Kaz: “Let’s get away from the idea that planners can plan our cities and let actual individuals and families decide how they live their lives.” #wholesome #yimby apnews.com/article/new-...

“Let’s get away from the idea that planners can plan our cities and let actual individuals and families decide how they live their lives.” #wholesome #yimby apnews.com/article/new-...

New Zealand will radically ease zoning rules to try to relieve its stubborn housing shortageapnews.com New Zealand's housing minister says the country will drastically ease restrictions on land use in a bid to “flood the market” with land for homes and override the powers of local councils to curb deve...

The problem is that a) this government is announcing this at the same time it’s cutting infrastructure funding - who’s going to pay for, say, increased wastewater demands? Increased load on public transport?

B) they’re removing minimum floor sizes, so developers are going to pack us in like sardines (even more than they already are - I live in one of five tiny apartments on what used to be a single quarter-acre section with one house)

C) National has a habit of deregulating the housing market for the benefit of their cronies in construction and property management. The last time they did this we ended up with a generation of houses so shoddily built they required the direct intervention of the Labour government to fix.

D) The govt has already cut spending to the bone to give tax cuts to landlords (the tax cuts for the rest of us are swallowed by the local tax increases this entails to keep things running). Everything they do should be understood through this lens - they’re brutal, greedy, and short sighted.

Ultimately, it’s not a wholesome story - it’s just another case of National feeding landlords and big business at the expense of everyone else.

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