Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

Tauranga's population grew by more than 1300 new residents during the last 12 months. It has created a housing squeeze, putting pressure on current residents, social services and charities, councils and the building industry.

It can take up to five years to get new housing areas zoned and the lead infrastructure planned, funded and built. This is what economists call inelastic supply, as the process is too complex to respond to short-term spikes in demand.

Why can't more houses be built faster? We've worked with government to approve several Special Housing Areas across the city. It has shortened the approval process for these new housing areas to just four months, rather than potentially two years under the Resource Management Act.

We're also building new roads, parks, and water infrastructure much earlier than budgeted to open up more land.

Everyone is feeling the squeeze. Architects are overwhelmed with work. Builders are competing against Auckland, Hamilton, Queenstown and Christchurch for materials and skilled labour. Fewer construction companies are bidding for tenders as there's already a lot of work on.

There are stories of people camping outside showhomes, overcrowding in garages, and young families being priced out of the market. The city's limited emergency housing is facing the most squeeze.

We received quite a few submissions in support of council increasing the number of consent officers to cope with the record-breaking number of consents we're processing, on the condition we improve our systems and fix unnecessary delays.

Supplying the thirsty housing market is the primary reason for council's continued debt and increasing staff numbers. There are other issues that also contribute, but they are secondary to the billions of dollars council will need to invest in hard infrastructure during the next 30 years to successfully manage a growing city, as shown in the following graph.

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 0276989548, and follow me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice.