Todd Niall
Radio New Zealand
Auckland, March 12, 2018
Housing strategist Leonie Freeman has pulled the plug on her 19-month philanthropic bid for an independent body to set, monitor and deliver on home-building targets.
What appeared to be a second public snub from the office of Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, has prompted Ms Freeman to wish him well with his own Taskforce which he describes as the key forum on the issue.
The move has ended an awkward stand-off that began within weeks of Mr Goff’s October 2016 election.
More than Tea
Mr Goff rejected a request from Ms Freeman, made earlier to Auckland Council to help fund the group, instead swiftly setting up his own Taskforce on the issue.
His tongue-in-cheek hope that it would cost “no more than a morning tea and a couple of muffins” had passed the $50,000-mark mid-last year.
Ms Freeman’s group continued, with a couple of well-attended industry forums, and a database she puts at 500 to 600.
A thaw in the chilly relations seemed likely as recently as a month ago when Deputy Mayor Bill Cashmore was sent to speak at the group’s forum, and later told RNZ the Mayor’s Taskforce might merge with it.
“There are so many similarities; they will merge in part or in whole – there are a few differences but not many.”
The apparent change of heart did not seem to last beyond a meeting the following day when Mr Cashmore sat down with the Mayor and Housing Minister Phil Twyford.
The Mayor’s office later told RNZ that nothing had changed in the relationship.
Last week, Mr Goff’s Taskforce met again, with a lengthy press release, declaring it to be the key forum for housing affordability and supply, and hailing the government’s cooperation.
No merger
The Mayor told RNZ that there would be no merging with Ms Freeman’s group.
“I think the desire of the Taskforce itself and the players in the taskforce is to keep it pretty much as it is, Mr Goff said.
Ms Freeman has decided to let the Mayor lead the charge if that was his wish.
“I think that is great, and it is good to see one of the sector groups show leadership. What we need to do is to get in behind that and see results because we have to have an absolutely
uncompromising focus on delivery,” she told RNZ.
“Delivery” remains the mountain which those aiming to solve Auckland’s housing shortage, have yet to climb.
Conservative estimate
The long-used figure of the City being 40,000 homes short is probably conservative, as it has been used through years in which the build-rate was less than half the 14,000 required.
In 2017, about 7900 homes were completed, and building consents – the short-medium term pipeline of what’s coming are flat-lining just about 10,000, with talk of a softening new home market.
In an interview with RNZ, Mr Goff recited a string of statistics about the government’s plans for a ramp-up of affordable and social housing in Auckland, and the Taskforce’s role in enabling that.
Less clear was the role the Taskforce could have in the foreseeable future in accelerating the output of the private sector which currently builds most of the almost 8000 a year homes in Auckland.
Mayoral Taskforce members RNZ has spoken to since it was formed early last year, have been politely positive about it, but circumspect in their expectations that it will make a tangible difference.
Of the 17 who attended last week’s meeting, nine were from the Council or Government, seven from private sector builders, developers and a bank, and one community housing developer.
Mr Goff’s challenge will be to show that it can do more than simply be an Auckland project office for the government’s KiwiBuild programme.
KiwiBuild is years away from being in full-swing and will not on its own solve the City’s shortage.
The Mayor said that its success would be measured by the number of new homes built, the number of affordable and social homes.
Todd Niall is Auckland Correspondent of Radio New Zealand. The above Report and Pictures have been published by Indian Newslink under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
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Photo Caption:
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, Housing Minister Phil Twyford, Building and Construction Minister Jenny Salesa and other officials of the Mayor’s Taskforce on Housing at their meeting last week in Auckland. (Picture supplied by Mayor’s Office)
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