National says its housing growth plan would fast-track developments on new land (file image). Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
A construction expert says the National Party needs to invest in infrastructure to be able to deliver on its housing proposal.
National on Sunday announced its housing growth plan to fast-track developments on new land in urban and greenfield spaces.
Housing spokesperson Chris Bishop said the policy would require councils to zone enough new land for 30 years of demand.
AUT professor in construction management John Tookey wanted the party to make a stronger commitment to improve infrastructure first.
"We have a marginal grip on things like stormwater runoff, we have a marginal grip on things like power provision around the country.
"This is symptomatic of a wider condition and the wider condition is the lack of infrastructural investment across the base."
He said Cyclone Gabrielle had shown how fragile the housing stock was without resilient infrastructure, and politicians needed to address this.
"We saw weeks of instances where communities were no longer on the grid as a result of not being able to rectify the infrastructure interruptions that took place."
On whether building more houses was ultimately still a good thing, Tookey said urban densification was not a magic wand.
"You don't just say, 'we're going to densify'. You actually have to put in place the necessary groundwork in the first instance to be able to support this growth aspiration".
The Urban Design Forum was concerned about National's plan to build more houses on greenfield land.
Forum co-chair Ekin Sakin said cities needed higher density housing around existing community services and transport corridors.
She said costs to build new infrastructure and maintain it increase when cities spread out .
"It's very hard to build new schools, new recreational centres, new cultural centres in communities with low density housing ".
Sakin said New Zealand's population was not large enough and cities were not crowded enough to justify more greenfield building.
"There might come a day where we do, but definitely not yet".
But a group that has been lobbying against the bipartisan housing deal said it was happy with National's move, which it hoped would help preserve Auckland's character.
Character Coalition chairperson Sally Hughes said the provision of affordable housing did not have to "destroy the heritage of the city".
"We need more housing, and particularly affordable housing, but there are ways that can be done in a sensible way."
She said the infrastructure was not in place for the level of housing intensification needed.
Bishop said councils would need more dense housing around transport routes to meet the policy's National's supply targets.
Most people are on board with the idea of apartments around train stations, he said, and the next step was to have mixed use zoning - for commercial and residential - around train stations.
"Our expectation is that councils will have to do more density around transit corridors to meet their supply targets", he told Morning Report.
He said the policy was more ambitious and allowed discretion and flexibility for councils.
National has walked away from its deal with the government to allow construction of up to three homes of up to three storeys on most sites without the need for resource consent.
Asked why the party's new policy was not rolled out alongside existing density rules, Bishop said communities and councils wanted more flexibility.
Housing Minister Megan Woods has written to the National Party asking to renegotiate their bipartisan agreement on medium density housing.
