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Candor3 See Money as Only One Part of the Problem in Auckland's Housing Crisis

Tuesday 28 July 2015, 4:56PM

By Beckie Wright

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Candor3’s Director, John Gardiner recently wrote a piece on the Candor3 website commenting on an article that had been published, drawing the link between the Government’s financial support for the Waimahia Inlet in Weymouth and its success. The author, Simon Collins highlighted the Government frustration at the slow pace of building affordable housing, despite the creation of the special housing areas. John points out that many don’t understand the development process and the issues surrounding the provision of housing.

Candor3 developed the Waimahia block as an affordable option for prospective home owners and it benefited from being a block of land surrounded by developed housing. The entire necessary infrastructure was in place and there was little impediment to delivery by comparison to most land.

John goes on to say, “The Special Housing Area concept, while not perfect, is a good initiative and more housing will result including a component of affordable housing for first home buyers. However bringing large tracts of land to market from a standing start is not an easy process and takes more time than most people understand. Each area has unique features and challenges that need to be investigated and understood before solutions can be derived, if solutions can be derived at all. There may be large scale flood issues, geotechnical constraints, infrastructure constraints, etc. to overcome all of which can be show stoppers in development terms. Most of the ‘easy’ land in Auckland has been developed and vacant land that sits idle often does so because it has never made commercial sense to develop it because of serious issues. The Special Housing Area legislation doesn’t fix physical issues, it just provides a fast track mechanism for zoning of land and consenting.”

John said that the two key themes he got out of Simon’s article were that more money needs to be thrown at the problem as long as it is targeted and spent wisely. However the second theme being the inclusion of more consultation is exactly what holds back companies like Candor3 from delivering more housing quickly. As this is such a vitally important and topical subject in the current Auckland housing ‘crisis’, we need more people like John Gardiner to point out where the problems lie.

To find out more about Candor3 and their projects, please visit the website at http://www.candor3.co.nz .