration and a larger-than-expected Budget wouldn’t add much fuel to the inflation fire”, the NZ Herald’s Jenée Tibshraeny reports (paywalled). According to Orr, the big jump in inward migration over the last year is likely only short-term, and the Budget would likewise only temporarily raise the demand for goods and services, before lowering demand from late 2024. Meanwhile TVNZ’s John Campbell took up Orr on his suggestion that people read the latest Monetary Policy Statement for themselves, and has written a good explainer on what it says. 

DeSantis delivers a debacle of a campaign launch

The launch of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign has been labelled a fiasco after the Twitter Spaces event was plagued by technical issues before ultimately crashing. According to The Hill, “‘Ron’s Desaster’ was the online headline on the Daily Mail’s website. ‘Don’t say glitch — DeSantis Jumpy Start’ blared the Drudge Report. Conservative news site Breitbart proclaimed, ‘Twitter launch DeBacle for DeSantis.’” As many political commentators noted in the hours following the botched launch, you only get one chance to make a first impression – and by that metric, the impression voters have of DeSantis, who is already losing badly in the polls to rival Donald Trump, is… not great, Bob. “It’s worth remembering that the governor’s central case is that he is a more competent and effective rival to the purportedly more chaotic Trump,” The Hill writes. “[Yesterday’s] debacle administers a deep, self-inflicted wound to that case.”

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ChatGBL and the Blowback Budget

In the latest episode of Gone By Lunchtime, Toby Manhire crosses live to Ben Thomas and Annabelle Lee-Mather for an assessment of Grant Robertson’s attempt to thread the needle in the so-called no-frills budget, and a National Party response that had a hint of artificial intelligence about it. Plus: is the $140 million being handed to foreign-owned NZ Steel for an electric furnace of money well spent? Was Chris Hipkins’ whistlestop visit to Papua New Guinea time well expended? And is there anything more absorbing than the moody upheavals of Mayor Ben Bell and the Gore District Council?

Click and collect

• The country's first 'wet house' will open in Wellington this September for homeless men with severe alcohol addiction.

• Yet another great Hamish McNeilly yarn: ‘Kiwi artist found bankrupt had boldly gone and bought ticket to space’

• Veteran real estate publication Property Press has been acquired by NZME and will stay in print (Businessdesk, paywalled)

• An online petition calling for the resignation of Gore District Council chief executive Stephen Parry closed with just shy of 5000 signatures, and will be considered by council next month. 

• One of hundreds of motorists using back roads to avoid severe traffic congestion on the Ōmokoroa to Tauranga motorway says she resents being labelled a “rat runner” and that the short-cut-takers are “just doing what any local would do”.

• Auckland Council is inspecting boarding houses at least three times less often than recommended, according to an RNZ report.

Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.

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Right now on The Spinoff

Kiwi are back in Wellington – and it took a huge amount of work to make it happen, finds Toby Morris in this month's edition of The Side Eye. Shanti Mathias wonders why the “third world” is so many politicians’ go-to comparison when things go wrong here. A voucher system that rewards us for our carbon reductions makes a lot more sense than buying emissions credits overseas, argues Bernard Hickey. And construction professor John Tookey wonders if we've jumped the gun on a gas stove ban

Sporting snippets

• Ahead of this weekend’s league action, Stephen Gallagher makes his regular predictions for the winners and losers of NRL round 13.

• Seven worrying signs for the All Blacks ahead of the Rugby World Cup (NZ Herald, paywalled)

It’s Friday so…

It’s got to be a Tina Turner video. There are so many amazing performances I could choose, from the Phil Spector-produced ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ (1966) to the pop classic that is ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It?’, released in 1984. But I’m going with the following year’s Live Aid performance with Mick Jagger, who was among those paying loving tribute to Turner this week following the news of her death, aged 83. What a voice. What a star.