ACT has revealed its plan to boost housing stock, saying demand-side policies have failed to make housing affordable and the focus should be on increasing supply.
"We need to build like the boomers. Combining housing shortfall forecasts from the New Zealand Initiative and Infometrics with attrition estimates, ACT says 51,000 new homes will be needed every year for the next five years," leader David Seymour said on Sunday.
Seymour said ACT would focus less on demand-side policies such as tax changes, loan-to-value ratios, foreign buyer bans and first-home grants that "aren't working" and have "not solved the underlying housing problem", which he thinks is supply.
Seymour said Labour and National haven't focused on dealing with the underlying housing shortage.
However an NZIER report showed New Zealand made massive inroads reducing the housing shortage after 2020 due to slowing population growth.
The supply of new housing also exceeded population-driven demand by almost 60,000 homes over two years from June 2020 to June 2022, Interest.co.nz reported.
Seymour has called for the next Government to set a goal of reaching supply levels seen in the 1970s.
"Young New Zealanders might not even realise things weren't always this way. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, home building rates consistently exceeded eight homes per thousand people per year, even peaking at 13 in 1974.
"In the wake of that period, home ownership rates peaked, in 1986, at 74 percent. By 2018, home ownership rates had fallen from three-quarters to under two-thirds, at 64.5 percent... In the 1980s and early 1990s, home building rates dropped to around six new homes per thousand people being built each year."
If elected, ACT would overhaul the Resource Management laws based on property rights, which Seymour says would mean people would have the right to develop their property.
"It's difficult to believe that those tasked with replacing the Resource Management Act could end up with an even worse piece of legislation, but that is exactly what the Labour Government delivered," Seymour said.
"ACT has developed a comprehensive replacement for the RMA. At the centre of the alternative Act is the presumption of private property rights. ACT believes in the fundamental right for people to control and use their land as they wish, as long as it doesn’t infringe on others’ property rights or harm common property."
The Government announced in 2021 it would scrap the Resource Management Act and create three new acts.
If elected, ACT would also "shake up" infrastructure funding, including sharing over a billion dollars of GST revenue with local councils based on their building consent activity and allowing targeted rates to fund infrastructure on new developments.
The party would also allow builders to opt out of the council building consent regime which ACT believes will see more innovative techniques and materials to "improve affordability and quality".
ACT also announced Kiwis could use building insurance as an alternative to building consent authorities and a Codes of Practice to "reduce the need for consents, saving time and money".
"I hear from too many young New Zealanders who have given up on owning their own home. They shouldn't have to, with the right policies any Kiwi who works hard and saves should be able to own their own home one day," ACT deputy leader Brooke van Velden said.
"ACT's housing policies will bring New Zealand back to its building heyday. New Zealanders are tired of empty promises. It is time to get politicians out of the building business and leave it to those who know best - locals on the ground and everyday New Zealanders spending their own money."
