Street Maryan: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Street Maryan: Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:18492] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Minister of Housing) 
: 
 I move  
That the Affordable Housing: Enabling Territorial Authorities Bill be now read a third time 
. The purpose of the bill is to enable territorial authorities in consultation with their communities to develop and adopt affordable housing policy that requires developers to provide an affordable housing contribution for low to moderate income households. The passing of the bill will give territorial authorities new powers and a clear mandate to increase the supply of affordable housing in their areas. 
The supply of affordable housing is currently vexing a number of territorial authorities around the country. Those authorities see the need to improve economic development and economic prospects within their jurisdictions in order to enhance the lives of the families and communities living in those areas yet they see forces over the last 5 years in particular as having worked against housing affordability for a number of reasons. There are five places in New Zealand that are extremely expensive to buy houses in. The bill will give territorial authorities in Auckland Wellington Christchurch Queenstown and Nelson in particular—but also anywhere else where the pressure of unaffordable housing is being felt—the ability to require a contribution of affordable houses money or land from developers in order to satisfy some of the need for affordable houses to accommodate the workers and families who are required to boost and support the kind of economic development to which those territorial authorities aspire. 
The use of the new powers in this bill will vary across the country depending on the need so it was important to not make the bill compulsory. One might have inferred from John Carter’s contribution earlier that the National Party was keen to make the bill compulsory or alternatively to do nothing—that is the only other inference that one could have drawn from John Carter’s contribution. The bill is an enabling provision not a mandatory one. 
The other important aspect of the bill is that the policy for affordable housing must be developed in consultation with the community. Nobody wants to see enclaves of disadvantage proliferating throughout the country— 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: The Tories do. 
Hon MARYAN STREET 
: Yes perhaps. It may be that they are the only ones who wish to push poor people farther and farther out beyond the reach of community services and transport nodes. That is not the vision of this Labour-led Government for our communities or our country. This Labour-led Government has a vision of mixed communities with a range of tenures from State house rentals through to homeownership at very high rates in order to achieve harmonious cohesive communities that are prosperous and safe for everybody. 
The bill includes a range of incentives that territorial authorities can offer to developers to facilitate the provision of affordable houses. The bill also consequentially amends four pieces of legislation. The select committee process has simplified the bill and I have worked closely with Local Government New Zealand to ensure that the bill is more closely aligned with the processes that local government bodies are familiar with in the Local Government Act 2002. 
I thank all of those who made submissions on the bill. I also thank the Local Government and Environment Committee and acknowledge the work it has done to bring the bill to this stage. Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker.