Housing Crisis in New Zealand

HOUSING CRISIS IN
NEW ZEALAND
Snehil Bhikhalal Gorasia
Student Identification Number: 1446674
Literature Review
Department of Construction
June 2016

Table of Contents
List of abbreviations....................................................................................................ii
1 Introduction..........................................................................................................1
1.1 Statement Of Topic .........................................................................................1
1.2 Background .....................................................................................................1
1.3 Ratinale
2 Homeless and
Affordability..................................................................................3
2.1 International Comparison
2.2 Government In the Business Of Planning
3 Scarcity In Housing and Increase in
Rent .........................................................9
3.1 Access Husing Supply and need-driven demand in Australia
4 Poor, Unhealthy and Overcrowded Housing
4.1 Household Crowding
5 Building and Resource Consent
5.1 Resource Consent Requirement
5.2 Time Limits to Resource Consent
5.3 Issues with Resource Consent
5.3 Issues with Building Consent....................................................
6 Conclusions
7 Research questions
7.1 Main Question
7.1.1 Sub Question
8 References

List of abbreviations
MDH- Medium Density Housing

1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Statement of Topic
The objective of the report is to analyse the housing system that has become a major issue in
some of the parts of the country and there is an approximation that population of Auckland has
increased about a million over the years.
1.2 Background
New Zealand should focus on the housing system making sure about the appropriate housing that
should be provided in order to meet the requirements and needs of the people otherwise people
will be facing housing shortages, price rise in housing leading to reduction in ownership of the
house. As a result of which they not be able to afford the rent of the house leading to an
increment in the number of homeless people.
Improvements in housing system and affordability would be advantageous to New Zealand in
order to attract more workers and businesses required in the making of New Zealand’s largest
city more and more attractive, colourful and more effective in productivity for a large interval of
time. Taking housing system into consideration, Auckland will be facing a challenge to
counteract the problem regarding the housing supply as it will be able to bring economic reforms
as well if it is executed successfully. The execution needs to be done by applying different
strategies in order to meet the expectations. Building houses at a pace which is faster as well as
in a larger scale will be providing homes with a number of choices from homes that are old to
those having terraces or apartments. The maintenance is also a concern regarding the housing
system.
In order to answer challenges, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff got the identification regarding the
housing issue in Auckland:

 Identifying the barriers and obstacles in building more and more houses in Auckland with a
decent speed which will be meeting the demands that have been created by growth in
population.
 The solutions and strategies for facing the barriers should be identified.
1.3 Rationale
It has been observed that the country has been facing crucial challenges regarding the housing
crisis over the past ten years. The exponential growth in population is responsible in bringing
difficulties that are being faced by the government. The Christchurch earthquake that lead to a
huge disaster on medium density houses was also responsible for New Zealand to emphasize the
most on the issues regarding housing and to start a deep research and analysis.
According to the statistics, it has been observed that New Zealand is facing the housing crisis as
a result of exponential growth in population. The report will be discussing about the issues
regarding the homeless and issues regarding the affordability as well as poor health and houses
that are crowded. Consents will also be discussed.
More focus will be given to the consent as people have spent a lot of money that were spent on
none other than MDH building while lot of time were taken by the council. There will be
discussion on the consent as well the affordability and homeless issues.
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2 Homeless and Affordabilty
The major question that should be arisen is about identifying who the homeless are in New
Zealand.
There is a report according to which it has been estimated that almost 24% of the total population
of people that are homeless, are found to be children and it also estimated to be risen in the
future. According to the census held in 2013 almost 41,000 people of New Zealand were found
to be homeless. (NZ, 2013)
According to the 2009 Statistics homeless was defined for the first time by not only housing of
the New Zealand but also the Ministry of Social Development. Homelessness can be defined as
the living conditions and situations due to which people having not any option to obtain safe and
reliable housing and living without shelter. A homeless person can also be considered as anyone
not living in permanent or living in sharing lodging or may be living in squalid housing. (New
Zealand In Profile, 2009)
Those people who are living in cars, camping grounds, boarding houses and even living in
garages as well as lounges are also considered as homeless. (Savage, 2018)
A study from Yale University has researched and reported that in comparison with the other
wealthy nations that are part of the Economic Cooperation and Development, New Zealand has
the highest rate of homelessness. (Chamie, 2017)
New Zealand has been hit very hard by housing affordability, the cost of housing has been found
to be risen high within the span of 30 years. The price rise is a result of the amalgamation of
cultural as well as social changes. Most of the people are found to be in debt just because of the
price rise and the expensive housing in New Zealand. It is believed that ownership contributes a
lot to build a society with stability and make the communities safer.
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