KEY POINTS:
The Government has introduced a bill to give local councils the power to ensure developers provide cheap housing in their developments.
Housing Minister Maryan Street said The Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill aimed to stimulate provision of more affordable housing for first-home buyers and modest-income families in the rental market.
It would give councils flexibility to promote a wider variety of house sizes, ownership models and costs and was based on schemes used in the United Kingdom and the United States.
"It seeks to balance the need for continued housing development, with the need to address affordable housing issues. It provides developers with a consistent and predictable legislative framework, while still allowing scope for flexibility and negotiation," she said.
Ms Street said that over the past 15 years, the size of new homes has increased by 50 per cent.
Rising prices had seen the home ownership rate fall from 74 per cent to 67 per cent between 1991 and 2006. It that trend continued the rate would fall to about 62 per cent by 2016.
The bill would:
* prevent the use of title covenants which are used to exclude social or affordable housing from developments;
* enable councils - after they proved affordable housing was needed - to require developers to either: include affordable housing in their developments, make payments towards the cost of providing affordable housing elsewhere, or provide land for the construction of affordable housing;
* allow councils to offer incentives, such as waiving development contributions, or permitting greater densities, in order to build affordable housing;
* allow councils to decide how to administer properties obtained for affordable housing through negotiations with developers. Options included retaining properties, vesting in a housing trust, entering into shared equity arrangements with first-homeowners, or selling properties on the open market with deed restrictions to ensure the housing remains affordable over the longer term.
- NZPA
