Part of the kiwi dream is to own your own home. Unfortunately since 1991, housing affordability in New Zealand has declined substantially.
According to the 6th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, published last year, New Zealand’s house prices in major cities are almost twice the considered affordable median. This puts us in the ‘severely unaffordable’ category. Hugh Pavletich has highlighted this in his recent press release stating “Our poor affordability performance is illustrated year after year, where currently our major cities housing is approximately 5.7 times annual gross household income. House prices should not exceed 3 times annual household income’.
Out of the six countries and the 272 areas surveyed, New Zealand’s best placing in the Housing affordability rankings was 188 (Palmerston North – Manawatu at 4.6). New Zealand is ranked fifth out of the six countries for the most unaffordable housing behind the United States (2.9), Canada (3.7), Ireland (3.7) and the United Kingdom (5.1). Australia has the most unaffordable housing with a median of 6.8.
It has only been in the last few years that the government has started to seriously address this issue. The establishment of the Urban Technical Advisory Group and the Commerce Committee Housing Affordability Inquiry has brought this issue a bit more into the spotlight and we are currently waiting on the report from the Urban Technical Advisory Group to be released. Hopefully this will provide a foundation for some progress to start on getting governance and responsible regulatory administration in place. But as Pavletich points out ‘the government and public bureaucracies at all levels are a reflection of us’.
The Housing Affordability Survey also mentions that local authorities of New Zealand have, in effect, established unaffordable housing as an objective of public policy, however unwittingly and that these authorities should adopt performance programs that include easily understood measures (such as the Median Multiple).
So where does this leave us? When the next elections occur, should we be pushing for more tax cuts and rate reductions? Or focusing more on the planning and affordability of our homes and in effect our communities? Do we have to get comfortable with the idea of greater housing intensification – which isn’t always necessarily bad? Or should we just abandon the Kiwi dream of home ownership in favour of other more realistic housing models – long-term tenancies?
“Cities of Nature, Living between Land and Sky” is the theme of the New Zealand Pavilion being constructed in Shanghai for the 2010 World Expo. In a prime spot, it is located close to the host country’s pavilion where there will be a large amount of foot traffic and ‘virtually’ be seen by every person attending the expo.
This is a fantastic opportunity to promote out country. But what sort of an image are they projecting?
The New Zealand Trade and Enterprise website stated that:
“The aim of the pavilion is to present a welcoming vision of a nation that is striving to bring its cities into a sustainable balance with nature; a country in which natural beauty, the inspiration that it brings, and the lifestyles that it permits, can exist alongside and contribute to a modern and innovative first world economy”
It has based its ‘City of Nature Experience’, within the pavilion, on ‘taking them through a “day in the life” of a New Zealand family in a composite New Zealand city in a natural setting: from the mountains to the sea, past farmlands and bush and back towards the mountains, through a beach-house, a school classroom and an office building.’
Read the full story here. Does this really reflect New Zealand’s vision for the future? Or is this just a huge marketing tool to bring in the punters? Comments are welcome.
The Dutch Pavilion is going beyond the norm and will not be the classic ’stand outside for hours outside waiting for the presentation inside’ model. The 5000 square meter pavilion comprimises 26 small elevated houses. The houses will line a pedestrian street that curves in a fugure of eight, a lucky number in China suggesting fortune. The submission, entitled “Happy Street”, is the response by designer John Kormeling to the Expo theme “Better City, Better Life” and the sub-themes.
Selected from a group of 35 architecture practices from around the globe, Auckland architecture firm, Moller Architects has scored one of the world’s top international design competitions for the Parliament buildings at Al Bustan in the city of Muscat.
The design of the structures and cladding recognised the heritage of Oman, and the Mollers have designed the three parliamentary buildings. Gordon Moller stated that he wasn’t sure why the Sultan of Oman chose their design, but he thinks it was because of the clarity of planning and the response to Oman’s traditions. Moller Architects also designed the Auckland Sky Tower and Macau Tower.
The construction work has started on Oman’s new parliament buildings. The first stage will be finished next year and the whole project completed by 2012.
In New York, Citigroup is showing its commitment to the City by providing US$576m in loans and cash to help build or renovate more than 20,000 low-income housing units over the next four years. Is there anything which we in New Zealand could take from this example of the involvement of private investment in affordable housing initiatives? Sometimes it can be too easy to see the issue of providing affordable housing as the preserve of government when there are other available ways to meet the housing needs of increasingly growing number of New Zealanders. Check out the NZ Herald article, and provide your thoughts.
Tommy Honey in his regular slot on Radio NZ’s Nine-to-Noon asks this question following his tour of the new Supreme Court. Two-thirds of the $80m was spent on renovating the previously derelict old High Court building, which he describes as being largely without purpose and auxiliary to the newer addition. He questions the point at which we should let our historic architecture be replaced by the modern and new which better reflect today’s New Zealand. Any thoughts?
Tommy Honey – Urbanist Tommy Honey takes a look inside the new Supreme Court (duration 9:08 mins)
GOOD.IS: Could Urban Planning Reduce Childhood Obesity?
In the 19th and 20th century architects, urban thinkers and landscape architects like Fredrick Law Olmsted designed our cities and neighborhoods to address infectious diseases and even mental health issues, something that is more or less taken for granted in our era of flushing toilets and garbage removal. Before Prozac, a walk in nature (perhaps in one of Olmsted’s parks) was not an uncommon prescription for someone suffering from depression. It still may be. Recent studies have confirmed what we already knew: nature is really good for us…
And if you are in the city (like many of us are these days) a walk in the park might be the best thing you can do for your health– and it may be the best tool in our First Lady’s new assault on childhood obesity.
Michelle Obama’s new campaign Let’s Move couldn’t have come at a better time. With childhood obesity rates tripling in the last 30 years it’s fair to say it’s an epidemic. And a systemic problem that must include more than bigger picture thinking– like how the built environment impacts our daily habits, like walking to school.
Some people have already started thinking about how urban planning can impact public health and specifically, childhood obesity. Over at City Fix Megan McConville points out that if our neighborhoods and streets aren’t walkable then we can hardly expect our kids to get off the couch. And in New York (where city innovation seems to be happening at a breakneck speed) the Bloomberg Administration may be one step ahead of the White House– quite literally. The city’s Active Design Guide is leveraging good design to get New Yorkers moving. From their introduction:
“active design is critical to addressing obesity and its related diseases-the fastest growing epidemics of our time, while also supporting sustainability”
The program aims to design more walkable and bikeable neighborhoods while promoting more activity where we live, work and play. This is exactly the kind of thinking that could result in real, tangible change. Let’s hope the White House is paying attention.
In all the debate around Queens Wharf, ferry terminals, and supercity governance it easy to forget that there is actually an established plan for Auckland’s waterfront. It serves the purposes of the media and others to overlook the existence of this plan, which many have devoted significant time and effort to. So as a reminder for some, and a revelation for others take a look at Auckland Waterfront 2040.
The government’s first infrastructure plan confirms their intention to invest $14b over the next 10 years in school construction. The UK’s Commission of Architecture and the Build Environment (CABE) has released recent research on the economic case for investing in schools. Of particular interest are their comments on the difference which school design makes to student attainment and their claim that the evidence is accumulating.
One link between the design of a school and the performance of its pupils is easy to establish: bullying. A child who is bullied finds it much harder to do well academically than one who isn’t, and older schools are more bully-friendly than those designed with the problem in mind – all those narrow corridors, dead ends and intimidating toilet blocks. The National Foundation for Educational Research carried out a study at Bristol Brunel academy, which opened in 2007; this showed that the number of pupils who said bullying was an issue for them has dropped by 23% compared with the school it replaced. Vandalism has dropped by 51%, and the number of pupils who say they “feel safe” has risen by 30%.
Another benefit of investing in schools is that good buildings attract good teachers. “We don’t see any conflict between investing in teachers and the buildings in which they work,” says Finch, alluding to the temptation for governments to cut capital works rather than teachers’ pay. “If good teachers have a choice between a good school building and a bad one, there will be some who will see the bad as a challenge to take up, but most will opt for a nice place. Good buildings tend to attract more and better qualified people to work and they stay there longer.” Of course in the shorter term this will benefit the upgraded schools at the expense of the rest, but that should be a transitory cost as the programme unrolls. The ultimate benefit, of course, would be to improve the status, and therefore the quality, of the teaching profession as a whole.
Any thoughts on the above, the robustness of the research?
What’s the big deal about suburban sprawl? According to some sources in the United States it is shaping up as a real issue for large numbers of home owners. Add to the impact which the GFC has already had on US suburban house prices and the outline for these American families is not rosy.
Remember, diversity is important – it’s not just a catchphrase. It’s no less critical to communities’ survival than it is to the success of your own investment portfolio…
MSN.com has become the latest news outlet to confirm that the ever-outward suburban construction boom that defined United States real estate virtually unchallenged for half a century has gone bust, and perhaps not just temporarily. The latest, a new article by Melinda Fuller of MSN Real Estate, gives us an update with a few new tidbits:
Arthur C. (Chris) Nelson’s trend research says that we may have a surplus of as many as 25 million large-lot suburban homes by 2030. Many of them will be converted to multifamily properties.
Aging baby boomers (cough) are likely to start selling off their large suburban homes at a rate of five percent per year between 2010 and 2030.
Some suburban homes that cannot be sold are already being converted into subsidized affordable housing.
The average European household spends only a third as much of their income on transportation as do American suburbanites.
The suburbs that survive will be the ones with walkable, mixed-use amenities.
Suburban retrofits may be the next development frontier, but outdated policies and practices won’t make it easy.
