New Zealand’s Legalization of Incremental Housing Is Bearing Fruit
www.strongtowns.org
New Zealand has proven what stateside housing advocates have been theorizing for years: Loosening restrictive zoning rules can increase housing supply and stabilize rents.

Summary: The “downzoning” of the 1970s and 80s and resultant single-family zoning across the island nation in many ways mirrored the suburban development pattern visible across the U.S.

However, when an 11% spike in population between 2013 and 2018 strained supply in Auckland, the nation’s largest city by both population and landmass began reevaluating where it was headed. The city’s home prices doubled between 2009 and 2016, Business Insider reported. “People even began to pay hundreds of dollars a month to rent garages in Auckland without bathrooms or kitchens.”

Unwilling to continue down this path, Auckland turned to incremental development. In 2016, the city upzoned approximately three-quarters of its residential land area under the Auckland Unitary Plan, legalizing duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes on single-family lots.

The number of construction permits issued more than doubled. “New housing units permitted have increased every year since the policy was enacted, with all of these increases occurring in the city’s upzoned areas,” a 2021 research paper by Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy, the Director of Economic Policy at the University of Auckland, stated.

  • CoffeeAddict
    2•1 year ago

    The problem is actually more complicated than just landlords. They, by-and-large, exist and operate within the system as it allows them to. A landlord does two major things, one of which is a very important part of the housing market.

    1. They (sometimes) develop and (are supposed to) maintain housing.

    2. They own valuable land and extract value from it based on the desirability of the surrounding community.

    People take issue with both points largely because slum lords exist and limited housing stock in desirable neighborhoods drives up prices to exorbitant levels. Furthermore, there is incentive by homeowners to not build new housing stock to keep prices high.

    In my opinion, many of these problems could be alleviated with a land-value tax.

    Edit: grammar and clarity

    • theinspectorst
      2•1 year ago

      I honestly have never heard a convincing argument for not having a land-value tax.