O'Rourke Denis: Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill Riccarton Racecourse Bill — Second ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill Riccarton Racecourse Bill — Second Readings[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11603. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First welcomes these bills. I want to begin by congratulating the Riccarton Racecourse trust board and also the Christchurch City Council both of which proposed the Riccarton Racecourse Bill. Riccarton Racecourse as everyone in Christchurch knows is very important reserve land for the sport of horse racing in Christchurch and so it is very important that an adequate portion of the land be retained for that purpose. That is achieved with this bill. In fact there are over 120 hectares of land available and only 40 hectares of it will be required in order to meet the housing requirements in this bill. It is a good way of dealing with the surplus land that has been in Riccarton at that racecourse for a very long time. It will be good for Christchurch because this is prime residential land and that is indeed very much in demand in the city of Christchurch.I am also pleased with the provisions of the enabling bill—the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill—the key purpose of which is to increase the supply of affordable housing in Christchurch and that is very much in line with New Zealand First policy. We want to see much more affordable housing in Christchurch and in Auckland and in many other parts of the country as well. Following the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 and onwards the housing market in Christchurch has continuously faced pressure because of the loss of so many houses that were red-zoned or that even if they were not red-zoned had to be demolished and rebuilt or in some cases just demolished and not rebuilt. So the demand really is still there and the demand currently has been increased by the sheer number of workers who are still arriving in Christchurch to support the rebuild.This proposal involves at least 600 new homes and 30 percent of those—a minimum of 30 percent—will be affordable homes so that is very welcome. I think we in New Zealand First would have preferred to see that minimum at 50 percent or even higher but we would not die in a ditch for that and 30 percent is a very good proportion and so we are pleased to support the bill. We are also pleased that the term “affordable house” is actually defined in the bill and is not left open to somebody’s subjective judgment.I want to quote clause 6(1) of the enabling bill because I think it is well said: “In this Act affordable house means a house that has a maximum sale price at the date on which the house is sold as required by section 9(a) of—(a) the amount at which a person eligible for a HomeStart grant in Christchurch City would be able to purchase the house and receive the grant; or (b) if the HomeStart grant scheme no longer exists as at that date the last amount that applied under paragraph (a) when the HomeStart grant ceased; or (c) $450000 if the amount referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) (as the case may be) is less than $450000—”. I think that is a very good way of defining what an affordable home is and $450000 certainly is an affordable home these days. We are very pleased with that.I also note that what the bill does is require a development scheme to be submitted in accordance with specified minimum requirements for approval by the Minister. That actually means that we will get at least 180 affordable homes—it would have been better to be 300 but at least 180 affordable homes—and they will be built as an integral part of that scheme.This particular piece of land is particularly good for the development of residential homes in Christchurch because it does have good public transport. No doubt that capacity will be increased as a result of that scheme as time goes on. But also the land is very close to many other amenities—doctors shops schools and so on. So it is very good land to be developed and it is good to see this kind of land being developed within the urban limits of Christchurch City.The enabling bill also provides for compensation to the Crown if the affordable housing is not delivered within a specified time frame. On that matter I want to quote clause 14(1)(a) of the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill which says: “A scheme submitted to the Minister must—(a) provide for the compensation payable by the Board to the Crown if a scheme is approved and the Board fails to meet the minimum number of affordable houses requirement referred to in section 9(a) within the 5-year time limit required by that section;” And then subclause (b) goes on to specify in some detail the amount that would be payable. We are very pleased to see that because if it did not have teeth like that then these requirements this aspiration for affordable houses probably would not be met.I think that overall these two bills are well-thought-out and in fact they would be a good template that others could consider for similar developments for reserve land elsewhere in New Zealand. There must be a lot of reserve land in other parts of New Zealand that could be used for these purposes. Perhaps councils and other organisations need to look around and do what is being done here. I also want to commend the Local Government and Environment Committee which has made some worthwhile changes especially to clause 8(a) of the Riccarton Racecourse Bill to ensure the protection of open space and amenity values of the reserve land. What we are going to get is a racecourse some open-space land for people to enjoy and also at least 600 new homes. It is a pretty exciting project and I think we are all very much looking towards it.I want to conclude by making some comments about Minister Smith’s speech which I thought was in part pretty silly actually. He said that Auckland could learn from Christchurch’s housing recovery and that would include this project. But of course there are so many differences between what happened in Christchurch and what happened in Auckland that there is actually no comparison. So if the Minister thinks that in any way at all he could use this example as a means of solving Auckland’s problems then he really does need a reality check.The fact is that 16600 people left Christchurch following the quakes and the population went down. That is now reversed but it is still only 5000 in each of the last 2 years. At the same time there were 45000 net immigrants into New Zealand in the last year alone of whom 30000 went to Auckland. That resulted from the Government’s open-door excessive immigration policy which is one of the major causes of the situation within the Auckland housing market. So we have a Minister who is really really clutching at straws with this. His comments were inappropriate and rather silly. But as far as this bill goes New Zealand First is happy to support it.