Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. This is a really interesting development and bill to be standing on and I do speak in support of the bill although I do think that there are a number of ways it could be improved and some additional changes that central government will have to consider in order for local government to be able to provide the infrastructure and amenity that will go along with increasing density in some areas. First I just want to say as a planner a qualified planner I've basically spent my entire career pre-politics and during politics trying to get rid of bad planning rules which prevented us from delivering the types of cities that we wanted and so this is a step in the right direction.What we want to see is more walkable neighbourhoods with small local shops early childhood education centres pocket parks green space where appropriate good public transport links streets that welcome walking and cycling and of course neighbourhoods that have a good supply of affordable accessible housing. That housing can be provided in a way that reduces energy use and provides healthier more comfortable environments. There are just so many win-wins in developing our cities in this way: it's cheaper for Government it's cheaper for the people who live in those homes it gets better environment outcomes. So that's the goal and this is a really interesting way to start to free up some of those rules but it really doesn't quite go far enough in some ways and in other ways it needs some additional work.So the Green party will be looking at a number of amendments although I do note this is a very short select committee process. I hope the Government will be open to making some changes. I just want to acknowledge that for councils they may not have sufficient time to prepare their submissions and there are some really important considerations that need to be taken into account. For example the reduced setbacks from the front are good but arguably you could go further and particularly if you want to get a reduction in site fragmentation and you want that nice streetscape environment.It's interesting: I've heard some people comment in this debate that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is the problem. Zoning roles and some of the bad zoning rules pre-date the RMA; they've got nothing to do with the RMA. I mean yes the RMA is the framework under which they are implemented but they were implemented under the Town and Country Planning Act. A lot of the really bad zoning rules were adopted from the United States like minimum parking requirements which I was very happy to see removed by the National Policy Statement on Urban Development. Of course removing those minimum parking requirements in and of itself has immediate benefits in terms of reducing the cost of housing like for example in Minneapolis when they cut their parking requirements within a short period of time rents dropped from $1200 a month to $1000 a month almost a 20 percent savings. Of course that provides more choice for people not to have to own a car if they're living in a central city and they've got good public transport options they've got a car share they can join. There's no need for us to build in the cost of car ownership to every single home.But back to the bill at hand and this legislation. So to enable terraced housing without amalgamation of land parcels with a more efficient use of space we could reduce the front setback to reduce site fragmentation and we could clarify that through existing provisions owners of adjacent properties could mutually waive the side setback requirements where this applies and this could help enable some of that more contiguous development that we see that's really—you know it's just classic good design that we see in a lot of European cities of like perimeter block - style developments that enable some semi-private public space that's shared between homeowners and then it creates that nice walkable frontage.We think that it would be useful to consider providing development bonuses enabling height to four stories where the planned dwelling location enables more contiguous green space. What we don't want is just a lot of little boxes plopped next to each other surrounded by very short very small green space areas that aren't really usable by anyone. What people really want is access to a space that is a comfortable size that enables their kids to play or for them to do some planting that helps us achieve some of our goals around reducing stormwater runoff.We do need some provisions around protecting significant trees. That is a real concern the Green Party has had that as we allow more housing into our cities we still have a need for urban trees. You know you can't just cut down one really old significant tree and replace it with a bunch of new ones. It's not the same outcome. So we do need some provisions for tree protection that make it really clear for landowners and developers what trees are protected. That helps improve certainty. We need to enable councils to have strategies and funding to enable the provision of green space whether that's pocket parks or whether that's more significant green spaces. Our cities do need green space and again that will provide multiple benefits in terms of reducing stormwater runoff and the pressure on our stormwater pipes reducing the temperature of urban areas providing a habitat for birds and other things that we do want welcomed into our city. So as we're confronting climate change it's really important that we provide more affordable housing in our urban areas but also that we provide for green spaces and for trees in an appropriate way.An additional opportunity is to bring in bonuses for green roofs for solar panels for grey-water recycling and other soft infrastructure that will of course benefit the city and benefit homeowners and renters. I think my philosophy would be we want our planning rules to make it easy to do the things that will have good outcomes and not hard. Up until now it's mainly made it difficult to do the right thing and made it very easy to do those stand-alone houses that are very car dependent which of course just increases congestion emissions costs for everyone.Additional changes that we think should be considered are enabling more flexibility for papakāinga developments on whenua Māori. I note there have been interesting developments in some Canadian states where the First Peoples are actually exempt from any sort of zoning and they've made quite different choices. I think that's something that we should consider here. Extending the applicable zoning to ensure that it's enabling mixed use: this is something that's been a slight bugbear of mine since the special housing areas. We need more affordable housing but housing alone doesn't make a community or a neighbourhood or a city. The people who live in the houses need access to shops amenities schools early childhood centres transit and it's really important that we're not just enabling a whole lot of housing in one area. As there's more people living in an area it can support local shops and again there's a benefit to the people living there there's a benefit to the transport infrastructure.We saw that when Auckland city centre removed density requirements and allowed new residential buildings and got rid of minimum parking requirements in 1996 the population of Auckland city centre went from about 2000 or less than 3000 people to over 20000—I think it's over 30000 now. In just 10 years it increased almost tenfold and of course increasing that population in that small area meant that it became a much more attractive place to live because up until that point the 2000 people living in the city centre had no supermarket. They had no place to shop or to eat. The city centre was completely dead after 5 p.m. So it does show that as we allow more intensification in some areas there is the potential for more of those amenities to support the people living in that area but we need to make sure that the zoning rules are allowing that to come along with the increased number of houses. So we'll be looking very closely at that in the select committee.Finally one concern we really have is that this is enabling housing in the places where we need it most where people want to live that's close to amenities. I think there will have to be a real review and change to the way councils are able to charge development contributions because this is a shift in risk. We'll be giving people who are building more houses more certainty about what they can build and where but there's also going to be more risk for councils in terms of where the infrastructure might need to be provided. It's only fair that that's reflected in development contributions and that they're able to provide the infrastructure that's needed to support this housing wherever it does end up being built.So the Green Party is in support of this bill but we will be looking to make constructive changes. Above all we welcome the consensus across the House from all those people who are really committed to seeing more affordable housing in Aotearoa.