Infrastructure Report: Accord gives council more flexible powers

The accord's goal is to have 39,000 new sections and dwellings consented by October 2016. Photo / Richard Robinson

Auckland's median house price hit an apparent ceiling of $786,000 in June before dropping to $757,000 by July.

These figures were closely followed by the revelation that only 10 of Auckland's 167 suburbs have homes with a median value of under $500,000, while Auckland's million-dollar class of suburbs has ballooned from 43 to 50 in just two months.

Unaffordability was recently brought into the international spotlight with the release of the 11th annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. Of the major cities surveyed, Auckland was at number 9, ahead of the likes of Los Angeles and Australia's Gold Coast.

The Auckland Housing Accord was put together in response to an investigation by the productivity commission in 2011 into housing affordability in New Zealand.

The accord's intention is stated as: to create conditions whereby housing supply is accelerated in both greenfield and brownfield developments. It gives Auckland Council new, flexible powers to streamline resource consent and plan change approvals under the Housing Accord and Special Housing Areas Act 2013.

Essentially a three-year strategy, the accord's goal is to have 39,000 new sections and dwellings consented by October 2016. In March, 18 months into the initiative, the Government said the plan was on track to ease the shortage. Since the accord's launch in 2013, more than 16,734 new dwellings and sections have been consented in Auckland, representing quite a dent in the accord's goal.

The Government has also outlined a new reform agenda for the Resource Management Act which would look to shave off the costs the current RMA regime tacks on the cost of housing -- costs which can run up to $30,000 and are said to be stifling the capacity of housing development by 22 per cent.

Correction
By the end of March this year, 16,734 sections and dwellings had been consented in the first 18 months of the Auckland Housing Accord, not 14,300
as stated in the Infrastructure report yesterday.