Aspiring Auckland mayor Mark Thomas says the Auckland Council should be using its massive balance sheet to fix the housing crisis.
Thomas told the National Business Review the mayor, councillors, and bureaucrats had the answer in their hands.
“This is a big organisation with a massive balance sheet, and it shouldn’t be so hard to fix this problem,” says Thomas.
If Thomas becomes Mayor at year end, he will ask Aucklanders to agree to “swap” half the value of the airport shares as well as the port company into water, roading, public transport and other assets that are a higher priority.
“Dissent should be limited as the council is still keeping the assets, just using them in a different way,” says Thomas.
“Instead of the council being paid $45 million a year in dividends from the airport and port companies, Aucklanders will own $1.5 billion of water, wastewater, stormwater, roading and public transport infrastructure,” he says.
According to the National Business Review, Thomas says under his plans it will be easier for private sector infrastructure companies to compete in Auckland using the existing targeted rate mechanism. Homeowners would pay directly for water and other services and receive discounted council rates to compensate.
Thomas says he is the only mayoral candidate who is prepared to use existing council assets to help fund the infrastructure and consequently housing gap.
He says the council’s development company is falling behind, and Prime Minister John Key’s plans to set up an urban development authority to make faster progress building new housing and infrastructure could be the “kick up the pants” Auckland needs.
He told the National Business Review an urban development authority mirrors his plans to establish special development areas where the need for housing is acute. These will replace the council’s and government’s special housing areas which expire in October.
Under his plans, the council would take a more active role resolving problems and move into the development phase more quickly. Council funding would be reprioritised to achieve this.
