I can’t think of anything more guaranteed to push house prices up massively so only the rich can afford one.

Increasing housing stock by 100,000 is significant though – about the size of Manukau.

But why focus on house prices? If there are more apartments, the average cost of a dwelling would actually fall. Increasingly more people are choosing to live in apartments. Like yourself, DPF.

The Real Estate Institute and media also fall into the same trap, constantly quoting the median house price rather than the median dwelling price.

There is a brilliant series of posts on Auckland’s spatial plan here:

http://transportblog.co.nz/tag/spatial-plan/

Before I am shouted down I am sure that other Jafas can remember the time that one only ventured into Ponsonby under armed gaurd.

Of course if the scum are all leaving South Auckland then they have to go somewhere, that just happens to be bad news for anybody who lives out West.
West Auckland is fast becoming a shit hole, while it has always had it’s fair share of losers it also had a healthy number of honest battlers who purchased their own house and did their best to raise their kids. These poor sods are now seeing the scum from South Auckland (along with their own home grown ferals) all move out west.

We need new land made available for building to hold down land values and ensure builders can build property throughout the area that people can afford to buy.

Despite the rough economy, Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) attitudes about real estate development projects are stronger than ever. In fact, Americans’ opposition to new local development actually intensified for the first time since 2008, the 2011 Saint Index found. Cynicism about how and where development takes place is pervasive when Americans consider their own communities. Politics will continue to influence the development process, the results show, as Americans place high importance on a candidate’s position on growth and development issues when considering candidates for local office.
…
A great majority of Americans — in fact, the highest level in six years of Saint Index surveys — oppose new development in their own community. 79 percent said their hometown is fine the way it is or already over-developed. Some 86 percent of suburban Americans do not want new development in their community. Asked, “What type of new development would you most like to see in your community?” the most common answer was “none.”
http://saintindex.info/general-attitudes#nimbyattitudes

and they get way with it because of the left:
Anti-immigration feeling has no place in the Green party Immigration and Population policies released today, Green MP Keith Locke says.
“Our policy is the opposite of Winston Peters’,” the Party’s Immigration Spokesperson Keith Locke says.

In its report, the SWG claims the move backfired.
http://www.interest.co.nz/kiwisaver/52140/migration-policy-linked-inflated-housing-prices-government-spending-and-low-savings

Here is the unpublished truth. David, maybe you could persuade the Herald to set the record straight.

THINGS AREN’T THAT BAD IN SAGINAW

by Wendell Cox 01/24/2012
Our 8th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey included the Saginaw, Michigan metropolitan area, which we noted had the lowest Median Multiple (median house price divided by median household income) among the included 325 metropolitan areas. This made Saginaw the most affordable metropolitan market, principally due to depressed economic conditions. Saginaw has been ravaged by the loss of manufacturing jobs and a generally declining economy because of its strong industrial ties to the Detroit metropolitan area.

D. Robertson of Freeman’s Bay (Auckland, New Zealand) must think that things are much worse, as indicated by a letter to the editor in the New Zealand Herald on January 24 (The Herald does not post letters to the editor on its internet site). Robertson says that including and prominently reporting the result of Saginaw Michigan (population 297 in 120-odd dwellings) was inappropriate. Robertson makes a 99.9% error, having apparently confused Saginaw, Missouri (population 297) with Saginaw, Michigan. According to the 2010 US Census, the Saginaw metropolitan area has a population of 200,169. That would be substantial enough to qualify Saginaw as one of New Zealand’s largest metropolitan areas if it were there.

Does the Herald have no regard for reporting the truth?

This is where the real investment will need to be focused. Building well beyond Papakura and Dury will help with those efforts. Maximising land in existing suburbs in the Counties Manukau area will also lead to greater success in the long-term.

But shrinking the land area of housing is not the answer moving forward. People need recreational space to breath and cutting into the front and backyards is not the answer. Nobody wants to be so close to their neighbours that shower time in the morning becomes a challenge.

Great thinking David, we need to build outward.

Auckland City’s pop. is 400,000 but the metropolitain pop is 1.5million your point is what

People criticise it as a brick & tile spec home hell, but I view the design of Botany Town Centre and Dannemora, out near the East Tamaki industrial zone, as one of the more forward-looking and inspired pieces of planning that has happened in Auckland in recent times. An attempt to build a new centre where people can live and work, without having to go into Auckland every day, but not so far away that it’s disconnected socially.

Las Vegas: population 580k
End of topic.

There is no advantage in Auckland or even New Zealand having more people.

Except the fun and interesting cities of the world have millions of people. I live in Sydney now and it’s a lot more happening than Auckland is. I could be wrong about the ‘high population = fun’ causation link but that’s how it seems to me.

If I were proclaimed Imperator of Auckland I would:

1) Identify key transport hubs at town centres/ malls throughout the ‘burbs.
2) Build train/bus centres at these locations, park & ride facilities, and covered/secure bike storage.
3) Run track or bus-only corridors between the hubs, creating a network of radial spokes of direct in/out lines into the CBD and circle lines around the city. Run dual walking/ cycleways also to connect the hill reserves and parks in the city.
4) Operate an Auckland wide electronic bus/train ticketing system.
5) Zone within a 10 min walking distance of the major hubs as intensive living for apartments (high rise)
6) Zone within 20 mins walk as townhouse living.
7) Beyond that leave as low rise.
8.) Expand the city boundaries by developing satellite towns connected by major transport links – either rail or bus-only corridors, as well as close proximity to motorways. Separate them from the main city limits by parks and reserves. Develop the satellite towns on the same zoning principles as the transport hubs in the city from the get-go.
9) require all new office workplaces to provide showers, change facilities and secure bike storage for employees.

Of course that will all take many years, and $, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Thinking of Rome, perhaps to fund it we should invade a small corrupt African despotic regime rich in natural resources and mine the hell out of it. Give our young unemployed something productive to do, develop their country enough to keep the locals happy, and use the profits to build a clean green Auckland. Win win?

Hmm, interesting point. Perhaps the responsibility of issuing building consents could be delegated to an appointed board.

But I can already hear the cries of “unconstitutional”. I guess that’s one of democracy’s inherent problems, when the governing body is essentially appointed by self interested rate payers. Who else bothers to vote in local elections?