The Queenstown Lakes District Council will oppose a move by developers to appeal a High Court decision over the council's Plan Change 24 (PC 24) project aimed at fostering affordable housing in the district.
Branded a "scandalous waste of ratepayer funds" by one developer, PC 24: Affordable and Community Housing was originally notified in 2007 and would allow council to assess a new development to see if it had any effect on housing affordability.
The council wants to use PC 24 to fix a levy - under the resource consent process - when land is rezoned from rural to urban classification, a move upheld by the High Court on February 14.
On the grounds of an "error in law" Remarkables Park Limited, Five Mile Holdings (in receivership) and a group made up of Infinity Group Holdings, Willowridge Developments and Orchard Road Holdings is seeking leave to appeal the High Court decision, which maintained a previous Environment Court July 2010 decision, which ruled there was scope under the Resource Management Act (RMA) for council to address housing affordability issues.
At a meeting of the council strategy committee last week, council policy and planning general manager Philip Pannett said the courts had already answered the "philosophical question" of a council mandate on affordable housing. Any further litigation was unlikely to change that result.
Council senior policy analyst Scott Figenshow gave an update on the legal wrangling and told the committee council should push for a substantive Environment Court hearing and reject developers in their bid to secure another High Court date. The motion was carried by the committee.
Infinity Investment Group manager Marc Bretherton told the Otago Daily Times the High Court appeal was being lodged to stop the "precedent of allowing a council to target any group or individual and levy a tax under the RMA; this gives a power to the council never intended by the lawmakers."
However, he said the High Court decision clearly stated the council had to demonstrate a link between the supply of residential land and housing and housing unaffordability - a connection he said was "impossible" to prove.
"QLDC should be encouraging the supply of housing, not taxing those who provide it. The most basic rule of economics is supply and demand. If the supply of land and housing is increased, the price of all land and housing will decrease. How the council intends to disprove this most basic law of economics is beyond us, and a scandalous waste of ratepayer funds," Mr Bretherton said.
He said hundreds of thousands of dollars of ratepayer money had already been spent to fund an "unnecessary and experimental use of the RMA".
"Stakeholder agreements are already in place - to which both Infinity and Willowridge are party - which secure more than 250 affordable housing units over the next decade. As developers, we are already addressing this issue in partnership with the council. There is already a solution which makes Plan Change 24 wholly unnecessary."
Mr Bretherton said PC 24 should be abandoned immediately before more "expensive and pointless litigation."
