While enjoying a holiday in Far North Queensland — where the contrast with Queenstown couldn’t be more stark — I found myself triggered by a reference in a recent Mountain Scene. It seems the proposed Ridgeburn development, at Arrow Junction, is being promoted as a way of addressing the district’s housing crisis. I ask what is truly at crisis in the district? A strong demand for housing has been responded to with huge developments in recent years, but some continue to claim we have a ‘housing crisis’. The insatiable demand for housing will always be ahead of the supply of housing. Is this a crisis or simply the market at play? There is no development scenario that will deliver housing at a cost on a par with more affordable towns in New Zealand. Only market intervention such as Arrowtown’s Tewa Banks development can go against the tide of supply and demand economics. Scene has been reporting the same housing challenges for seasonal staff and others who want to live in Queenstown either short or long term since the 1970s, and I suggest the headlines won’t change in this regard, no matter how many houses are built or how long you project forward. The myopic determination to build more houses ahead of any supporting infrastructure has finally taken us to a point where much of our district is now broken, and the quality of our lifestyle is being significantly eroded. Property prices may be going forward, but everything else is going backward. This is a genuine appeal to expose the falsity of our housing crisis and recognise that our current response (build more houses) is pouring fuel on the fire of the other crises that we face. We have a three waters crisis, a roading crisis, an education crisis, a healthcare crisis, a waste crisis and a productivity crisis, to name a few. None of those crises are resolved by building more houses. Property developers are not necessarily the evil party in this situation. They bring vision and funding and create developments that when done in concert with the wider district plan, provide great places for people to live. However, property developers should respect the plans rather than try to operate outside their provisions. Effective long-term planning should dismiss the expectation any large tract of land is available to be developed, but should identify the appropriate land to be developed. This is a much greater issue than the proposed Ridgeburn development and requires Queenstown’s council to step up and aggressively defend the district plan, considering central government interference. Our council must recognise it needs to take a balanced approach to the growth pressures we face. Ratepayers expect council to stand up to being pushed around by central government and overly-enthusiastic property developers. Otherwise, we should be asking what the point of local planning — arguably our council’s most important and increasingly expensive role — is. As with all problems that need to be solved, we must ask what we can do about it. The residents of the district need to be very clear as to what we expect our council to focus on. Our council needs to run the district for the residents, not developers and a central government agenda. Queenstown’s council’s spent millions of our ratepayer dollars on preparing plans for future development at the direction of central government. These plans are now being totally disrespected and ignored. We should also be challenging central government in this election year and ensure they fully understand that we do not have a housing crisis, but we have plenty of others we need to focus on. I encourage council ratepayers to comment, lobby and keep the conversation going. Change can take time, but it will happen as is evidenced by the recent announcements on a bed tax, something that we have been fighting for at least 20 years. Let’s hope government and developer respect for district planning won’t take as long to achieve. Craig Douglas is a long-time local and former Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce chair
