Chris Carter: Blatant exclusion of needy

Chris Carter

New Zealand's largest new town is under construction - Flat Bush, an urban development in Manukau City that will comprise about 20,000 homes for 40,000 people.

The town should be a modern, integrated community that welcomes all New Zealanders; after all, it is being built from scratch.

Sadly, though, on at least two blocks of land on the edge of Flat Bush area, a covenant has been placed prohibiting Housing New Zealand from leasing, selling or letting any property in the blocks. In other words, all social housing is excluded.

This is not an isolated event. Throughout New Zealand developments are starting to crop up with covenants or other informal arrangements that either explicitly or implicitly exclude social housing.

While it is difficult to determine how widespread these covenants are without an extensive title search, Housing New Zealand has a growing concern about the scale of areas that might eventually be affected.

The most blatant of these exclusions tend to be found in areas where developers are attempting to achieve high property values. They seem to mirror a rise in general restrictions on land titles across the whole property market, the most extreme of which are found in gated communities.

Quite apart from the unsettling questions these covenants raise about New Zealand's traditionally egalitarian society, they could have an immediate practical impact on efforts to improve the living conditions of New Zealand's most needy.

That impact could become particularly pronounced if the use of prohibitive covenants starts to migrate towards the more modest end of the housing market where Housing New Zealand operates.

At present there is a significant waiting list for social housing all over the country, and compounding the problem in Auckland, where pressure is greatest, is an acute shortage of land for new houses.

If the scale of no-go areas for social housing expands, the ability of Housing New Zealand to keep up with demand could be constrained, especially when it is seeking to house people with special needs.

As we learned in the 1990s, inadequate social housing has consequences that affect everybody, such as rising crime, increased risk of disease and family violence.

No city benefits from having ghettos. Housing New Zealand has learned from the mistakes of the past, and is working to gradually reduce the density of social housing in older suburbs.

The idea is, where possible, to redistribute social housing more evenly within the community. Research suggests this improves the social outcomes for people in social housing.

All of this work could be put in jeopardy if exclusionary covenants of the type seen in parts of Flat Bush really take hold.

Housing New Zealand and I are exploring what can be done to tackle the problem.

The issues are complex. In what situations are private property rights limited by the public good? Do developers have an unfettered right to exclude certain classes of people from living in certain areas to maximise property values?

I'm not convinced they do, and I am not ruling out a legal challenge to prohibitive covenants if one proves necessary.

As a starting point, though, Housing New Zealand signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Manukau City Council last month, and another with the Papakura District Council in August, to try to ensure the need for social housing is recognised and accommodated in developments. The agreement with Papakura specifically recognises that restrictive covenants limiting social housing are not desirable.

Manukau is already proving helpful in tackling the issues in parts of Flat Bush, and as minister I would welcome more discussion with other councils, and also developers.

Clearly, there are complex community concerns about social housing that lie behind these covenants, and they need to be acknowledged and explored, but it is important to question whether segregation is the answer.

* Chris Carter is the Minister of Conservation, Housing and Ethnic Affairs.