This article seems to lean toward the NZ Institute half of the NZ Initiative.

And, like I said, pass it on to the home buyer. You really think developers, out of the kindness of their hearts, actually cough up the cash?. The whole point of Govt. paying the…

Those bastards – building dams and water mains, labs and treatment stations for ensuring the water is potable! Going around stealing…

Water falls from the sky, others collect it and charge for it. The infrastructure that reticulates is just another way of making us have to pay for our survival.
. Who wins there?.
I guess we could get “Mum and Dad” investors to take the risk…

Re pricing and human rights – underpricing water is regressive. Those who use more water get more of a subsidy.

Watercare is not allowed to return a dividend. That is a vastly different situation to not being allowed to earn more money in a year than is required to cover operating and depreciation expenses. It is absolutely…

indeed.

So water/sewerage/road/electricity/internet connections from the closest current network are someone else's responsibility?

TLDR? Central Govt. Spread the load, works for all not just the privileged.

Assets are valued at 7.8 billion, equity is 5.5 billion

Revenue (2012) 440 million. Operating expenses. 185 million. Interest costs 73 million. Depreciation and amortisation 180 million.

Return on equity – (0.8%).

So it is a good question about hoe…

Who pays to build any new water and sewage lines across the region, not just within a subdivision to which development levies may apply?

If Watercare could inflate their prices for all their customers then they could reduce them for developers, sure. How that's good for anyone else is unclear.

That's not the only reason for a CGT. The other is because it is actually real income that goes completely untaxed. Whether it is fueling speculation is…

As has been observed, that's all that Auckland has been doing for quite a few decades. We don't need more green field outside the current boundaries, we need more intensification within. We need to tell the selfish gits in the leafy suburbs that, no, sorry, you don't…

This is "market failure" like that plaguing Auckland writ large. And it indicates what the problem actually is: especially since 2008, urban planning and politics are being conducted for the benefit of the global elite rather than local populations. This is what "foreign investment" in the housing market looks like: retail prices out of the reach of anybody living and earning locally and new properties essentially designed to sit vacant all year round, while the local political elite increasingly sees the global rich as their constituency, not local electors.

The idea that neoliberal policies like MUD are going to fix this is beyond laughable. This is the end-game of neoliberalism: this is the world they wanted. Those of us who have to live full-time in the cities now being run like theme parks for the global rich are not, how shall we say, the target market for mainstream political parties anymore.

not hard to overcome – the Congestion Free Network is a good example of what's needed. Welli is even more constrained than Auckland but has had decades of better investment in public transport options.

Of course there are transportation problems when the "solution" has been to build more and more lanes of motorway and starve public transport infrastructure to the point of near-death. Aucklanders are trying to say enough!, but the government…

(tongue in cheekily) maybe nothing – many of the rest of us have this general feeling that at the moment our cities and infrastructure are being starved…

Really? You must have lived in a different Auckland city than the one I’ve lived in for 40 years.

What we have done in Auckland for decade after decade is open up greenfield subdivisions on the edges of the city that is what we have actually…

If you are asking a neoliberal, yes.

So how about we tackle the demand-side as well.

The problem is that while MUDS may be new to you and new to New Zealand they are in fact not new at all. They have been used in many places. Uniformly they have resulted in very rich developers and very shitty housing.

So…

if only it was a 'bit', not endless acres of sprawl we're talking. Auckland's Unitary Plan already includes other major centres across the region for intensification to focus around, not just in the downtown cbd.

– which was lacking from Council's earlier responses, allowing way more oxygen than warranted.

I'd say many Aucklanders want medium density housing and you can see the odd one here or there but we're talking a makeover of large swathes of Auckland. It's…

http://bit.ly/19FfFWK

When the price of housing is as out of whack as it is in NZ, with the tremendous harm that does to the less well off, it really is…

http://listings.jonette.co.nz/blog/

This time of year is a really bad one for looking at rental availability in Auckland, because student flats are breaking up. In three months' time, availability declines back to nearly zero, before getting…

If you want a good indicator of how polarised a community is, the wrong side of the tracks feel threatening and lifeless, and the…

There won't be any grandchildren in Auckland at the current rate of progress. Their parents will have left for cities that take health and well-being seriously.

But it remains that if a (rural) community chooses to allow widespread subdivision and development, then it will need expensive services and that every property owner (including those with original 50 year old baches) will…

I think you've nailed the problem. We need cheaper houses, and that means cheaper infrastructure. Building a new house 100km from the CBD and needing to build new roads, power lines, water and…

Sprawl won’t fix that. It doesn’t fix it anywhere in the world. Sydney and Melbourne sprawl, and sprawl, and sprawl,…

They have listened to the loud and organised current owners of detached coastal houses over also bringing the interests of future residents to the table as they are…

correct me if I'm wrong, but since the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan came out on the 30th Sep...you've been a bit quiet on it (and so to the MSM).

I remember reading a great piece from you when the Draft plan came out...but not recently.

There's been a shift…

In Auckland rental listings are at an all time seasonal high at the moment with rental prices fairly static while house prices skyrocket.

In Christchurch and Wellington the 2 variables (rent…

Not all the residents in Mangawhai Heads have million dollar baches, and some have been there for generations with the 'good ole…

And the NZ Initiative not only ignores that, but actively denies there…

The "market" is failing in more than that. As long as the "market" (I put it in quotes because this mythical beast is a creation, made to suit a lazy…

And boss Oliver Hartwich is a member of worldwide neolib boosters the Mont Pelerin Society and previously headed Australia's neolib CIS 'think'tank.

Secure tenancy is part of the Green Party’s housing policies. Hope that gets through post-election coalition negotiations.

I'm not sure about the MUDs but the housing affordability crisis is real and being played out in many OECD cities including NYC, London, Sydney.

Land closer to the CBD is bloody expensive.…

You know you said "Depends who "we" is, doesn't it?". Think about the damage to the priavte wealth of the Rt Hon. Nicky Wagner if residental rental property became a less lucrative investment? Just run down the list…

How about doing away with without-cause evictions entirely? And make it a criminal offence to use the “family reasons” excuse if the house is not then occupied by family of the landlord within a month of vacancy and for at least three…

Who pays for the new fire station(s), at a million dollars a year for a single-appliance 24x7 paid station, on top of a million dollars to build it? Even a volunteer station has…

We don't want to go down that road.

So while I was living in Tucson a bond for a local school failed because, well, most of the rich folks in the area were retired and didn't need a school since their…

Four words: Sydney Cross City Tunnel.

This.

I've seen too many developer-controlled projects that are unpleasant-to-lethal to see any good in this idea. The simple situation where you buy an apartment and one condition of sale is handing your proxy on…

That developer is definitely going to be around when the excrement hits the everything.

They'd never just leave the MUDs drowning in debt and things they wished were mud, after the funds…

How much of a housing shortage is there in Auckland? There is…

Hmmmm ...

Just seems like a PPP scheme in the making with the usual benefits for a select few whilst residents/ratepayers or taxpayers get to ultimately carry the burden of debt

I wish some of the…

Here’s a break-down of how…