19 Nov 2013

Radical reforms in housing urged by think tank

8:50 am on 19 November 2013

A business think tank says New Zealand is short of at least 80,000 houses and it urges radical reform to increase supply and lower prices.

The New Zealand Initiative says part of the housing affordability problem is that councils have become 'anti-development' because they are lumped with infrastructure costs.

It says grants for councils, benchmarked on the GST levied on new homes, would encourage them to speed up consents.

But the Government says the idea would be too expensive.

Housing Minister Nick Smith says there is no question of a housing , but he would be surprised if it's even half of what the think tank is suggesting.