How Did The World Get So Ugly?

A fellow is making a show about buildings. A fellow called David Perell, with presenter Sheehan Quirke. Their concept is simple: do for the man-made world what David Attenborough's Planet Earth did for the natural world.

I like the idea.

And it makes a simple argument about 

the carelessness behind so much of what’s built these days. We boast about the triumphs of technology and how advanced we are as a civilisation, but why has our built environment regressed so much? 

    Shouldn’t we use our wealth to make our streets more charming and delightful? 

    There’s lots of talk about how we’ve polluted the natural world, but what about how we’ve polluted the man-made world? We’ve filled our streets with ugly railings, benches, lampposts, and clutter. We assume these things have to be boring, but they don’t. Good design can make everything, even bins and bus stops, charming. New things can be prettier than old things. 

    The first step is believing it’s possible. 

    Something has changed. We’ve taken a dramatic turn, and the majority of people prefer what we used to build to what we build today. Just look at where people take photos. In New York it’s the steps of brownstones in the West Village; in San Francisco it’s the old Victorian homes; in London there’s tourists galore in front of those iconic red phone booths which remain on the streets, even though they don’t work anymore, because they’re so nicely designed that people like having them there. 

    All this is what inspired me to make a TV show. ... 

    It’s our mission to help people see the world more clearly, and in turn, make the world a more charming and delightful place to live in.

Every object contains a worldview. And if you want to understand a society, don’t listen to what it says about itself. Look at what it creates. ... 

Every technology becomes obsolete and outdated. But a good aesthetic, even if fashions change, can never become obsolete. It is definitionally timeless.

The TV show is called The Modern World. 

What will the show be like? 

    Six episodes, going chronologically through history and arriving at the present, each focussing on the architecture and design of a specific period: 

        1. Middle Ages 

        2. Renaissance 

        3. Enlightenment 

        4. The Nineteenth Century 

        5. Art Nouveau & Art Deco 

        6. Present Day 

    But, in each case, the point isn’t just to learn about that era; the point is to learn about our modern world through those eras and what they’ve left behind. If you watch the pilot episode (included below) you’ll see what I mean. 

    So the show’s not really “about” the past; it’s about the twenty-first century. That’s why it’s called The Modern World.

Here's their pilot episode, which they've sent out to funders.

Key quote for Wellingtonians: "If you want to know what any society really believes in, just look at how they design their sewers."

The Shopping Cart Theory

“The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. 

    "To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognise as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. 

    "Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do.

    "Because it is correct. 

    "A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them a law and the force that stands behind it. 

    "The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.”

~ anon. but widely attrib. to Glenn Danzig

"The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from goodwill and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; who appears well in any company, and a man with whom honour is sacred and virtue safe."

~ John Walter Wayland (1872-1962), American historian and educator who submitted 'A True Gentleman' to The Baltimore Sun in 1899 as part of a competition for the best definition of a true gentleman. His was crowned the winner.

RMA REPLACEMENT: The good, the bad, and the cattle

Chris Bishop has finally announced his chosen groups' recommendations to replace the RMA.

There's a lot to think through, so here are my first thoughts on their recommendations ...

The good (or not-so bad)

• Property rights gets precisely zero mentions in the RMA, and even less recognition. Here in this report however its gets exactly 25 mentions — a decent number — the first appearing almost as point one, after talking about how the two new Acts would be split up, and even before a section on Te Tiriti [Contents]

• That same hierarchy appears to be reflected in the "Goals." Remembering in law that earlier stated paragraphs/sections/clauses take priority over those stated later, the hierarchy given here is: property rights > separation of incompatible land uses > well-functioning urban and rural areas .> development capacity > infrastructure > natural hazards and the effects of climate change > public access > Māori cultural matters. So if property rights were well-defined and well-protected, that might be sufficient. But see below for the devil ...
• The two replacement Acts (one for environment, one for central planning) are said to "both ... be based on the enjoyment of property rights" [emphasis in the original]. This is stated as "the guiding principle." Good.
• "Both Acts," says the recommendations, "will include starting presumptions that a land use is enabled, unless there are minor or more than minor effects on either the ability of others to use their own land." Good. The devil, of course, is in the detail of how those "effects" are defined, and by whom.
• The RMA was said to be "effects-based," and so are these two replacements. So prepare to be underwhelmed. Yet whereas the RMA looked at ill-defined and undefinable "effects" like "amenity values," "natural character" and "such as the architectural style or colour of a neighbour’s house," this seems to be somewhat more objective. Somewhat. (The problem here being these "externalities" that they talk about, about which see more below. And the all-but certain prospect of regulatory creep to protect "heritage" suburbs and areas of particular "character.")
• "Better recognising property rights," says the recommendations, "requires a more certain regulatory environment so people can know as far as possible what they can and can’t do with their land." The intention is good. 
• It looks like long-existing activities to which new neighbours chose to come (such as speedway at Western Springs, for example) will now be protected. "That is, those that come to the nuisance should not be able to complain about it." Great news, if that's properly done.
• Providing a low-cost tribunal to whom to object to a council's decision is good. (But may not stay low-cost.) And providing "for rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours" also sounds good. And that's all that we do need. Maybe a kind of "Disputes Tribunal" or "Small-Consents Tribunal" staffed by experienced part-timers to adjudicate simple no-bullshit disputes about rights to light, to air, to support and so forth based on earlier precedent. In other words, much like an early common-law court ...

The bad (or not-so good)

• The so-called "Expert Advisory Group" delivering these recommendations was established only in September 2024, and given only three months until Christmas to do their job — giving, as they themselves say, only a "short time ... for what is a very substantial task." Given that National in both government and opposition have been talking about "reform" for decades, it seems almost impossible to believe that's when this work first began. And yet, there's no hint from either Bishop or Simon Court (his ACT associate) of any earlier thinking around this. Which would be incredible, right?
• So no wonder "Further detailed policy work will [still] be needed to fully develop our proposals and address outstanding issues and areas of detail." In other words, don't get excited yet. Details .. devil ... etc.
• The Planning Act's purpose is not "protection of property rights" (i.e., part of the very purpose of government); nor yet is it "allowing property owners to exercise the peaceful enjoyment of their property while recognising that same right in others" (i..e, a recognition of where right-based boundaries lie, rather than some subjective "balancing" of rights). So whatever the press releases say, it's not a bottom-up law based on property rights. Instead, the stated purpose is: "To establish a framework for planning and regulating the use, development and enjoyment of land." In other words, it's top-down planning. As will be the related Natural Environment Act.
• The RMA was said to be "effects-based," yet we see how well that turned out! These replacement Acts are also said to be effects-based, with the effects this time "regulated ... on the economic concept of externalities." [Executive Summary, Recommendations, 5b]
• externalities, however, are essentially an anti-concept, i.e., an unnecessary, approximate, and and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept (much like "stakeholders" or "opportunity cost" are also); in this case it's an economists' way to avoid talking about property rights. And the real cause of many “externalities” is generally that private property rights have not been adequately defined, nor sufficiently well protected! (For example, if property rights are well-defined and well-protected, a downstream landowner could sue in a court of law for an upstream farmer’s action in dirtying the waters.)
• the presumption of the proposed Planning Act
• While both replacement Acts are said to "be based on the enjoyment of property rights," these rights appear to come as  gifts from the state, subject to "approaches to regulation standardised at the national level" and requiring a "justification report" if the"approach" has any departure from that. [Executive Summary, Recommendations, 5c]. And the refusal to recognise or allow ownership of Crown "resources," but only a license, give little motivation to protect that resource, while limiting the ability of these limited license-holders to sue in common law if the resource is damaged by others.
• In a sense this whole thing is irrelevant, since the whole country will still be zoned anyway — zoned according to town planners' predilections, with their own additional "overlays," "areas" and "precincts."  So fewer zones, to be sure: but does it really matter how many principalities it takes to make up a whole kingdom — the fact is that you still have to make obeisance to a prince. (Note here that town planning (with its zones) has only been around here since 1928, and you'll notice that most of those in that alleged profession prefer to live in places built before then. Ever asked yourself why that is?)
• Whatever the headlines might say, the recommendations here still favour inclusion of a Treaty Clause. Less ill-defined than before, to be sure, listing what is said to be "relevant aspects of the statute enacted in light of Treaty obligations." But still there, poisoning all objective law. 
• One of the worst part of the present RMA is the scope given to objectors from anywhere to "submit" on a resource consent application to oppose/delay/kill it off. It's not only unjust, it's illegitimate — only those with standing, in a common-law sense, have the right to object to any "effects" on their property rights (hence the importance of well-defined and well-protected rights.)  That focus on proper standing would, on its own, limit objections to those with a right to mount one, and also kill off the potential for illegitimate objections by trade competitors. But I see nothing here to substantially change this situation. And they still explicitly allow for "public notification" of activities or effects along the lines of the existing Act.
• Providing "for rapid, low-cost resolution of disputes between neighbours" sounds good. So why involve councils at all in disputes between neighbours? (And you can complete the thought by realising that's the only common-sense part of any "planning application.")   Since these Acts still call for council, however, their halfway-house proposal of a "Planning Tribunal" to site between council and Environment Court might at least save some applicants some money. (Unless of course it becomes just another layer in an already lengthy process, or so popular and so necessary — and staffing of these "expert" bodies so difficult — that the delay in being heard becomes unconscionable.)
• Finally, one of the many uncertainties under the present RMA regime is the uncertainty faced by land-owners when "ancestral lands, water, sites, waahi tapu, and other taonga" no longer owned by iwi or hapu, but foisted on present land-owners on the basis of often non-objective oral histories or other unsubstantiated accounts. See for example Auckland's "Taniwha Tax," and other councils' "SASMs." The report nonetheless recommends "that future legislation should retain the existing RMA mechanisms for Māori participation and make further provision for Māori engagement." (The only improvement might be a recommendation for better record-keeping of the decision-making processes around these impositions.

The cattle

So they weren't given much time, and arguably in that short time came up with something better than decades of earlier meddlers and "taskforce" writers did. But who exactly wrote this report? 

We have, to list them all with their chosen "professions":

• an "environmental planner,"  
• an economist "with expertise in natural resource and environmental economics"
• a "resource management practitioner"
• the general manager of Tauranga City Council (infamous for their ill-named "Smart Growth" strategy that made the small city one of the least affordable in the country)
• and a "professional director" who chairs the kingitanga.

Nice. All folk who've made piles of money out of this ill-defined and poorly-written pile of excrement.

Chairing the group is a barrister, who's also made her career from that ever-giving trough labelled "resource management law." ( I was reminded again of Mencken's famous saying that All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it.")  

I looked in vain for someone in that list, anyone at all, who might be a business owner or developer who's had their balls in the planner's vice, or a land-owner begging for permission from these grey ones to use their own land. Not a hint of it. Just folk who've been making a killing over many years from their snouts being in that same trough. (There is one bureaucrat who's a policy chap from Federated Farmers — not a farmer although he grew up on one' —who's issued his own minority report essentially arguing for better definition and clarity, to limit the possibility of regulatory creep. )

So what to expect from that group?

To be fair, it's better than I'd expected.

But given how many decades it's taken to start turning this ship around, and this will be the one chance in all that time, it's not as good as it could be.

And there's still plenty of work to do (which is to say too much) for the various species these authors represent.

Furthermore, with the legislation not to be passed before the next election, I'd expect it only to get worse rather than any better. This, you'll realise, is the high point.

Here's the group's own table summarising their main recommendations:

NB: For a more mainstream view (some might say a "less-jaundiced" one) here are the initial reaction from planner Stu Donovan, who is focussed on affordable housing. And some short common-sense thoughts from Matt Prasad.

'Sudden housing intensification' is simply a by-product of past mistakes

Pic by Andrew Price for Strong Towns

"If we'd had super liberal residential zoning since 1925, the market would have naturally led to 'incremental intensification.' 

    "In other words, 'sudden intensification' is a by-product of past mistakes with strict zoning. We should fix those mistakes ASAP."

~ Stephen Hoskins

Getting better homes faster

 

New Zealand needs more houses, and less Resource Management Act.

Fact is, if houses are going to be anywhere near affordable again, New Zealand needs many more houses, and no RMA. 

Instead, we have RMA for several more years, and a housing/RMA minister (Chris Bishop) who's created uncertainty and fewer housing starts by allowing councils to opt out of the (formerly) bipartisan Medium-Density Residential Standards (MDRS).

What can you do now on many sites in New Zealand's major cities? Don't know, because councils haven't decided (or announced) where and how they might relax things. The uncertainty means that on many sites in major cities desperate for housing, nothing gets started at all.

What could you do under the MDRS? In simple terms (see pic above), you could build up to 3 dwellings up to 3 storeys high without having to even think about the Resource Management Act. It was far from perfect, but still the most permissive housing change from government since ... well, before I was born anyway.

But Chris Bishop has "fixed" that, hasn't he. Too permissive for Mr Bloody Bishop. Too many "externalities." Too urban.

Urbanist Malcolm McCracken has a simple solution however that even this housing minister could (should!) get behind. He calls it Graduated Density Zoning, so it's still a bloody zone, but one that allows owners who amalgamate sites to get extra density and height -- and by their amalgamation build better things and ameliorate the effects on neighbours.

By being larger and a more appropriate shape for multiple dwellings, such a site would also encourage better housing typologies to be built than the simple long 3-storey-"sausage"-arranged-along-a-single-driveway that means everyone's window looks into every neighbour's.  Things like perimeter blocks, garden apartments and the like, with better privacy, garden outlooks and less iunmpact on neighbours (so what's not to like?!).

McCracken has details:

I propose that a condition of a council opting out of the MDRS, in whole or just in certain suburbs, should be the requirement to introduce Graduated Density Zoning6(GDZ) to residential land that is zoned below three storeys. GDZ is where, when a developer buys neighbouring sites totaling more than the set threshold, e.g. 1400m2, they can automatically build to a higher density. The details of that can be debated but I believe GDZ should be introduced to enable better housing choice and new supply in every neighbourhood. While resource consent would be required, once the threshold has been met, three-storey apartments and terraced houses would become a permitted activity.

Adopting GDZ could provide several key benefits:

• Larger sites can make it easier to manage the externalities of greater density, which have been some of the driving reasons behind the backlash towards the MDRS. This should see fewer sausage flats on single sites, which generally have poor design outcomes and interaction with neighbouring sites. Larger amalgamated sites will enable greater master planning that considers the interaction of outlook spaces with neighbouring properties, limiting driveway crossings and the design of open and communal spaces.
• It enables the market to deliver greater density in areas of high demand and better match this with new supply. While councils can plan through future development strategies for ‘enough’ capacity to meet future demand, this is always based on a range of assumptions, which can never be completely accurate. Amenities and accessibility of an area, along with personal preferences, can change shifting demand greatly. We should design our system to be more responsive and flexible to meet demand. GDZ would be a step towards this.
• Enabling three storeys, as I have discussed many times previously, can enable greater housing choice to be provided. It also enables ageing in place, where you can find housing suited to your needs at different stages of your life within the same neighbourhood.
• It’s worth noting that this can also benefit neighbouring landowners, who could choose to sell together to seek greater profit, which is possible as an amalgamated site is generally a better development opportunity. This has occurred previously, including in Te Atatū Peninsula in 2020.

Until or unless the RMA is abolished, this could be a start.

RE-POST: “Sprawl” versus “intensification”

It's been nearly twelve years since I first posted this piece, and sadly the question of "sprawl" versus "intensification" is still bloody topical. The most high-profile pillock promoting "out not up" is Chris Bloody Bishop, the housing minister, talking up the benefits of "greenfield" development over intensification.  The latest high-profile pillock to promote building "up not out" is Ockham's Mark Todd, talking up Ockham's book of highly-marketed apartment building (and blithely unaware that increasing supply anywhere lowers prices everywhere).  Like the little Mexican girl in the ad I ask, yet again, why not both?

The debate over affordable housing is already being framed as a facile debate between “sprawl” and “intensification”—a debate between those who wish to release (just a little) the planners’ ring-fences around NZ’s major cities to allow new homes on “greenfield” sections, versus those who insist we build with more intensity within the ring fence on so called “brownfield” sites.

The latter group characterise the former as being in favour of “sprawl”; the former characterise the latter as promoting the construction of the slums of tomorrow. 

Both are right, and both are wrong.

What’s missing here is choice.  In talking about about development on either “greenfield” or “brownfield” sites, both advocates insist that folk do things their way. They completely ignore the fact that people have the right to choose where and how they live, particularly if they own the place on which they choose to settle down.

Let people live where they wish to, as long as they bear the costs. And let those choices themselves—choices based on people’s own values for which they are prepared to pay the cost—organically reflect the way the city develops.

Ironically, it’s the very promoters of intensification, the planners themselves, who have done the most to make decent intensification more difficult.  Here are just some examples of a few urban housing types that are enormously popular overseas, but could barely be even contemplated here…...

• Linked home units (e.g. 'sausage' blocks) 
• Semi-detached housing units 
• Four-storey walk-up apartments 
• Multi-storey apartments with elevators 
• Community housing, with shared courtyards, shared kitchen areas and the like 
• Two, three, and four-storey terrace housing 
• Courtyard housing, and courtyard clusters 
• Mews housing 
• Mixed-use four storey walk-ups 
• innovative medium-density housing (such as Rotterdam's 'pole houses,' Frank Lloyd Wright's Suntop Homesand Crystal Heights apartments, San Francisco's Fulton Grove 'alley housing,' and Moshe Safdie's Habitat) 
• Single family home on an eighth-of-an-acre section 

These are only some of the many, many housing types possible that may grace a city (some pictured below), and that’s not to mention some of the other innovative types that might be dreamed up (like Moshe Safdie’s ‘Habitat’ project at left, or Rotterdam’s ‘pole houses.’) 

Now, with all these types of urban housing available, most of them enormously popular overseas (and some of them once very popular here), ask yourself how many of them a land-owner would be allowed to build on his typical bit of land in a typical NZ city...

If you guessed "not many," you'd be dead right.

The answer (with rare exceptions) is that for most bits of land in most NZ suburbs, all of the housing types listed above that make the least use of scarce urban land are allowed, and all those that help increase the number of housing units that can comfortably work in a city -- and that are enormously popular overseas -- almost all of these urban housing types are disallowed.

Is this smart, do you think? People who complain about the number of single family homes that are built on eighth-of-an-acre sections right across NZ cities (which is mostly what NZ District Plans are written to protect) should direct their ire at those who ensure this is the only thing people are allowed to build: at the planners and the Resource Management Act that gives the planners their power.

District Plans drawn up by planners place enormous restrictions on what one can do one one's own land, restricting choice and trampling over property rights -- but it's been going on for so long and with so little protest that most of these restrictions and the "right" of planners to impose them are simply taken for granted.  

Planners have placed restrictions on the height of what you can build, on the setbacks of new buildings from the street and from boundaries, and most importantly restrictions are place on the density of new building -- on the number of housing units one may build on one's own land.

It is the restrictions on density that exert the biggest stranglehold on our cities. At a density similar to some of the better parts of London for example, with which many NZers are familiar, the population of Auckland could be easily fitted on the ishthmus, with plenty of land left over for parks, and plenty of land left over outside the isthmus for decreased densities if people so wish.

Instead, the planners have ensured the city spreads slowly out into the country-side one relaxation of the ring-fence after another, creating the very "carpet sprawl" that so many supporters of the Resource Management Act claim they dislike, and removing the chance of genuine country living for those who do really desire it.  

In some parts of some NZ cities, even further restrictions have been placed on land, protecting the cold and archaic early twentieth-century housing that still disgraces so much of the early urban landscape.  By which I mean those dark, damp, disgusting villas which need all the villa-ness removed in order to make them liveable, but which planners have made virtually  impossible to touch.

Taking the power they’ve been given  under the Resource Management Act and coupling it with the Utopian dreams handed down to them in Planning School, planners have almost single-handedly stuffed up our cities and restricted the supply of urban land, making building land even scarcer than it needs to be, and restricting the housing choices that New Zealanders are allowed to make to a one-size-fits-all bland-and-blander straitjacket, making urban space duller and even scarcer still.

What's wrong with choice? 

Why do we give these people such power? 

We let them ring-fence the city and stop people heading out and building away from the city when they want to -- "sprawl!" is the all-too hysterical cry -- and then we let them stop other people building higher density urban housing when they want to. Instead of leaving people free to choose, we have these boring "halfway houses" that some people like, but that many simply accept because that's all that's available, and they don't know any better.

When there's just so much available, so many great housing types  from which to choose, it just doesn't make any sense.

“Sprawl” or “intensification”? That’s a false dichotomy. I say let people be free to choose.

That’s the path to genuinely liveable cities, and to affordability.

YIMBY-left v NIMBY-left

"One ray of hope in the current political scene comes from the land of deep [green]. However one views the immense expenditure on solar panels, windmills and electric cars ... a portion of the [green] left has noticed that this programme cannot possibly work given laws and regulations that have basically shut down all new construction....
    "[There is a fight within the left. There is really a deep philosophical divide. On the one hand are basically technocrats who really do see climate as an issue, and want to do something about it. They believe their own ideology that time matters too. If it takes 10 years to permit every high power line, Al Gore's oceans will boil before anything gets done.
    "On the other side are basically conservatives and degrowthers. 'Conservative' really is the appropriate word -- people who want to keep things exactly the way they are with no building anything new. Save our neighborhoods they say, though those were built willy nilly by developers in the 1950s. (Palo Alto now applies historic preservation to 1950s tract houses, and forbids second stories in those neighborhoods to preserve the look and feel. How can you not call this 'conservative?') 'Degrowth" is a self-chosen word for the Greta Thunberg branch of the environmental movement. Less, especially less for the lower classes, not really for us who jet around the world to climate conferences. Certainly do not allow the teeming billions of India and Africa to approach our prosperity. I think 'deliberate impoverishment' is a better word. Some of it has an Amish view of technology as evil. And some is, I guess, just habit, we've been saying no to everything since 1968, why stop now."

~ John Cochrane, from his post 'Hope from the Left'

Zoning is is not a property right

 

I talked with someone last night who argued that the National Party's disgraceful backtracking on the bipartisan housing accord (which removes, albeit imperfectly, some restrictions on what you can do on your own land) is predicated on protecting people's property rights, rather than restricting them.

The argument -- the same confused argument that the idiots at ACT Party Central have been running -- boils down to saying that a land-owner has a de facto property right in the Zoning into which the local government's planners have thrown you. And that the central government has no right to tear that asunder. 

This is bollocks. As I said. It's also utterly confused.

Here's the truth: Zoning is is not a property right. "In truth, zoning is a fundamental violation of property rights":

The right to property means the freedom to produce, use, and trade material values. In regard to land use, this means that property owners has the right to use his land as he chooses, so long as he allows others to use their land as they choose.

In contrast, single-family zoning makes it illegal for a property owner to use his land for any purpose other than a single-family home. Under zoning, a land owner cannot use his property as he chooses, but only as government officials permit.

[The argument] implies that dictating how others may use their property is a property right. This is absurd, and it means the annihilation of all property rights. If one is not free to use his property as he chooses, the right to property no longer exists.

In principle, to claim that zoning is an aspect of property rights is equivalent to saying that handing one’s wallet to an armed robber is an economic trade. Both zoning and the robber use force to obtain a value. Both zoning and the robber violate property rights.

[Some who defend the argument go] on to equate zoning with what [they call] 'free-market zoning'—a contractual agreement among property owners to voluntarily limit the use of their land. Such contractual agreements exist today, and they are called deed restrictions, or covenants. However, there is a fundamental difference between zoning and deed restrictions. Zoning is mandatory and coercive. Deed restrictions are voluntary and contractual. To call deed restrictions a form of free-market zoning is intellectually dishonest.

Zoning is not an aspect of property rights. It is the exact opposite of property rights.

You would expect so-called advocates for the free market, as ACT and National are supposed to be, to know that.

Which suggests that they aren't.

[NB: The quoted excerpt is by Brian Phillips from the Texas Institute for Property Rights]

An idea from history: "Build whatever you like..."

 

A meme going around makes an interesting point ...

Note:

"Urban planning wasn't even a thing until the late classical Greek period and Roman Republic. Cities like Athens were literally just mazes of buildings with 'streets' being whatever was left. Hippodamus of Miletus invented the grid system in the mid-3rd century BC, with the first grid planned city being the Athenian port of Piraeus."

And also note well, that "town planning" wasn't even a "thing" here in New Zealand until the Town Planning Act of 1926 required councils to employ "planners" to tell what you couldn't do. Before that, here it was pretty much the Roman system, but with common law rights and wrinkles, to whit:  

We, i.e., the New Zealand Company et al, will build a grid of streets and sewers on a folded and hilly terrain. There will be a civic plaza at or near the centre (one day) and in the meantime, there's a pub and a church. Build whatever you like (but please take account of your neighbour's similar rights).

Strange to say that it's those suburban places, built then, by this method (e.g., Ponsonby, Devonport etc.) that are the places in which today's "planners" like to live. And the urban places (Rome, Athens, London, New York) in which they like to go and spend your money.

Go figure.

Auckland: Where "confusion" is the leitmotif

 

Auckland's houses were built in the main by spec builders. If you're living in a house in Auckland, chances are you're enjoying the payoff of someone who saw profit in the equation Selling-Price = Land-Cost + Build-Cost + Profit.

To make houses affordable in Auckland essentially means making it safe again for spec builders to make those profits.

Instead, as costs rise and selling prices fall that profit margin has been rapidly disappearing, and life for Auckland's spec builders has been made both unprofitable and more uncertain.

Make no mistake: Even when the money is there, to plan a development years ahead needs certainty.

But consider: In recent years would-be developers and spec builders faced up to the changes from Auckland's many different District plans to one overarching Unitary Plan. Big changes, still being absorbed.

While still absorbing those however, they then had to then confront the changes announced by the bipartisan Medium Density Residential Standards (MRDS) and National Policy Statement - Urban Development (NPS-UD) -- both of which liberalised what you can do on your land, but still causing massive uncertainty.

As a measure of just how much uncertainty, on one isthmus site I'm working on, the difference between the old days and today amounts to the difference between being allowed to build five houses to being able to build around twenty-five. That's a big change.

But it's not there yet: Auckland is still holding hearings on what it calls Plan Change 78 [PC78] to give effect to all those acronyms above.

But those hearings are paused. They are paused to introduce intensification rules while Auckland Council investigates Labour's "Light Rail Corridor," and responds to recent storm events.

That Light Right Corridor alone amounts to massive uncertainty all along its proposed route.

But there's more: While those hearings for the PC78 changes are paused, adding to the uncertainty is the National Party's brain explosion last month that they're now going to backtrack on their support for the bipartisan MRDS, instead announcing who knows what. (And the ACT Party are foolishly supporting them.)

To add even more uncertainty, Auckland Council released its own Future Development Strategy (FDS) last week which lays out its  own "big-picture vision" for "how and where Auckland should grow over the next 30 years." As if they would know. 

The FDS updates the Council’s previous Future Urban Land Supply Strategy 2017, and calls for more development close to the city centre, and much less development on the fringes. This could involve down-zoning city fringe land from so-called Future Urban back to a non-urban zone.

The key areas where  these changes to zoning have been indicated are said to be Kumeu/Huapai, Drury, Takanini and Hatfields Beach. Other areas under investigation are Warkworth, Dairy Flat, Wainui East, Upper Orewa, Riverhead, Albany Village and Oruarangi.

Contrast this with National's now-stated aim, if elected, to make it harder to build near city centres, and less challenging to build out on the fringes. So this might mean upzoning city-fringe land. Land in places like Kumeu/Huapai, Drury, Takanini and Hatfields Beach etc.

Are you keeping up?

Because your city's spec builders are supposed to.

And this is all called "planning." What a joke.

"The primary problem with current cities is that they are extremely car-centric. ..."

"The primary problem with current cities is that they are extremely car-centric. We don't realise this because it's just everyday life and we assume that cars make transportation easier and more convenient, but this is false. Car-centric designs are so bad that they make driving worse....
    "Remember this fact: cities and their infrastructure are government funded and planned. The car-centric model was developed because the government mass-funded roads to be built for cars; and the government, as it does for everything, has terrible incentives. So it did not do this because it was more efficient to be car-centric and respond to market demand but because of public choice incentives.... 

    "The primary problem with most urbanists however .[including the video maker above].. is that they are not libertarians. ... [T]here is the market urbanist movement. But it gets little attention....
    "It's important we prove we don't need the government, even the Dutch government, to make cities beautiful. Public choice must get out of the way."

~ SolarxPvP, from his post 'Market Urbanism: Another Panacea'

LINKS:

• What is Market Urbanism?
• Market Urbanism Report
• @Market Urbanism Report on TWITTER 

• Market Urbanism
• @Market Urbanism on TWITTER

Cities are "engines of innovation"

"Cities, the dense agglomerations that dot the globe, have been engines of innovation since Plato and Socrates bickered in an Athenian marketplace. The streets of Florence gave us the Renaissance, and the streets of Birmingham gave us the Industrial Revolution. The great prosperity of contemporary London and Bangalore and Tokyo comes from their ability to produce new thinking. Wandering these cities—whether down cobblestone sidewalks or grid-cutting cross streets, around roundabouts or under freeways—is to study nothing less than human progress."

~ Edward Glaeser, from his 2011 book Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier [hat tip Roots of Progress]

Auckland's "Character Protection Racket"

"In response to last year’s legislation supporting increased density near urban centres and public transport hubs, Auckland Council has excluded central city suburbs from the plan under the guise of ‘special character’ ... protecting affluent inner-city neighbourhoods and forcing much-needed development further out... flailing desperately to ensure that the kinds of walkable, accessible lives it trumpeted in 2016 are mostly reserved for the city’s most affluent citizens....
    "[Council-imposed] character protections cover 41% of the residential land within five kilometres of the city centre. That percentage rises in city-adjacent suburbs, reaching 94% in Grey Lynn Central and 91% in Ponsonby East. The restrictions have choked growth near rapid transit, including along the future route of the City Rail Link. Around 80% of properties are subject to restrictions in central Mt Eden and near Eden Park. Nearly 70% are cut off from dense development in Kingsland, which is also expected to be a key link in the government’s planned light rail line. In the city’s best-located suburbs, the gates are locked tight...
    "Scott Caldwell, a spokesperson for the pro-density Coalition for More Homes, says he wouldn’t have minded if the council had tried to protect a few high-quality, architecturally or historically significant streets. But the sheer extent of the council’s proposed protections makes the proposal unfair and likely illegal, he says. 'It’s 3% of the overall city but 90% of the most desirable places to live if you want a compact city. The harm is that no one gets to live there apart from the people who already do, and anyone who’s lucky enough to inherit one of their houses'....
    "[I]n planning terms ‘character’ is a council invention, and its parameters are vague. Even council planning committee chair Chris Darby struggles to deliver a concise explanation. 'It’s groups of buildings, architecture that reflects periods of history,' he says. 'It’s representative of areas. It’s architectural style that tells a story of the past.' Albany councillor Wayne Walker offers an even more wide-ranging interpretation: “It’s a whole lot of things and it’s going to vary somewhat from place to place'....
    "Instead of genuine heritage, many housing advocates see character areas as a historical homage, similar to the former colonial streetscape exhibit at Auckland War Memorial Museum. Oscar Sims of the Coalition for More Homes calls them 'the worst of both worlds' — cutting off intensification while failing to preserve either historic integrity or original built forms. [West Auckland Councilllor] Shane Henderson says they amount to 'fake historical areas.' Wellington councillor Tamatha Paul (Ngāti Awa, Tainui) has proposed renaming them 'colonial streetscape precincts.
    "The rules governing [these living museum pieces] often restrict new development to lower densities than what already exists. Many of Auckland’s villas and bungalows were built before council planning rules — they’re close together, they shade each other, they’re on small sections. You literally couldn’t rebuild many of them under the rules designed to protect them, which enforce, among other things, height-to-boundary ratios, side set- backs and a 600m2 minimum plot size ... proof that character areas are aimed at warding off new buildings rather than protecting old ones. [Architectural designer Jade] Kake says the people defending those rules generally benefit from an inequitable status quo. 'If they were living in insecure housing, or in really poor-quality housing, or if they were experiencing fuel poverty, and they’re trying to get across the city, or their kids were sick because they’re living in shitty homes, I think they might advocate a different position'.
    "Peter Nunns, director of economics at Te Waihanga New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, says character areas are part of a 50-year history of council development restrictions that have put homes out of reach for many Aucklanders. 'They’re essentially a continuation of 1970s district schemes which cut capacity for growth,' he says. 'So the predecessor to the special character area policy has really been at the heart of our housing affordability crisis.' Character advocates say even if you built apartments in places like Grey Lynn, they’d likely be expensive. Nunns says a large body of international research shows all new housing supply helps affordability, including at the more luxury end of the market, and high land values in character areas indicate a huge amount of constrained development potential.
    "He has local stats to back that up. His research demonstrates house prices nationwide would be 69% lower if it weren’t for council-enforced density limits, along with the resulting inefficient, car-centric layout of our cities. When it comes to Auckland, though, Nunns’ interest is personal. His great-grandfather built some of the villas in Ponsonby and Devonport. 'So, from a family taonga perspective, I can see the appeal of this connection with the past.' Nunns doesn’t let that define his views on developing those areas, however, because he knows his great-granddad wasn’t trying to build wooden monuments for generations to come; he was trying to meet his family’s needs. People who want to set down roots today deserve the same opportunity, he says. 'If I told my ancestors we can’t meet our current housing needs because we’re protecting what they built 100 years ago, I suspect that their answer might be that we’re missing the point'."
          ~ Hayden Donnell, from his article 'The Character Protection Racket'

"Nobody forces anyone to use scarce space in their house to install a 2nd bathroom...; forcing people to put in a parking spot they do not want or need is similarly intrusive, costly, and pointless." #QotD

"Nobody forces anyone to use scarce space in their house to install a second bathroom if their family doesn’t need one; forcing people to put in a parking spot they do not want or need is similarly intrusive, costly, and pointless."
        ~ Eric Crampton, from his op-ed 'There's no such thing as a free carpark'
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"We got into this stupid housing mess because the 'Let's protect Precious Agricultural Land' people teamed up with the 'Let's protect Precious Neighbourhood Amenity' people and banned anybody building anything anywhere." Bonus #QotD

"We got into this stupid housing mess because the 'Let's Protect Precious Agricultural Land' people teamed up with the 'Let's Protect Precious Neighbourhood Amenity' people and banned anybody building anything anywhere.
    "I get depressed when a government that came in promising to fix the housing crisis screws this stuff up."
          ~ Eric Crampton, from his post on 'Precious Arable Land'

[Hat tip Mitchell Palmer]

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"'An oppression of the weak by the incompetent and an exploitation of the poor by the lazy' - this is exactly what is happening in cities now to the people who have a relatively low income and a regular job." #QotD

"Albert Hirschmann used to [talk about] 'an oppression of the weak by the incompetent and an exploitation of the poor by the lazy,' and this is exactly what is happening now in [the world's most unaffordable cities] to the people who have a relatively low income and a regular job...
    "The test is: if a schoolteacher [say] who  has a job indispensable to the working of the city cannot afford to live within half an hour commuting time from his or her school, there is something wrong with our system: and this 'something wrong is entry due to to [planning and zoning] regulation. There is absolutely no reason for it."
          ~ Alain Bertaud, in conversation with Russ Roberts
             'On Cities, Planning, and Order Without Design'
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The housing crisis: the causes in four tweets

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QotD: On the profession most responsible for the housing crisis: "Planning is, in its effect, a highly regressive form of indirect taxation"

"Planning in our society ... is in essence the attempt to inject a radical technology into a conservative and highly inegalitarian economy. The impact of [town] planning on this society is rather like that of the [state] educational system on the same society: is least onerous and most advantageous to those who are already well off or powerful, and it is most onerous and least advantageous to those who are relatively powerless or relatively poor. Planning is, in its effect, a highly regressive form of indirect taxation." 

        ~ John Gower Davies, from his 1972 book The Evangelistic Bureaucrat .

Quote of the Day: On being a YIMBY

“'The 100 or so higher-income people, who are not going to live in this project if it isn’t built, are going to live somewhere,' she said. 'They will just displace someone somewhere else, because demand doesn’t disappear.'”
~ Sonja Trauss, a San Francisco YIMBY activist (Yes, In My Back Yard), arguing on behalf of a proposed 75-unit development, saying that any new housing built is better than none at all

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The record shows that to make more affordable housing that’s affordable, it’s better to build more OUT rather than up

 

 

The mandarins who have made Auckland housing unaffordable have decreed in their new Unitary Plan that the city shall grow up, not out, and other NZ cities are following suit.
    The same decree has just gone forth from Obama’s White House – instead of relaxing artificial constraints on horizontal development, the decree advocates even tighter constraints to force even denser housing in American cities.
    But the fact remains, explains Randal O’Toole in this guest post, that no matter how often urban planners chant, “grow up, not out,” the fact is that no urban area anywhere has ever made housing more affordable by increasing its density.

A new Housing Policy Toolkit from the White House admits that “local barriers to housing development have intensified,” which “has reduced the ability of many housing markets to respond to growing demand.” The toolkit, however, advocates tearing down only some of the barriers, and not necessarily the ones that will work to make housing more affordable.

“[Cities in the American sunbelt] with more permeable boundaries have enjoyed outsized growth by allowing sprawl to meet their need for adequate housing supply,” says the toolkit. “Space constrained cities can achieve similar gains, however, by building up with infill.” Yet this ignores the fact that there are no cities in America that are “space constrained” except as a result of government constraints. Even cities in Hawaii and tiny Rhode Island have plenty of space around them–except that government planners and regulators won’t let that space be developed.

Instead of relaxing artificial constraints on horizontal development, the toolkit advocates imposing even tighter constraints on existing development in order to force denser housing. The tools the paper supports include taxing vacant land at high rates in order to force development; “enacting high-density and multifamily zoning,” meaning minimum density zoning; using density bonuses; and allowing accessory dwelling units.[All of these things are part of Auckland’s Unitary Plan, or are promised by several of the leading mayoral candidates – Ed.]  All of these things serve to increase the density of existing neighborhoods, which increases congestion and–if new infrastructure must be built to serve the increased density–urban-service costs.

Urban areas with regional growth constraints suffered a housing bubble in the
mid-2000s and are seeing housing prices rise again, making housing unaffordable.
Source:Federal Housing Finance Agency home price index, all transactions.

Developers learned more than a century ago that people will pay a premium to know that the neighbourhood they live in will not get denser. Even before zoning, developers used restrictive covenants to limit density because they knew people would pay higher prices for lots with such covenants. When zoning was introduced to do the same thing, many neighbourhoods were built without such covenants, but that doesn’t mean the people in those neighbourhoods will be happy to see four- and five-story buildings pop up among their single-family homes.

Urban areas with few regional growth constraints see only moderate changes
in housing prices over time and still have plenty of affordable housing.

Planners argue the market has changed and more people want denser development. This is belied by the toolkit, which also supports the use of property-tax abatements and value capture incentives (i.e., tax-increment financing) to promote higher densities. If there really were a market for higher densities, such subsidies would not be necessary.

If there really is a market for higher densities, then developers should be allowed to build such densities in areas that are not already established low-density neighborhoods. But developers should also be allowed to build low-density neighborhoods at the urban fringe to meet the demand for that kind of development. Instead, state and local planning rules in California, Florida, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and most New England states have essentially made such low-density developments illegal.

Moreover, there is little reason to believe that “building up with infill” will make cities more affordable. Artificial constraints on urban growth make land many times more expensive than in unconstrained areas. Mid-rise and high-rise housing costs more to build per square foot than low-rise housing.

Increasing density generally correlates with decreasing housing affordability.
Source: 2010 US census.

No matter how often urban planners chant, “grow up, not out,” the fact is that no urban area in the nation has ever made housing more affordable by increasing its density. In fact, as the chart above shows, there is a clear correlation between density and housing unaffordability.

The urban areas that have been increasing their densities through artificial growth constraints are precisely the ones that are having affordability problems. For example, from 1970 to 2010 the density of the San Francisco-Oakland urban area grew by 43 percent while its median home value-to-median family income ratio (a standard measure of housing affordability) grew from 2.2 to 7.1. Portland’s density grew by 14 percent and its value-to-income ratio grew from 1.6 to 3.9. Honolulu’s density grew by 23 percent and its value-to-income ratio grew from 3.2 to 6.6. Growing up has made these regions less affordable, not more.

Ultimately, what is wrong with the White House toolkit is that it is focused on local zoning which it should be focused on urban growth constraints. If there are no urban growth constraints, local zoning won’t make housing more expensive because developers can always build in unrestricted areas. Dallas has zoning; Houston doesn’t, yet in 2014 both had house price-to-income ratios of 2.4. Only regional growth constraints make housing expensive. Every major city in America except Houston has local zoning, yet only those cities that have growth constraints have become unaffordable.

The increased regulation advocated by the White House will make those areas less affordable, not more, while it won’t do anything at all for areas that already have lots of growth constraints.

The White House toolkit calls its proposals “smart housing regulation.” [So too do Auckland planners decribe their Unitary Plan – Ed.] Truly smart regulation would rely on policies that work, not policies that only work in the fantasies of urban planners. The policies that do work would better be described as “smart land-use deregulation,” as they involve dramatically reducing constraints in unincorporated areas. Until that happens, housing will continue to become less affordable in constrained areas.

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Randal O’Toole is a Cato Institute Senior Fellow working on urban growth, public land, and transportation issues.
This post first appeared at Cato.

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