National’s housing policy too little, too late

After years of denying there is a housing crisis and refusing to see government building as a solution, National’s U-turn today is too little too late, the Green Party said today.

“Auckland is already 40,000 homes short and needs 15,000 more a year just to keep up with population growth. National’s new policy to build an additional 26,000 homes over the next decade just isn’t enough to fix the problem,” Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said.

“It’s taken until election year for National to figure out that they can build houses, but this is only about half what the Unitary Plan allows Housing New Zealand to build if the government was more ambitious.

“National has missed an opportunity to really prioritise getting every Aucklander into a warm, dry home of their own.

“It’s good National has realised that the Government can actually build houses. Now they need to realise that knocking down 8,300 homes and replacing them with 34,000 homes isn’t actually enough.

“The Greens in Government will build tens of thousands more homes than National, and we’ll make many of them available for low income families to purchase over time with a rent-to-buy programme.

“The homes we build will actually be affordable, not National’s definition of affordable which actually isn’t for most people.

“National needs to remember that people live in the 8,300 old state homes they’re going to demolish, and kicking them out as collateral damage is not the way to solve the housing crisis.

“Lessons need to be learnt from the community outrage around the bungled Tāmaki housing redevelopment. People who live in these houses deserve to be treated fairly and with dignity,” Mr Shaw said.

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