Remember the anti-heritage policies to rip up tram lines for cars, redevelop Sydney’s Rocks, Melbourne’s Regent and Brisbane Bellevue Hotel? Greater density and liveability are both possible. It requires collaboration, not weak narratives and vilification of the very people who contribute to what makes these suburbs attractive.
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The narrative that the current housing crisis has its origins in overly protective planning laws and that upzoning of urban areas combined with abolishing heritage controls will deliver the housing stock required has gained sway in public debate.
Despite the lack of substance to the argument, it is repeated in daily media and by government ministers; analysts and commentators find it mandatory to mention. Even the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank dropped it in a recent speech.
The narrative has several planks. We all love Paris and so should be happy to have a city of six storey buildings. We can achieve this, as Auckland has proven by upzoning residential areas. This will deliver housing where people want to live. Problem solved.
The only thing standing in the way of this grand design are a bunch of boomer NIMBYs who occupy heritage protected cottages in the inner city where young people want to live but can’t afford to buy into the neighbourhood.
So, change the planning laws to drive the NIMBYs out and run right over the top of local councils, resident groups and anyone else who stands in the way.
It’s an appealing argument even if the logic is paper thin. Its prominence is supercharged by politicians who have let the ball drop on housing for the past 20 years and have no political will or financial capital to address underlying problems.
It also suits sections of the development lobby working to the theory of never letting a good crisis go to waste and are keen to lessen planning controls.
Let’s unpack the argument.
The idea that a city like Melbourne in the 21st century can transform itself into the Paris of the south through planning law change is more than just starry-eyed.
The look and feel of Paris today can be traced to the work of Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine, in implementing the vision of Emperor Napoleon III in the Second Empire (1853-1870). While planning laws were a factor, a key driver was the vision of the emperor.
His was not a plan about building height. In fact, height was largely pre-determined because in the time before elevators, height was limited by the number of stairs a person could reasonably be expected to climb.
The focus of Haussmann’s transformation was the creation of new streetscapes, often expropriating private property, to modify or insert new streets and wider boulevards that create the sense of open space we love in Paris today.
There is no discussion of realigning or creating new streets in the proposals put forward by so-called YIMBYs. Indeed, there is no discussion about open space to accommodate increased density in a part of the city already short of open space.
Nor is there discussion about how the planning rules will restrict buildings to six stories given lifts make heights almost unlimited. Our planning system is built on contestation. Approval for one building above the height limit is leveraged for each new proposal.
Haussmann faced enormous political pressure from property owners particularly for his use of property expropriation to create the wide Parisian streets. No chance of Australian governments standing up to property owners to build boulevards.
The other part of the story is that heritage controls will be abolished.
The only reason Paris has the look and feel it has today is heritage controls of what was essentially created in the 19th century. Precisely the opposite of what the YIMBY narrative is saying. They want to rip down 19th and early 20th century precincts.
Paris has an interesting set of planning rules. The general urban zone covers most of the city.
Measures in this area “are aimed at ensuring diversity of urban functions, developing social diversity of the built environment, preserving urban structures and the historical Parisian urban heritage while allowing contemporary architectural expression”.
Land development is governed “by a set of volumetric and aesthetic regulations designed to guarantee the preservation of the Paris urban landscape in all its richness and diversity”.
Not much support there for abolishing heritage controls.
The Aukland factor. This argument is based on upzoning reforms introduced in 2016 and the impact analysed by economist Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy (and others), who argue Auckland’s reforms increased housing supply and kept a lid on house prices and rents.
First point to note, parts of Aukland were spared from the upzoning for heritage reasons.
Second, Greenaway-McGrevy’s analysis is heavily contested in terms of how he selected and refined his data and the conclusions he drew from the analysis.
Two economists have questioned the way he assembled his data by excluding some housing starts from before the change was introduced, which they say exaggerated the change achieved. With the data, trends in Auckland and Wellington were similar.
One of the economists also questioned the distorting effect of the pandemic, arguing a lot of people left Auckland over this time, putting pressure on rents and house prices.
Recent data shows NZ housing approvals trending down, and Auckland is following a similar trend to most other cities, including Australia, with increasing costs, falling housing starts and increasing prices and rents.
The Auckland story is not as simple as the proponents suggest.
Construction costs and returns are the drivers of investor hesitancy, and that is holding back housing investment now. This is clear from the number of properties that already have planning approval but are not proceeding and the drop-off in applications.
Planning didn’t hold back housing starts when it reached its peaks in 2021 or 2018 or 2016 at almost twice the current level. Housing shortages have been evident in most developed countries since the pandemic.
Tax incentives are driving property prices and impacting the economic calculation of investors. But this is clearly too hard for governments looking for softer targets.
The final piece of the story is attacking people and institutions seen as being privileged or protecting the status quo. Yes, it is mostly expensive to buy into the inner suburbs. Land prices are high. Apartment prices are more modest.
The reason it is expensive is not because it has always been expensive. There was a time when no-one wanted to live in the inner suburbs. Cities were at risk of becoming doughnuts with wealth on the outer ring and poverty in the middle.
People who moved to the inner city a generation ago took over rundown buildings in dangerous suburbs and renovated them. In the process, it made inner city living desirable, attracting more people who sought the aesthetic and the lifestyle.
Inner city residents accept greater density. The inner city has carried the bulk of housing growth and expects this will continue. The concern is that what makes these suburbs attractive, the heritage buildings and liveability is not destroyed.
To vilify these people as NIMBYs and threaten to dispossess them might fit the story – every good story needs a battle between good and evil – but it is not warranted.
Greater density and liveability are both possible. But it requires collaboration not weak narratives and vilification of the very people who contribute to what makes these suburbs attractive.
Abolishing heritage controls is a 1960s idea. Remember the policies to rip up tram lines for cars and redevelop Sydney’s Rocks, Melbourne’s Regent and Brisbane Bellevue Hotel.