Labour is backing the proposal, and housing spokesman Kieran McAnulty said he was pleased the homes would still have to comply with the building code.
“At the end of the day we need as many houses as possible in this country if we’re going to address the housing crisis,” he said.
“We’ve been critical of the Government taking $1.5 billion out of the housing budget and dropping the funding for public houses — that was a dumb idea, but this one seems like it might be a good one.”
However, he said he was worried granny flats might end up being jammed into backyards too close to the main building without enough room for stormwater to escape.
“We’ve seen the impact severe weather can have on urban areas like Auckland, so we need to make sure that, in the spirit of trying to increase housing supply, we don’t loosen standards.”
Auckland University of Technology professor of construction John Tookey said the changes would save a few thousand dollars in the building process and would generally be a positive move for housing supply.
But he agreed with concerns over water run-off, and warned there needed to be recognition that increasing housing densification would put more pressure on infrastructure and services such as drinking water, sewage, roads, schools and GPs.
“There’s going to have to be some sort of consideration of minor issues such as stormwater run-off, sewage requirements, water provision,” he said.
“If we’re going to get an extra couple of hundred thousand people in Auckland, then we’ve got a couple of hundred thousand people of additional water consumption that we’re going to have to supply.”
Tookey said without building consents, it would be harder for authorities to keep tabs on how many people were needing these services and resources.
He said its ability to make a difference to housing supply was, in his opinion, limited.
“I’m not going to hold my breath with regard to this becoming a massive exercise in generating additional housing,” Tookey said.
While it would make it cheaper for certain individuals by a few thousand dollars, “there is a requirement to be sensible about its application”.
But Willie Te Aho, strategic adviser to iwi housing provider Toitū Tairāwhiti Housing in Gisborne, said homes did not have to make a real difference.
“The reality is a lot of these will be pre-built,” he said. “Not just the 60sq m — people can live in 30sq m.”
He said Toitū Tairāwhiti — and probably others — could have houses ready to go when the law change came into effect a few months down the line, with a 60sq m home taking two or three months to build.
He said the rule changes would extend and make permanent a rule change that had already taken place in parts of Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay post Cyclone Gabrielle, that removed the need for consents in certain areas to rehouse displaced families.
He said Toitū Tairāwhiti had already moved 20-25 per cent of its people back into houses, thanks in part to the relaxed rules.
Ōrārūharo Ahu Whenua Trust chairman Ivan Hauraki is building a papakāinga for his whānau that has eight small homes with some communal facilities.
“I built our papakāinga on rural-zoned land and if I’d applied by the rule there I would have only been allowed to put three houses on that 9½ hectares, but we now, and by August, will have 15 houses on 2ha.”
He had previously built 60sq m homes that were two bedrooms, open plan and housed two elderly people.
They were comfortable, he said.
“In the whole scheme of things it’s not only about the homes, though that is a big part of it; it’s about the wellbeing of the people too, and that’s what we’re providing alongside brand-new, warm and comfortable homes.”
Hauraki welcomed the proposal.
“I think there’s definitely the opportunity for building on Māori freehold land. I think there’s always been this mindset that why are people told that they can or cannot build on their land, and that’s where the resource consent process is … it’s all about the cost and it’s all about the time, so when you can cut both those down, you’re starting to get somewhere.”
