Sage EugenieEUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Riccarton Racecourse Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill.I would just like to pick up the point of exemplar developments because the Green Party also believes that this is a lost opportunity in terms of this development—Champion's Mile I think it is going to be called. If it has got a name like that it should live up to that name. We have seen under this Government far too little commitment to sustainability principles in the rebuild in Christchurch whether it is in housing or commercial buildings and standards for those. If we are going to have affordable housing the houses not only need to be affordable to buy; they need to be affordable to operate. Where you get big houses that are not well insulated—yes there are certain provisions in the building code but you need houses that are energy efficient. That requires that they are oriented toward the sun. Exemplar developments would embrace those principles to ensure that we are building the most sustainable housing stock which reduces the cost of operating it in terms of energy. Exemplar houses would also be well situated so that they encourage a community to develop—they would have good play and communal spaces for people and they would have good use of open space—yet this development by not being an exemplar subdivision is losing that opportunity.One of our other concerns with the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill is with the 40 hectares of the Riccarton Racecourse reserve land being used to provide affordable housing. That is great but there seems to be a philosophy of this Government—not only in this bill but also in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill—where it is making it easier for recreation reserves and other reserves under the Reserves Act to potentially be built on and used for subdivision. That is very short-sighted if we are sacrificing the green areas and open spaces within our cities and towns for subdivision and housing development because it reduces amenity values because it has potential health effects if there is not open space where people can recreate and because of the substantial benefits to mental well-being that being exposed to nature and green spaces provides. In sustainable cities we have good green spaces. We do not want to see the changes in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill that see those green spaces being compromised.Here the trade-off is that with this 40 hectares of Racecourse Reserve land having its reserve status revoked in order to build 600 new homes 30 percent or 180 of those homes will be affordable. But that leads us to the way in which affordable" is defined in clause 6 and it is in relation to $450000 being the maximum sale price. In New Zealand where we have $450000 houses being defined as affordable that is well beyond the reach of many young people and even of many two-income families. That we are setting it at such a high level in this bill—when the average house price in Christchurch is around $490000—is a reflection that the Government has really failed to increase the supply of affordable housing by actually getting Housing New Zealand to build more homes.This bill makes a small gesture but it is not on the scale that is needed to increase the supply of affordable homes by having the Government through Housing New Zealand building those homes. That is another major issue. The Government might see this as part of its strategy to deal with the housing crisis but the real answer to the housing crisis is for the Government to stop speculators to restrict foreign buyers to put in a capital gains tax except on the family home and to build homes through Housing New Zealand for people who desperately need them.The other issue I would like to talk about is in relation to clause 9 "Minimum requirements of development scheme". In this clause it says that as well as the affordable houses requirement the development must "(c) be capable of satisfying the relevant regional and district planning requirements including in relation to providing any infrastructure to service the development". This is where the Green Party has very little confidence in Environment Canterbury being able to ensure that the transport infrastructure in terms of bus services is adequate because it is that council that recently proposed in its annual plan to increase bus fares in Christchurch. If there is anything that is likely to reduce public patronage it is a fare increase.Where you have a council that even after the October elections will still have six commissioners on it potentially—that council has really failed to pick up the ball in terms of the changed configuration of Christchurch post-quake to ensure that bus services are adequate so that people have easy access to public transport. Although there is this requirement in the bill we do not have confidence that Environment Canterbury will provide the necessary services so that people do not have to rely on private motor vehicles. This again is where if this had been an exemplar development it would have much better ensured that there were good walkways cycleways and integrated links with public transport. Here public transport is relying on the city council and the regional council. The city council and the regional council we hope will rise to that opportunity but we are not confident that Environment Canterbury actually will.In relation to providing for the transfer of some land around Paparoa Stream that is certainly a good part of the bill. The development does result in a number of the big trees that are on Riccarton Racecourse being felled to provide for sections and also road corridors. We would like to see the developers recognise that those open-space areas are being sacrificed for this development and that they must therefore do their maximum to ensure that the remainder of the open space which is not going to be covered with houses is actually accessible to people and provides for the variety of recreation needs that people can currently have at the racecourse.There are lost opportunities with this bill with there not being an exemplar subdivision and with the fact that in the Local Government and Environment Committee there were suggestions from the Green Party that we tighten up the requirements around sustainability—for energy use in particular: passive solar and making sure the plan for the subdivision was well-designed—and I think that is disappointing. I think it is a bit of a lost opportunity but we will be voting for the bill because it does provide for some more affordable homes."