Housing and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop released his Going for Housing Growth discussion document last month, promising a new paradigm for planning in New Zealand. The proposals are the latest waypoint in a reform journey spanning nearly a decade. 

We have been here before. Since 2016, each reform aimed at fixing our housing crisis has failed to make a real difference. 

The problem is always the same. It has a name: 'integrated management'. Reforms have struggled to break free from it. 

Here's how it works. Councils guess how many houses people will need. They decide how much land to allow for development. Then they ration that land based on what infrastructure they can afford. 

This makes planning about minimising costs. It treats housing like a government service, not a market good. Citizens cannot offer their land for development to provide what society needs. Instead, council planners decide what is needed, what is allowed, and how to manage the trade-offs. 

Auckland pioneered this approach. Its Unitary Plan in 2016 allowed more housing density. But only where councils were willing to pay for pipes and roads. Development stayed slow. 

The government tried national rules in 2016. Councils had to adopt sophisticated modelling to prove they have provided enough capacity. But only capacity they could ‘service with infrastructure’ counted. The rationing therefore continued. 

Officials tried harder in 2020. They demanded more development faster. But their strategy doubled down on the same approach: Development had to be ‘plan-enabled and infrastructure-ready.’ This created an impossible puzzle. Councils were expected to enable more development but could only do so by paying for all the infrastructure first. 

Each new approach has failed to break away from the infrastructure dependency. Councils continue to limit the pace through their spending plans. 

Chris Bishop has promised finally to deliver transformation, but there is a repeating pattern at play: Ministers display ambition and officials propose technical tweaks, yet planning remains prisoner of council budgets.  

Can government end the cycle of reinforcing what it promises to replace?  

Stay tuned for our upcoming submission on the Going for Housing Growth discussion document next month. 

Listen to part one of our accompanying three-part podcast for deeper discussion.