11 Apr 2012 Jahr - Productivity Commission’s final report on Housing Affordability - released

Beschreibung:

The Inquiry into Housing Affordability undertaken by the Productivity Commission identified a range of factors that were getting in the way of affordable housing. Findings included that:
• taxation was not a key driver of the recent housing boom (any tax advantage was much smaller than was often suggested);
• any decision to adopt a capital gains tax on housing should be based on a coherent set of principles that have general application, not just to housing. This matter needed to be considered from an economy-wide perspective and ran beyond the scope of the Inquiry into Housing Affordability;
• the literature points to Smart Growth polices having a significant adverse impact on housing affordability (eg containment policies (eg Auckland’s Metropolitan Urban Limit) have had an adverse effect on housing affordability);
• the objectives for council plans for densification may not be reflected on the ground – developers can experience difficulty in getting infill and medium density housing underway because of planning rules and restrictions which are likely to add to short-term costs and frustrate the objective of increasing housing density;
• the slow pace at which land for housing is planned, zoned and released contributes to the high price of sections and thereby house prices;
• it is difficult to draw a general conclusion about how much development contributions increase house prices and reduce affordability – they vary considerably across New Zealand;
• development contributions are particularly suited to recovering the incremental costs of major economic infrastructure (water, sewerage, drainage) and confining development contributions to this critical infrastructure would simply the charging regime for infrastructure arising from development;
• a lack of statistical information on the quality of New Zealand housing compromises efforts to assess whether building outcomes are improving;
• during the recent housing boom the cost of building a standard house had increased at a greater rate than inflation and the cost of building materials and building a standard house is substantially higher than in Australia (a trend toward larger and higher specification houses is also contributing to increased costs);
• productivity in the building industry is ‘flat lining’ and this is reflected in growing building costs and evidence of poor building quality (evidence suggests that productivity performance in the construction industry of the past thirty years has been poor relative to other New Zealand industries);
• the lack of scale in the New Zealand residential construction industry presents a significant barrier to productivity growth;
• skills issues, particularly at a management level, require attention in order for the residential construction industry to better respond to industry cycles and to improve productivity performance;
• rates can cause strains for those who are ‘housing rich but income poor’. There may be growing need for the assistance such as the rates rebate scheme as the population ages;
• low levels of housing affordability for lower income households in the private rental market are longstanding. If rents had increased in line with house prices over the past decade, affordability for renters would have been considerably worse;
• there is a high risk that the price-to-rent ratio will begin to return toward the long-run norm through an increase in rents, resulting in further pressure on lower-income households and the Accommodation Supplement;
• poor quality rental accommodation and insecure tenure have a detrimental impact on tenants, particularly older people and families with children;
• under current market conditions, the emergence of institutional investors into the private rental market is unlikely;
• programmes to facilitate the transition to home ownership have generally proven ineffective in assisting large numbers of households to purchase a first home;
• the community housing sector has a valuable role to fulfil (below market rents and tenure security) and is well suited to providing a ‘wrap around’ service to social housing tenants;
• excessive reliance on the private rental market to accommodate former state house tenants may undermine the improvement in well-being that has been achieved for these people via state housing;
• the community housing sector is unlikely to meet the demands and responsibilities being placed on it;
• the way that the Accommodation Supplement abates hinders the ability of community housing organisations to improve housing affordability for their clients;
• better utilisation of the public housing capital is always desirable, but needs to be managed in a way that does not create fiscal risks elsewhere in the welfare, social service and justice systems;
• robust projections of unmet demand and future demand for social housing are essential for an honest assessment and conversation about what needs to be done;
• social housing sector will need considerable assistance if it is to scale up to the extent required in a relatively short time-frame and the Social Housing Fund is not equal to the task demanded of it; and
• for the Social Housing Unit’s social objectives to be delivered effectively, the agency will need greater autonomy, or alternatively greater alignment with a social delivery agency, such as the Ministry of Social Development.
The Productivity Commission made a number of recommendations aimed at improving housing affordability. These included:
• an immediate release of new land for residential development in high demand areas such as Auckland and Christchurch, including moderate density development of ‘brownfield’ sites and development of ‘greenfield’ sites close to existing centres, local employment and services;
• that Councils review regulatory processes with the aim of providing simplified, speedier and less costly consenting processes and formalities;
• that Government consider the case for a review of planning-related legislation to reduce the costs, complexity and uncertainty associated with the interaction of planning processes under the Local Government Act, Resource Management Act and the Land Transport Management Act;
• that the Department of Internal Affairs facilitate a consultative process for updating the Best Practice Guidelines to Development Contributions and developing a set of high-level principles for development contributions;
• that the Productivity Partnership Skills Strategy is the appropriate organisation to develop practical initiatives to improve productivity in the residential building industry;
• that the Department of Building and Housing review the legislation and regulations relevant to rental accommodation quality for their effectiveness and consider options for improvement, including their implementation and enforcement;
• that government agencies responsible for the development and implementation of home ownership assistance programmes review existing programmes against criteria based around clarity of objectives, effectively targeting recipients, flexibility and cost effectiveness;
• that market rents be utilised when assessing levels for the Accommodation Supplement where Community Housing Organisations have reduced rents to their clients; and
• that a comprehensive review of the Social Housing Unit’s funding process is undertaken to reduce the cost involved in applying.

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