National’s Special Housing Area (SHA) policy is in tatters after revelations that there hasn’t been any building activity in 97 of the 157 Auckland SHAs, the Green Party said today.
“This is yet another example of the Government doing something they say will help first home buyers, but actually it mostly just ends up helping land bankers and property speculators,” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said.
“When less than half of National’s Special Housing Areas have actually seen any building activity, they have clearly been a failure.
“SHAs were supposed to provide affordable housing, but this data suggests two thirds of them haven’t even provided any housing at all.
“Instead of seeing more new homes built in Auckland, it looks like the SHAs have seen land bankers and speculators laughing all the way to the bank.
“National needs to stand up to land bankers instead of laying out the red carpet for them.
“It’s time for the Government to put families first, build more houses, and stop making excuses.
“The whole point of SHAs was to accelerate house-building, so by that measure they’ve failed.
“National needs to start doing the things that would actually work to fix the housing crisis, like building more affordable homes, cracking down on property speculators by closing tax loopholes and bringing in a capital gains tax (excluding the family home), restricting overseas investors, and fixing the Building Code,” Mrs Turei said.