The little house in Potters Park

I walked passed the bronze villa replica in Potters Park yesterday. This small sculture caused a lot of angst when the Eden-Albert Community Board paid $20 000 for it. I have to admit that even I did not realise how small it is and on top of that it now seems to be corroding badly. Yes, that really is a $2 coin leaning up against it.

It reminded me why I ran for the community board – to try to prevent this blatant missuse of ratepayers money!

Housing Afforability in Auckland

I agree with the council renegotiating the Affordable Housing scheme. Aaron Bhatnagar sums up the affordable housing issue nicely. There are essentially two arguments from the perspective of the Auckland City Council which has been elected with a mandate to hold rates rises to a minimum

1.        Holding rates rises and council costs will improve housing affordability, because the ongoing cost of housing, as well as the purchase price have become major issues for Auckland’s sustainability and building 100 houses targeted to a select few will do nothing to ease the problems

2.       They recognise that housing is a central government issue because it is central government that sets the economic agenda and collects taxes to distribute through welfare and HCNZ to target affordability of accommodation.

Being a young person who will be looking to have a family soon I am probably more concerned about affordable housing than most people but I recognise that central government must take a real lead on this issue, and I consider if City Vision was really concerned they would be lobbying their own Labour led government very hard on to bring in a long term solution to this issue.

 

I welcome your feedback

 

Kevin is also intending to run a series of blogs on the housing affordability issue