Back in 2017, the Whāingaroa-Raglan Affordable Housing Project (WRAP) was formed to address affordable housing issues in the community of Whāingraoa. After a lengthy submission process towards the Waikato District Plan to include housing affordability as a priority, WRAP says attitude change is starting to happen at the council.
(Listen to the full interview below:)
Back in 2017, the Whāingaroa-Raglan Affordable Housing Project (WRAP) was formed to address affordable housing issues in the community of Whāingraoa. After a lengthy submission process towards the Waikato District Plan to include housing affordability as a priority, WRAP says attitude change is starting to happen at the council.
Drilling down on the local, regional and national situation, what became clear was that the housing market was only serving the top 25% of income earners with the median house pricing sitting at around $670,000 in November 2019.
It’s safe to say that with average house prices currently sitting around $1 million - the housing crisis has not eased.
WRAP Coordinator Fiona McNabb explains that in addition to house prices becoming unattainable for many, for those that already own houses, the value increase in the house is meaningless - especially if you want to stay where you are.
“It only counts if you want to sell and I think that if you want to stay still, it's really meaningless. Except of course in terms of the rating value, which has gone up, so it's going to cost you more to stay still.
“But it wouldn't be of much benefit to move anywhere either at the moment, Because that million dollar median house price is pretty common around New Zealand these days.”
On the submissions that WRAP made around affordable housing to the Waikato District Plan, Fiona says that all nine submissions bar one (which was accepted in-part only) were rejected. Fiona says that WRAP hasn’t appealed the commission’s decision.
“There's two aspects to it. Firstly, it's an energy level thing. It's really hard to retain the level of energy required to keep engaged in the process. I doubt that that's really an intentional strategy from the (District Plan) reviewers. But from a submitter's point of view, it's a real thing.
“The other thing is that during the hearing process, the comments we got back from the commissioners (mostly by way of questions that were asked) gave us a fairly clear view that they weren't going to be supportive of a number of our submissions and that played out in their responses.”
Despite the rejected submissions, Fiona is hopeful that the issue of affordable housing is very much on the council’s agenda whereas four years ago it wasn’t being considered.
“It really wasn't on the horizon for anyone. But if we go back to just fairly recently, there was a forum for all of the Waikato district councilors that was set up a few weeks ago.”
“This forum was really designed to give all of the councilors a good review of what's actually happening in the affordable housing space in the region. The questions and the assurances coming out of that forum show that affordable housing is really very much in the forefront of the District Council's mind now.
Fiona observed that the questions; “were more along the lines of: what can we do, how can we help, where can we find land that the council owns, that we could put into projects like this?”
Seeing a big change in opinion around the district council's responsibility in this issue was another reason why she decided there was no need to put energy into appealing the commission’s decisions.
Fiona found that support from council staff was extremely helpful while writing the original submissions (in early 2018) but there were noticeable challenges once they came to present in front of the commission.
“It was really clear that you were at a big disadvantage if you hadn't engaged with professional planners or other people who understood the language of the district plan,” she said.
While the submission process is over, Fiona still has plenty of work to do in the space.
Fiona is part of the Waikato Housing Initiative (soon to become a Charitable Trust) aimed at “changing the current status quo of housing across the region by leading, connecting and facilitating the delivery of affordable, quality and accessible homes in the Waikato.” and she is also on the Waikato Community Lands Trust Board which represents smaller communities and Whaingaroa.
Continuing to push models for housing affordability that are outside traditional ways of land development, Fiona is seeing a really keen interest from people in power beyond the politics of the District Council and the business side of land development and they are showing a genuine concern about the state of housing.
She cites the likes of Simon Perry of Perry Group entering the conversation recently with the Bridge Trust who aim to be developers of affordable housing. They want to produce smaller, higher quality builds while retaining affordability by incorporating ideas like 100 year long-term leases rather than land ownership. As an example they hope to sell 2 bedroom units for $325,000 which is less than half the current market value of $750,000.
WRAP began talking about exactly the same message four or five years ago. The Waikato Housing Initiative was formed in 2018, the Waikato Community Lands Trust in 2019, both groups backing the same philosophy. Bridge Trust comes along in 2022 and suddenly, everyone sits up and goes, oh, that's a good idea. But it's helpful. It is actually beginning to build a much bigger momentum.
On the future of housing affordability, some of WRAP’s submissions related to changing the minimum size for a multi-unit dwelling or development so that you could put three or more units on a section and these changes have been woven into the council’s new medium density residential zone outcomes. However, it appears from the decision document that the new general residential zone category will apply in Whaingaroa.
For Raglan, it’s hard to say whether these zoning changes will have an impact as there is limited capacity for multiple dwellings on sections in the urban or medium density areas.
WRAP is still working on acquiring land in Whāingaroa to develop for affordable housing and hope to have more news soon.