Speaker 1: Cure. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and this
Speaker 1: is the Front Page Daily Podcast presented by The New
Speaker 1: Zealand Herald. Auckland is under pressure to make space for
Speaker 1: two million homes and counselors have little choice in the matter.
Speaker 1: On September twenty fourth, the city's Policy and Planning Committee
Speaker 1: will decide whether to press ahead with the existing Plan
Speaker 1: Change seventy eight, which allows three story housing across most
Speaker 1: of the city, or back a new plan that concentrates
Speaker 1: apartment blocks up to fifteen stories around key transport hubs.
Speaker 1: Both options have sparked heated debate, from fears of flooding
Speaker 1: and towers overshadowing suburban homes to arguments that the city
Speaker 1: desperately needs more density to tackle the housing crisis. Minister
Speaker 1: for Arima Reform, Chris Bishop, has made it clear that
Speaker 1: Auckland must provide for growth while promising locals a stronger
Speaker 1: voice in how it plays out. So what's really at
Speaker 1: stake for Auckland is and how much power does the
Speaker 1: council actually have Today? On the front page, New Zealand
Speaker 1: Herald's senior reporter Simon Wilson joins us to break down
Speaker 1: the battle over Auckland's housing future. All right, So first off,
Speaker 1: simon what exactly are these designing changes that have been proposed.
Speaker 2: At the moment. Auckland Council has a plan in place
Speaker 2: that says that it will create the capacity for two
Speaker 2: million homes in the city over the coming decades. This
Speaker 2: is a requirement of the previous government and has been
Speaker 2: in place with the existing government until now. The existing government, however,
Speaker 2: told Auckland Council that it could get out of that
Speaker 2: option if it produced a new plan that's still allowed
Speaker 2: for two million homes but didn't have the instruction that
Speaker 2: was there in the labor plan. That or pretty much
Speaker 2: all property could be subdivided and pretty much all property,
Speaker 2: even subdivided could go up to three stories. So the
Speaker 2: Auckland Council has produced a new draft plan change that
Speaker 2: proposes there will be the capacity for those for all
Speaker 2: those homes. It doesn't mean that it'll be built, but
Speaker 2: it's a capacity. But it focuses the development around train stations,
Speaker 2: along arterial roads and in town centers, places where there
Speaker 2: is already the infrastructure for denser development, and at the
Speaker 2: same time has recognized because the government has instructed it
Speaker 2: to keep the two minion capacity. It's recognized that it
Speaker 2: has to also allow more density in various other parts
Speaker 2: of the city. So some of the suburbs and some
Speaker 2: parts of some of the suburbs will have a denser
Speaker 2: capacity than is currently the case.
Speaker 1: And so you mentioned the Labor government putting thing a place.
Speaker 1: That's the Plan Changed seventy eight. It's cored this controversial
Speaker 1: sort of directive. Parts of that have been progressed, but
Speaker 1: why is the government looking to replace that?
Speaker 2: So Plan Change seventy eight is based on something called
Speaker 2: the MDRS, the medium Density Residential standards. These were originally
Speaker 2: introduced by Labor and National under the Labor government. It
Speaker 2: was a coalition deal that they would both support them,
Speaker 2: and the idea there was that it took the very
Speaker 2: contentious housing issue away from partisan politics because both sides
Speaker 2: agreed and recognized that long term development of the city
Speaker 2: was required and we weren't going to get it if
Speaker 2: it became too much a question of party squabbling. So
Speaker 2: that was the plan, but National reneeded on that deal
Speaker 2: before the last election. So the MDRS was what said
Speaker 2: that basically everything can go up to three stories anywhere
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of opposition to that. The new
Speaker 2: plan change proposal comes in and under the government saying okay,
Speaker 2: you can, you can be more flexible about it. You
Speaker 2: can do more density where it's a good idea to
Speaker 2: do it, and not have as much density where it's
Speaker 2: more problematic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because this talk of like obviously the Hawkland floods
Speaker 1: might be a contributing fact. There's been sort of discussion
Speaker 1: that it's addressing zoning issues and those high risk areas.
Speaker 1: How much of that actually is that.
Speaker 2: Is an important part of it. Under the MDRS and
Speaker 2: Plan Chained seventy eight, the rules were that you couldn't
Speaker 2: downsize the capacity of sections. So where after the Anniversary
Speaker 2: weekend floods and cyclone Gabriel at the beginning of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, Auckland Council recognized really clearly that it had
Speaker 2: a whole range of area parts of the city where
Speaker 2: they were at risk of flooding or coastal erosion and
Speaker 2: it was not a good idea to allow more housing
Speaker 2: in those places. In fact, the reverse that to it. Okay,
Speaker 2: regulations prevented the dune zoning of those areas. So the
Speaker 2: new plan allows for that so they have established a
Speaker 2: whole range of areas, but eighty percent of them are
Speaker 2: on the coast. Auckland has an enormous coastline because it's
Speaker 2: two coastlines, and the rest are flood areas that are
Speaker 2: liable to flood. In the Wairau Valley, some parts of
Speaker 2: Henderson and West Auckland margery places that were it is
Speaker 2: simply not appropriate to build.
Speaker 1: Aside from just abstaining from the vote, there are two
Speaker 1: options at place well.
Speaker 2: The proposal in front of council that they will vote
Speaker 2: on next week is to adopt the new plan change.
Speaker 2: The legal language is that they will notify it. It
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that it becomes the law. It means that
Speaker 2: it then becomes open to public consultation and there is
Speaker 2: a lengthy process for that. If they don't notify the
Speaker 2: new plan change, then Plan Change seventy eight, the existing one,
Speaker 2: which creates the three x three housing density situation, that
Speaker 2: will remain in place. So it's a yes no on
Speaker 2: the new one. But the choice they have counselors are
Speaker 2: facing between those two options, both of which allow the
Speaker 2: capacity of two million homes.
Speaker 1: I thought, like Chris Bishop said that you know, promising
Speaker 1: to allow Aucklanders to have their saying that what is
Speaker 1: that process?
Speaker 2: Okay, So Bishop has announced just this week what the
Speaker 2: consultation process will be. It was always assumed there would
Speaker 2: be one, but it was unclear exactly what it would be.
Speaker 2: And so what Bishop has made clear now is that
Speaker 2: from early November until just before Christmas there will be
Speaker 2: an open public consultation process. Now early November is significant
Speaker 2: because that is the time when the new council, because
Speaker 2: we've got council elections underway and that's the time when
Speaker 2: the new council will take office. They will be in
Speaker 2: charge of that consultation. It won't be something happening in
Speaker 2: the middle of the election campaign and that's a good
Speaker 2: thing for everybody. And then that something like six seven
Speaker 2: week period of public consultation will be followed next year
Speaker 2: by an independent hearings panel being established. These are experts
Speaker 2: in the field and they will hear submissions from They
Speaker 2: will hear the submissions and consider the submissions of everybody
Speaker 2: who wants to front before them who's submitted in that
Speaker 2: public consultation process. At the end of this year, and
Speaker 2: that whole process, the Minister says, will probably taken around
Speaker 2: eighteen months, so there is a very there's a good
Speaker 2: period of time for the public to have their say
Speaker 2: formally as part of the process, and then there is
Speaker 2: a lengthy period of the panel considering that and hearing
Speaker 2: from that and deciding what to recommend. It is a
Speaker 2: standard process, but it is the Minister's now made it
Speaker 2: very clear that they're not going to convent that in
Speaker 2: any way. It will be done properly.
Speaker 1: As someone who's never engaged in a public forum like that, like,
Speaker 1: how do those exactly work, that feedback process and how
Speaker 1: likely is it to actually change it?
Speaker 2: So there will be a whole range of public submissions
Speaker 2: and it will be as simple as you will, I imagine,
Speaker 2: going on previous experience, you'll be able to go onto
Speaker 2: the council website and fill in a form or send
Speaker 2: them a one sentence note saying I object to this
Speaker 2: or I love this.
Speaker 1: Through too.
Speaker 2: There will be groups that get lawyers involved and do
Speaker 2: very considered submissions. There will be groups who get planners
Speaker 2: and other experts involved and make their submissions on the
Speaker 2: basis of that, they spend some money, and then the
Speaker 2: Independent Hearings Panel their job is to filter all that
Speaker 2: and assess it and the fact that you, as a
Speaker 2: member of the public, have done your It costs me nothing,
Speaker 2: but I have a heartfelt opinion and I want them
Speaker 2: to know about it. Now. They'll recognize that for what
Speaker 2: it is and they'll consider that properly.
Speaker 1: Or they're supposed to.
Speaker 2: But they will also, of course have a whole lot
Speaker 2: of that expert submitted material as well to consider, and
Speaker 2: they'll do a balance and the council will report on
Speaker 2: it too. They'll say, we've had this many submissions from
Speaker 2: the public, We've had this many submissions from lobby groups,
Speaker 2: We've had this many submissions from the expert areas. These
Speaker 2: are the opinions that we've had from other parts of
Speaker 2: the democratic process, like the local boards and so on.
Speaker 2: They'll report on all that, so we'll be able to
Speaker 2: see all that, and they'll probably quantify it, so we'll
Speaker 2: know roughly the public opinion was sixty forty this way
Speaker 2: or that way or whatever it is. They will tell.
Speaker 1: Us do we have any indication sort of which way
Speaker 1: counsel or general public are leaning between the options?
Speaker 2: Well, there's no single view. If you go to a
Speaker 2: public meeting in mud Eden or remu Era parnell as
Speaker 2: I've been doing. You'll hear some very angry locals. If
Speaker 2: you go out to Mangaee, which I did last weekend,
Speaker 2: you won't find them talking about it at all. They
Speaker 2: Marngoy is a fascinating suburb because it was built after
Speaker 2: the war to house the floods of people migrating to Auckland,
Speaker 2: particularly Maori from the north. It was built without with
Speaker 2: hardly any proper sewage and water services. It was very
Speaker 2: very basic that all came to a head and was
Speaker 2: very problematic. Margarray in the last ten to fifteen years
Speaker 2: has been very substantially rebuilt. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: apartments and denser housing. They've got good services. They put
Speaker 2: it in underground. It cost money to do it because
Speaker 2: they have to do it underground, and it's quite a
Speaker 2: transformed suburb now down there. In this election, they're not
Speaker 2: talking about oh my god, we don't want density. They've
Speaker 2: got it. They like it because it's given them warm, dry,
Speaker 2: safe houses to live in and created communities. They're talking
Speaker 2: about other issues, you know, like employment. Those sorts of
Speaker 2: things very different depending on where you go. If you
Speaker 2: got to fung A Perrara, was there last weekend. Again
Speaker 2: they're talking about the inability of infrastructure to help with
Speaker 2: development up there. And it's different again from what's happening
Speaker 2: in the central city.
Speaker 1: When you go to those suburbs where they are getting
Speaker 1: really fired up about this. What are the concerns that
Speaker 1: they're raising.
Speaker 2: I think there's two main areas of concern. One of
Speaker 2: them is the minister has said that around the railway
Speaker 2: stations that are close to the central city, which he's
Speaker 2: calling the CRL stations, like what used to be Munden
Speaker 2: and now to be known as Mongopho in Kingsland and Morningside,
Speaker 2: those stations will have the capacity to take buildings at
Speaker 2: are fifteen stories tall, and so people are worried about that.
Speaker 2: The second concern is not the fifteen stories, but people
Speaker 2: living in leafy suburbs, in nice villas with their neighbors
Speaker 2: and villas are worried that a three or a six
Speaker 2: story apartment block might appear on their street or might
Speaker 2: appear right next to them. And so that's it, and
Speaker 2: that's actually fundamentally a separate concern. There are two concerns there.
Speaker 2: Most quite possibly many people would say, if we're going
Speaker 2: to have growth in the city, people have to live
Speaker 2: somewhere and putting dents living around railway stations, particularly because
Speaker 2: the CURL will transform the railway network and double its capacity,
Speaker 2: that's a good place to put them. And that's a
Speaker 2: different issue from saying, do we how many apartments do
Speaker 2: we want in those leafy suburbs, those villa suburbs.
Speaker 1: If you like, yeah, it's because you know, we're talking
Speaker 1: about quite affluent suburbs, and especially you know people outside
Speaker 1: of Auckland as well might be looking at these Champagne problems.
Speaker 1: Are these legitimate concerns or are these just like sort
Speaker 1: of not in my backyard.
Speaker 2: It depends whether you're in one of the streets concerned.
Speaker 2: Shane Henderson, who is a counselor out at Tiatatu in
Speaker 2: the Henderson in the Waitaker re Ward there, he argues
Speaker 2: very strongly that Tata two is being completely built out
Speaker 2: with apartments because those suburbs closer to town, which have
Speaker 2: better services, much better services, particularly transport and water, are
Speaker 2: refusing to allow development there. So you could say that's nimbiaism.
Speaker 2: It's easy to say the word nimbiaism. Personally, I think
Speaker 2: that's a good example of it. Not in my backyard.
Speaker 2: It's quite literal. But of course people who don't want
Speaker 2: the character of where they live changed to say, it's
Speaker 2: not nimbiaism. It's preserving character and heritage, and there are
Speaker 2: values that we need to look after, so you know
Speaker 2: that's where they come from. One of the ironies on
Speaker 2: it is that there was a report that I wrote
Speaker 2: up over the weekend about where the demand in Auckland
Speaker 2: is for apartment living. The two suburbs or the biggest
Speaker 2: demand are Anywhere and Mount Eden, and that is largely
Speaker 2: people who live there now but whose kids have left
Speaker 2: home or they've retired. They want to downsize. They want
Speaker 2: to stay living in their suburb, but they don't want
Speaker 2: to stay living in the big family home anymore. They
Speaker 2: want somewhere smaller that is still good, so they want apartments.
Speaker 2: So while family X living in a really nice house
Speaker 2: and Remuera might not want apartment blocks near them, they're
Speaker 2: neighbors who are retiring do want the apartment block because
Speaker 2: they want to live in it. So that's a inside
Speaker 2: the suburb engine.
Speaker 3: Like we've picked the first five CRL stations, they are
Speaker 3: the most important stations. We just really want to get
Speaker 3: it into law. That these stations like Kingsland Morning Side
Speaker 3: for example, you know, we really should be having dense
Speaker 3: apartments around there. They're not going to happen straight away.
Speaker 3: It's not like you're gonna wake up tomorrow and find
Speaker 3: a fifteen story building next to Kingsland train station. But
Speaker 3: over the next few years you will see more buildings
Speaker 3: like that in these key stations. We've come over the
Speaker 3: top with CRL and actually the men supports that. There
Speaker 3: people sort of saying, well, I'm sort of forcing them
Speaker 3: to do it, and in some senses I am in
Speaker 3: the sense that we're legislating for it. But the Mayor
Speaker 3: and I've had a lot of discussions around it, and
Speaker 3: he's actually on the press release we issued yesterday around it.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of support from Mayor Brown and
Speaker 3: many councilors and awkward for it.
Speaker 1: In terms of the ones around the Transport hubse we
Speaker 1: talked about the fifteen story potentially apartment blocks. Chris Bishop
Speaker 1: mentioned that, you know, the head calls them the CRL
Speaker 1: sort of things. You know, that's potentially opening soon hopefully,
Speaker 1: but is that infrastructure, the transport infrastructure going to be
Speaker 1: able to support that many more people living around those hubs.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is one of the things that people say
Speaker 2: in those suburbs where they don't want the density to happen,
Speaker 2: is that infrastructure should happen first. If they don't want
Speaker 2: the density to happen, they probably don't want it at all,
Speaker 2: so they probably don't want the infrastructure either. But actually
Speaker 2: it doesn't work like that. Under the old Auckland Unitary
Speaker 2: Plan passed in twenty sixteen, they said in thirty fifty
Speaker 2: years time, we're going to have the capacity to do
Speaker 2: this much housing. They didn't have all the infrastructure in place,
Speaker 2: they just knew that over those decades it would be developed.
Speaker 2: And that is what's happened, certainly with the CRL and
Speaker 2: with wastewater also in central Auckland. So the CRL is
Speaker 2: one of the two really big projects that they've been building,
Speaker 2: and the other one is something called the Central Interceptor,
Speaker 2: which is a big wastewater pipe that runs right through
Speaker 2: the Isthmus and takes the waste out to Mungery where
Speaker 2: the big plants are. And that will revolutionize the capacity
Speaker 2: of Isthmus Auckland to manage wastewater, particularly when they're a store.
Speaker 2: It should mean that there is no fecal contamination on
Speaker 2: the beaches any longer. That's a major change. Maline is
Speaker 2: one of the suburbs that will directly benefit from that.
Speaker 2: So that infrastructure is there, but in places where it
Speaker 2: more is needed. Partell is a good example. Parnell pipes
Speaker 2: have burst recently, quite famously. There is a plan. Water
Speaker 2: Care has a major plan for the whole city in
Speaker 2: fact of when it's going to build the new infrastructure,
Speaker 2: and it's all staged according to what they understand the
Speaker 2: demand to be. So that's underway. It's not like the
Speaker 2: council's doing nothing.
Speaker 1: It's funny, like we're talking about all these different suburbs
Speaker 1: and like it seems that you look at the maps
Speaker 1: of the proposed changes and it's like they've just circled
Speaker 1: an entire suburb. Gone, Yeah, the apartments can go here,
Speaker 1: the three stories can go here, how much like Nuance
Speaker 1: is normally Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2: So you are right. The government put the council on
Speaker 2: a very strict timetable to get those new maps done.
Speaker 2: And some of them are AI generated and there are
Speaker 2: mistakes of them. There are places in those plans where
Speaker 2: you go that's clearly the map makers or AI whoever
Speaker 2: it was or whatever it was, assumed that was a
Speaker 2: bigger wider road than it is. You're just not going
Speaker 2: to be able to carry sustain that many people living
Speaker 2: on it. So those things will change the consultation that
Speaker 2: we will see next week when the Council comes back
Speaker 2: to decide on the new plan change, there will be
Speaker 2: revisions to those maps, but there'll be more. The notification
Speaker 2: period is one of the reasons for it is it
Speaker 2: allows everybody to say you've got it wrong here, and
Speaker 2: for the Council to have a really good, careful look
Speaker 2: at that and to modify the plans accordingly. So there
Speaker 2: will be changes that Meghan Tyler, who's the Council's Chief
Speaker 2: Planning officer, she says, you know, that's just the normal process.
Speaker 2: Of course, we'll do it because that's what we always
Speaker 2: do when we have plan changes. So we can expect
Speaker 2: that happening as well.
Speaker 1: So with these maps, though I've read about there are
Speaker 1: overlays which then override what's been that's right.
Speaker 2: One of the examples of an overlay is flood risk,
Speaker 2: which you might say this suburb is going to be
Speaker 2: zoned for, or this part of the suburb is going
Speaker 2: to be zoned for six story apartments because it's got
Speaker 2: an arteria road running through it. But actually in that
Speaker 2: part of it it's prone to flooding there, so there'll
Speaker 2: be an overlay that protects that from development, and that
Speaker 2: is what's called a special character overlay. Another kind of
Speaker 2: special character overlay, which is much more valued by many people,
Speaker 2: is where the housing is judged to have a particular
Speaker 2: historic value. I suppose it might not be a historic
Speaker 2: it be it might be a subdivision of extremely exciting
Speaker 2: architecturally designed new places that want that are going to
Speaker 2: be preserved, But actually that's not how it works in reality. Villas,
Speaker 2: bungalows and other historic places where there's a concentration of
Speaker 2: historic housing that gets an overlay on it. And the
Speaker 2: best example in Auckland is Devenport. Devenport, apart from navy buildings,
Speaker 2: has no buildings of any height at all. There's an
Speaker 2: overlay over there. No one's been allowed to build anything,
Speaker 2: so it's just the old houses.
Speaker 1: And how do these overlays come into it?
Speaker 2: So what that means is if you think it a
Speaker 2: think of a place like the Mungofold station or the
Speaker 2: Kingston Railway station, there are places near those stations that
Speaker 2: are within the walkable areas which have a concentration of
Speaker 2: historic housing, and so there's a ring on the map
Speaker 2: if you like that says okay, in those areas, you're
Speaker 2: not going to have the density requirements that places outside
Speaker 2: that ring will be subjected to. There are fewer special
Speaker 2: Character areas is preserving historic housing in the new plan
Speaker 2: change than there were in Plan Change seventy eight. I
Speaker 2: think it's something like fifteen hundred fewer homes. Therefore, there
Speaker 2: is concern that the city could lose a number of
Speaker 2: those historic homes. When I say historic, I live in
Speaker 2: one of them. Now. I live in a special Character
Speaker 2: area where actually in our street almost all the houses
Speaker 2: are workers cottages. They were built in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: They're very simple, but over the years people have put
Speaker 2: false or new verandas on them in the colonial style.
Speaker 2: My house had the previous owners to us did that.
Speaker 2: It looks very pretty, but it's fake, as the verandas
Speaker 2: on most of my neighbours' houses. They are fake too.
Speaker 2: But the council went down that street and went this
Speaker 2: is lovely and called it a special character So that
Speaker 2: limits the development on our street, which is I think
Speaker 2: kind of weird. Which is not to say that genuine
Speaker 2: villa streets, as there are many in Mount Eden and
Speaker 2: Pontsybu Graylin, Devenport, et cetera, not to say that they
Speaker 2: they are the same, they villa streets of villa streets.
Speaker 2: Having said that, in Mount Eden, you drive around Mount Eden,
Speaker 2: you will see a lot of apartment blocks already, which
Speaker 2: happened in the seventies, and a lot of what's called
Speaker 2: sausage flats, where because the height limit was in place,
Speaker 2: developers built just to one or two stories, and there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of apartments in a row back from
Speaker 2: the street, and they're called sausage flats in the sense
Speaker 2: that they look like a six pack of sausages there
Speaker 2: sitting next to each other, and you won't have any
Speaker 2: green space, a very small exactly, whereas if if that
Speaker 2: had been built as a sex story apartment block, you
Speaker 2: could have had a park around it, you know, for
Speaker 2: the for the residents. So that's one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why people are saying, actually, sausage flats is not a
Speaker 2: good way to develop us up. The other factor that
Speaker 2: is significant in this is what's called walkable catchments. So
Speaker 2: around the city center Auckland City Center there is a
Speaker 2: twelve hundred meter walkable catchment. Effectively, they've said if you
Speaker 2: can walk, if it's fifteen minute walk from downtown, then
Speaker 2: you can build densely in that area. And for the
Speaker 2: railway stations it's an eight hundred meta radius for a
Speaker 2: ten minute walk. It's not an absolute radius, it's not
Speaker 2: just a circle. They looked at the geography, they looked
Speaker 2: at the things like where the railway lines are. You
Speaker 2: can't just walk across a railway line, of course, and
Speaker 2: a good example of that is Kingston Railway station, where
Speaker 2: if it was just a circle, the walkable catchment would
Speaker 2: include Great North Road on the other side of the motorway.
Speaker 2: On the west side of the motorway, it doesn't because
Speaker 2: that's a big dip and it's a longer walk. So
Speaker 2: the walkable catchmentsps on the railway station side of the motorway.
Speaker 2: So they did take account of all that. But in
Speaker 2: those walkable catchments it will be possible to build more
Speaker 2: densely because those are the places where they want people
Speaker 2: to live close to the train station. Unless there's a
Speaker 2: special character over it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Finally, I just want to circle back to something at
Speaker 1: the start. Might be sound quite surprising to hear this
Speaker 1: number of two million homes, but that's not actually like
Speaker 1: a promise of we're going to build two million homes.
Speaker 2: That's correct, and it's not too many more either, as
Speaker 2: many people have been saying. I find one of the
Speaker 2: ways that's quite useful to look at it is to think,
Speaker 2: if the council knows that we're going to build, let's
Speaker 2: say we're going to build twenty thousand new homes a year.
Speaker 2: In fact, they've never got to that. They've got to eighteen,
Speaker 2: and the peak year, which is twenty twenty three, slipped
Speaker 2: back a bit now. I think it's fourteen at the moment.
Speaker 2: But let's say twenty. Let's say the economy picks up,
Speaker 2: growth occurs, and they're doing twenty. That will mean over
Speaker 2: thirty years there's something like six hundred thousand new homes,
Speaker 2: not the two million. But if they only zoned for
Speaker 2: six hundred thousand new homes over the next thirty years,
Speaker 2: that would mean that every homeowner, every property owner, whether
Speaker 2: you're a developer or just living in your own home,
Speaker 2: would be required to build to the maximum the zoning
Speaker 2: allows on that section. We would tell you own your section,
Speaker 2: but it's zoned for three stories, so you've got to
Speaker 2: build three stories. You know. We would tell a developer, sorry,
Speaker 2: you can't put three story townhouses there. We want you
Speaker 2: to build a six story apartment block there. And the
Speaker 2: developer would say, it's my land. I can do this
Speaker 2: the way I want to because it's my land. And
Speaker 2: they might have a very good reason for not putting
Speaker 2: six stories in because that's more expensive. You've got to
Speaker 2: build a stronger building, you've got to put in lifts,
Speaker 2: you've got to put in fire sprinklers and other things.
Speaker 2: It's a more expensive proposition. Some developers don't have the
Speaker 2: cash flow or don't want to take the risk to
Speaker 2: do that. We don't live in a country where people
Speaker 2: can be told what to do with their property in
Speaker 2: that way. So that's why there's a much bigger capacity
Speaker 2: than we're going to need, so that choices exist for
Speaker 2: property owners. And it also indicates that over time, although
Speaker 2: there will be more density, it absolutely does not mean
Speaker 2: there will be density everywhere.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining. I shan't keep
Speaker 1: you any longer. Yeah, I know, You're going to have
Speaker 1: a very busy week next week dealing.
Speaker 2: With this great questions.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for joining us. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
Speaker 1: about today's stories and extensive news coverage at inzidherld dot
Speaker 1: co dot z. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye.
Speaker 1: I'm Richard Martin. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
Speaker 1: for another look behind the headlines.