Category Archives: secondary suites in NZ

a collection of items relating to changing affordable housing policy in New zealand – especially in Auckland and Christchurch – to permit the development of secondary suites…along the lines that have developed in Vancouver BC Canada over the last decade.

Does Auckland’s District Plan permit internal secondary suites?

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 I think I have discovered a “new” bit of information in regard to secondary suites policies . I mistakenly thought that Auckland and Christchurch/Banks Peninsula had similar residential zoning policies that would both restrict internal secondary suites. Now I don’t think so.

The residential zoning regulations in the   Auckland District Plan, are VERY different than the Christchurch/Banks Peninsula district Plan. In fact, I believe an internal secondary suite – ie self contained unit (kitchen bathroom living sleeping etc)  internal to an existing residential home – would be legitimate in most standard  residential zones (eg 6a) in Auckland…as long as the density requirements (number of people per minimum size site- see below) were satisfied. Note: the Auckland Plan relies on “density ” levels: residential  zone 5 is low density, residential 6 (a and b) is medium density  and residential zone 7 is high density – as in the table below.

If this is the case then Auckland could provide a “model” for Christchurch in terms of modernizing its zoning of residential zoning. The hiccup is that I might be wrong on this…but am hoping someone in your legal team could make some inquiries. Changing chch zoning would be a lot easier politically if there already is a model in NZ, esp from Auckland.

 

The key idea here is that Auckland Plan defines a “residential unit” in terms of people and activity….not in terms of building or room type (kitchens or rooms with laundries) containing a single kitchen , as in CHristchurch Plan . [The Auckland plan is very specifc about this density idea as part of their philosophy as well in terms of permitted activities  - like rest homes  - in residential zones.]

 Here is the Christchurch Plan’s defintion of a residential unit:

Residential Units ”Means a residential activity which consists of a single self contained household unit, whether of one or more persons, and includes accessory buildings and a family flat. Where more than one kitchen and/or laundry facility is provided on the site, other than a kitchen and/or laundry facility in a family flat, there shall be deemed to be more than one residential unit. ” (JF bold added).

Compare the Auckland City Plan  defintions :

But the definition  of a residential unit is defined in two places in their “definitions” . A residential unit is a building or rooms designed to be used by one or more persons as a separate household unit.

Part13b  Definitions

Residential Unit

means a building, a room or group of rooms used or designed to be used exclusively by one or more persons as a separate household unit. (JF adds the bold:  notice the conjunctive term “or” between the bold words ) 

 A household unit in turn is defined as a number of people and any normal domestic activity occurring on the premises

 Part13a Definitions

Household Unit

means a separate housekeeping unit, consisting of either:

(a)one person; and up to four people unassociated with the household; or

(b)two or more persons related by blood, marriage or adoption or by legal guardianship; and up to four people unassociated with the household; or

(c)a group of not more than eight persons unrelated by blood, marriage, adoption or legal guardianship.

and includes any of the normal domestic household activities which may occur on the premises. (JF adds bold)

 Note the complete absence of reference to a single  kitchen or laundry facility as a defining characteristic of a single residential unit. Indeed, the word kitchen is used 3 times in the entire Auckland District Plan!!  What is important is that a residential unit is defined in terms of a maximum number of people: well any number of people actually  in a family (related by blood- so eg a very  a large extended family ) plus up to four unassociated persons  doing normal domestic activities.

The term housekeeping unit itself is defined in the plan as a certain number of PEOPLE doing NORMAL DOMESTIC ACTIViTY . Whether that activity is done by the people themselves “separately” or jointly or some mix of the two or some other way all depends on what normal domestic activity means. SOme people sleep together some people don’t – they sleep separately . SOme people use toilets together some people don’t – they wash, brush their teeth, clean and pooh separately . SOme people cook and/or eat together, some people don’t – they cook and or eat separately . or some mix…..of all this stuff over time….

One residential unit can have many many different rooms in a building and many different types of people. I mean a residential unit could consist of a huge mansion: 8 bedrooms, 4 living rooms, 6 bathrooms 2 games rooms, 3 dining rooms, 4 kitchen cooking areas, swimming pool gigantic indoor outdoor complex with up to 8 flatmates all doing normal domestic activities in their own little separated parts of the mansion! What is “separated” – johnny can’t go into emily’s room because he’s a boy and she’s a girl; mary lou and jessie cook separately and use bathrooms AB while billy bob and frank and fred use bathrooms XYZ and livign room 4? Or a residential can be a tiny little place with a zillion family members : mom dad and 12 kids and two grannies and all the cuzzy bro’s in a 1 bedroom flat with an outhouse!
The key point is that what social or physical separations take place by mutual agreement under the broad umbrella of the people that are permitted in a residential unit is totally irrelevant to the definition of a single residential unit.

Think about it. How would you, on these definitions, get two residential units? in one physical builiding on one chunk of land that meets the minimum sizes .? You only get two residential units when you go beyond the density requirements: eg you have 9 unrelated people, or a family with more than 4 unassociated people….doing normal domestic activities. Compare Christchurch where as soon as you have two kitchens, no matter how many or how few people live eat work sleep there , you are deemed to have two residential dwellings.

Note there is NOTHING about ownership or continuous occupancy or normal resideny. Presumably people can come and go as often as they like ….as long as the number of people – and the types – don’t exceed the criteria in the definitions of a household unit a,b,c. When they do, a second residential unit is created! But not before.

 WHat about external sleepoy style buildings?

There is a def and comment in  the AKL Plan on accessory buildings – if you had a sleepout, or were converting a garage, or…some other form of accessory building you wouldn’t be able to jave a kitchen sink or a dishwasher….but thats it!! The preamble here is actually very informative about the Auckland philosophy here.

 7.5.1.5 ACCESSORY BUILDINGS

The Plan provides for accessory buildings which are incidental to other buildings and permitted activities in the residential zones. Accessory buildings may include garages, carports, glasshouses, sleepouts, games rooms, spa pools, swimming pools or other similarly incidental uses. None of the residential zones have any specific development controls, such as additional size or height limits, for accessory buildings. Rather the same development controls apply to both accessory buildings and residential units. This allows people a considerable degree of flexibility in the arrangement and use of buildings on a residential property. (JF bold added) 

The key characteristic of accessory buildings is their incidental nature. The Plan does not intend that they be used to provide self-contained residential accommodation. Rather the density rules of the Plan must be complied with. At times it can be difficult to determine whether a proposed building fits into the definition of ‘accessory building’. In determining whether a development is an accessory building, or a residential unit, or neither, the Council will have regard to the following matters:

1.The functions that the building performs, or is likely to perform given its design and internal layout;

2.The size and location of the building in relation to existing residential unit(s) on the site;

3.Whether the building provides, or is capable of providing, all the residential needs of one or more inhabitants.

Accessory Buildings are defined in Part13a (defintions)

  Accessory Building in relation to any site, means a building the use of which is incidental to that of any other building or buildings on the site, and in relation to a site on which no building has been erected, is incidental to any permitted activity. “Buildings accessory to” shall have a corresponding meaning. 

 In a residential zone, an accessory building may include but is not limited to: a garage or carport; a workshop; a glasshouse; a sleepout (but not a residential unit); a recreation room; a spa pool or swimming pool. In a residential zone, an accessory building shall not include a kitchen sink or dishwashing facility. 

 My only hesitation in my interpretation  here is that I have also heard, indirectly through some comments on the blogging I have done and that Eric has done, that (1) many city planners in Auckland are misinformed on the use of a single  kitchen as an operational definition of a single residential unit  and (2) if a single building is divided into some sort of “separate” groups of rooms   ( i have no idea what “separate”  means? unit title? legally? some sort of physical boundary like a wall?) then the one building would be deemed to constitue more than one residential unit…and so probably contravening the minimum land area density requirements in residential zones…as per the above table.

 But I cannot for the life of me see this stated anywhere in the AKL district plan.

 

“we have seen the enemy, and them is us ”

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“we  have seen the enemy, and them is us…”. Pogo, (1972)  ”

There is a serious rental accommodation shortage in earthquake ravaged Christchurch. But the real question is : can more be done to speed up the adjustment processes so that the current affordability crises and shortages don’t last unnecessarily long?  Yes.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell. Tens of thousands of  households, owners and renters,  have been directly displaced by earthquake damage to land and property. Many times  more are affected  by smaller scale but still significant repairs on their properties. Members of these households  need and demand  rental accommodation for periods from several weeks up to several years as repair work on their properties is undertaken or while they await the construction of new homes (and until residential household insurance markets come on line again to facilitate financing and construction of new dwellings that could be a long time). There is also a growing influx of workers and their partners/families arriving to help rebuild the City, Lyttleton and other surrounding suburbs , all of whom  are and will be looking for decent accommodation, to buy or to rent. Rents for residential accommodation in “safe” green-zone areas have already risen,  steeply,  in response to this  shortage. These rent rises  mean that the impact, for good (landlords) or for ill (tenants), are  felt across the entire City, Lyttleton, Banks Peninsula  and the Canterbury region, not just by those in earthquake damaged areas. While the  the poor and those on fixed (low) incomes are , as usual, disproportionately  affected, the problem of finding decent affordable accommodation close to familiar schools, family, and work places,  has made the rental accommodation crisis reach deep into the pockets and lives of the middle and upper income classes.

Other  communities around the world,  when with faced serious shortages of affordable rental accommodation,  have looked to the reform of their local zoning by-laws as one possible solution, notably Vancouver, BC. (See my post Accommodation Shortages in Christchurch – Lessons from Vancouver)  A  very simple modification to our existing zoning regulations  along the lines that have been adopted in Vancouver would go a long way to increasing the supply of rental accommodation in the desired residential living areas within Christchurch,  Lyttleton Harbor and the satellite towns of Christchurch. Think thousands of additional bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, toilets, fenced yards  in prime residential areas near to existing schools, parks, shops, and other  amenities that make Christchurch (still) an attractive place to live and work; all fully insured,  privately financed and built quickly within the next year. How? Simply permit secondary suites in existing and new residential dwellings in Christchurch.

A secondary suite is a self-contained dwelling unit that has been created “within” a larger principal dwelling. A secondary suite typically has its own bedrooms, kitchen, living areas, bathroom, toilet and entrance and often shares the main dwelling’s yard, parking area, storage space, laundry etc . In Vancouver, no ownership nor subdivision is permitted for secondary suites , but there is an active and  growing market for “laneway houses”, smaller self contained houses or cottages carved out of land  on back sections in the prime residential areas of Vancouver, a market only recently created  since the legalising in 2009 of this sort of subdivision of the standard residential lot in Vancouver. Both of these policies could help Christchurch, but I will only address secondary suites in this article.

While tens of thousands thousands of secondary suites have been built in existing larger and older houses in established residential areas of Vancouver  for decades – mostly illegally until 2004 – almost half of all new residential homes being built now contain one or more secondary suites. The economics of this change are overwhelming. On the supply side, both younger and older households need a mortgage helper of some sort in a city where a decent house in a decent area will run between $800k  to over $2 million. $300 rent a week ($15k a year) for a typical 1 or 2 bedroom secondary suite goes a long way to both getting and being able to pay off a mortgage for  young singles or couples trying to live the dream of owning their own home. The rental income, and the social companionship, from secondary suite tenants also works well for older, retired seniors or widowers on low pension incomes, enabling them to continue to live in  their own homes in areas near the shops, parks  and transport they are familiar with. (I speak from experience here – my mother, recently deceased at 93, and on a paltry pension, had 3 basement borders each paying $100 a week, enabling her to live for the last 30 years of her life in the prime residential  area  of Vancouver (Dunbar) where she had lived since the 1950s). When it comes time to sell, houses with (legal) secondary suites typically command a 10%+ premium on a sale price.  On the demand side students, young professionals, solo parent families on limited incomes, new immigrants to the City from across Canada or across the world, older seniors on fixed retirement incomes all want to live in desirable residential regions close to universities, schools, parks, shops, public transport, etc., at rents they can afford. City planners and regulators like it: more high rise apartments and tenements in marginal regions that become tomorrow’s ghettos and today’s eyesores are not wanted by planners in Vancouver, but secondary suites in prime residential areas  are. Provincial and federal government politicians actively promote secondary suite policies  as part of “smart growth” strategies for their cash strapped municipalities. Win-win for all concerned it seems.

 

But these legal secondary suite markets, and the political systems that enable and facilitate them,  are conspicuously absent in Christchurch or Lyttleton Harbour .

 

The current Christchurch and Banks Peninsula district plans  do have provisions for internal secondary suites in residential areas, but only under extreme restrictions that effectively negate their personal and financial viability. The regulations  label any sort of “secondary” self contained living accommodation unit as a “family flat” whether internal or external.  The typical by-law describes and prescribes a  “family flat” as a maximum 70 sq m or thereabouts self contained accommodation unit that  has to be used by only immediate family and to be removed when that immediate family is no longer using it. The  policy is enforced – to the extent it can be – by a $5000 lien registered (at your cost) against the property’s title, therefore  requiring your mortgagor’s permission. Draconian search,  enter , and dismantle privileges are given to local council enforcers in case of a suspicions/complaints by any neighbour! No wonder legal family flats are few and far between, even if “illegal” ones abound!

But the nuclear-family based sociology and conservative paternalistic  local body politics  that guided those who developed the original family flat regulations have long since passed their due date.  For example, during the last few decades the market for nominally  “short term” accommodation for student or immigrant home-stays , for holiday and visitor accommodation, or for bed and breakfast style accommodation has flourished throughout the country . These activities are perfectly legal  ”residential activities” in any residential area in almost every NZ city, to the benefit of both landlords and renters . Christchurch and Banks Peninsula planners don’t care as long as there no more than four paying tenants in these sorts of arrangements, policies mirrored by  Inland Revenue, who don’t even require such small scale “residential landlords” to report the income they receive as long as it doesn’t exceed $230 a week per “homestay” border or visitor. Flatting arrangements in residential areas between non-family members who are friends, acquaintances, co-workers, fellow students, etc have been prevalent in New Zealand for decades. Accommodation  is let, sublet, shared, and rented, all in a variety of ways by non family members, to everyone’s benefit. Nobody really cares about family or non family members …except if you are deemed to have a secondary suite, a so called internal “family flat”, and then city planners do care, a lot.

What makes a complex of bedrooms, living areas, bathrooms, laundries, garages and kitchens “secondary” as distinct from “primary”? Follow Alice down the rabbit hole to find out. The rabbit hole is the sequence of bureaucratic categories in the Christchurch and Banks peninsula district plans  that are used to control and regulate who can do what on residentially zoned land.

In a residential area, City and Banks Peninsula plans dictate that there can be  only one “dwelling”  on a piece  of  land that meets the minimum land area requirement. Otherwise a resource consent is necessary, perhaps as a “controlled activity” but more often as a “discretionary” activity or simply a “prohibited activity” . But what is a “dwelling” and what  makes a “dwelling” primary or secondary? The answer is more bizarre than you can possibly imagine. A residential  dwelling can in fact contain a second (or third or fourth or…)  bedroom, bathroom, toilet, shower, games room, library/study, entertainment room, laundry (sometimes), living room, dining room ,  deck, garage space etc , indeed as many as one can afford or fit on the land, subject to building consent requirements.  But a residential dwelling can have only one “kitchen”. And what exactly is a  kitchen? In the  words of the planning documents a kitchen is an enclosed space with a sink,  a bench top and cooking facilities. In practise, many living and games/entertainment rooms, studies as well as what are conventionally called kitchens, have built in benches,  cupboards, sinks, refrigerators and “bar” or light eating type facilities. So, it  really comes down to “cooking facilities”. And what is deemed to be a cooking facility in these days of portable , plug and play appliances: benchtop ovens, slow cookers, toasters, kettles, microwaves, blenders, sandwich makers, bread makers, electric frypans, etc.? I couldn’t get a definitive credible answer on this question from planners or legal experts. But …if you violate the law and have to “remove” a kitchen  to comply with the city plan, operationally you only need to remove the fixed cooking facilities, the oven and the hobbs top.

The tail is wagging the dog here. The plain fact is that you can have as many or as few “primary” or “secondary” bathrooms, bedrooms, living areas, garages, toilets, showers, decks etc as you want. You can rent, share, or give away your bedroom, bathroom, toilet, games room, back yard, garage, ….  to almost as many friends, family, co -workers , home-stayers, tourists, new immigrants, visitors of any gender, nationality , age or creed ….  as you want (up to four paying visitors – but who is really counting?). But woe if you don’t want to cook for them and provide them with their own oven and hobbs top! In that one case, if you have a second fixed oven and a hobbs that , and only that,  will turn your “house”  from one dwelling in to two dwellings!

 

Stop and let the inanity of this “put the item in a bureaucratic tick-box” policy sink in. Second hobbs and oven equals a second residential dwelling. Definitely a “categorical leap” as the philosophers would say. When you strip away the pretentious language about having second dwellings on residential lots and get down to the operational meaning of the rules you find that you need to make a full Resource Consent application to do a simple task any decent tradesperson can do – install an oven/hobbs properly in an existing house. Of course, on the advice of City planners and your planning consultant you would never ask for a Resource Consent hearing to install your oven/hobbs. Not just because the time and financial cost is likely to be 10 times as much as the cost of your oven/hobbs, but primarily becasue it will be a waste of time and money. Your application will surely be turned down since residential activities as defined in the planning documents only permit one dwelling per residential lot, by fiat from the planning documents!! Catch-22! But go for it with a bathroom, bedroom, living room, toilet, deck, garage, sleepout, games room, study,….

 

Unfortunately the one opportunity that has been taken by the central government to deal with the accommodation problem in Christchurch – the Canterbury Earthquake Resource Management Act Permitted Activities  Order of 2011- did absolutely nothing to deal with this anachronistic regulatory zoning problem. It simply passed the buck back to the City Planners and developers by not challenging existing restrictive planning laws and  by shrink wrapping the one good idea they had – let new external residential accommodation units be built in the city on existing residential land – in a web of regulations  that make it both prohibitively costly and undesirable to actually put extra accommodation units in place.

Two restrictions stand out as completely unnecessary: namely that (1)  all such “accommodation units” have to be completely removed from the land and the land returned to its original state  by  2016  and that (2) any such accommodation can only legally be used by and only by residents directly affected by the earthquake. Who in their right mind would invest $100k to $200k in a new external residential dwelling unit, even if they could get insurance and financing (which they can’t) , when rental returns would have to be recouped within only 4 year period and also when the potential rentals and tenancies  from new workers or those being indirectly displaced via high rents are excluded by law!  I have been told by local city planners that the 2011 Order simply “does not apply” to internal accommodation units – ie adaptations/conversions of the existing residential housing stock in Christchurch – because   those cannot be “relocated” when 2016 rolls around.

How foolish are these myopic and unnecessary policies about internal or external secondary suites for residential properties? It’s really a matter of demand and supply. Give a solo parent or family with small kids, young single professionals, older retirees, or migrant trades persons and their families, a self contained two bedroom apartment attached to an existing, beautiful home in a pristine residential area close to schools, parks and restaurants/shops  - think Ilam, Merivale, St Martins, Burnside, Sydenham, Riccarton, Beckenham, Cashmere, Lyttleton, Governors Bay, Diamond Harbour, Addington, St Albans , etc – and the demand soars. And from Vancouver’s experience, so does the supply. The economic logic is compelling. An established couple whose children have moved on, with a four – six bedroom home in a prime residential area could spend perhaps $10,000- $40,000 adding in separate kitchen, bathroom, laundry, and/or living space to their existing home. Their insurance company is happy to extend their existing policy to the new extension – completely the reverse of any other form of new residential construction in Christchurch.  An unfurnished unit in a desirable area might be rented for between $200-$300 a week, more for a furnished unit. That’s between $10k and $15k return a year on a $10-$40k investment! And of course that rental income stream and insurance on the underlying asset keeps the banks happy lending on such small scale projects.

To the scare mongers who would cry that such a change would lead to the destruction of local family residential neighborhoods in “old” pre-earthquake Christchurch , I can only say, get real. It’s already perfectly permissible in the City and Banks Peninsula plans to have in any and every residential house up to four paying guests for tourists, visitors, home stay, etc no matter whether they have a family connection or not, no matter whether they stay a week, a month or a year. Do you really think that by asking them to cook for themselves you are going to destroy neighborhood values? Just what interests are you paternalistically trying to protect in a City trying to re-invent and rebuild itself? Moreover, visit Vancouver, year after year rated in the top 3 most desirable cities to live in in the world . The beauty and social diversity of the wide range of residential neighborhoods in Vancouver testifies to the power that a properly (less) regulated market in secondary suites has for helping to solve rent crises and accommodation shortages.

The Tail Wagging the Dog

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What’s really preventing the adaptation-conversion of the (remaining)  existing stock of housing in Christchurch so that self contained  apartment style accommodation in prime residential neighborhoods in New Zealand can help fix the rental accommodation shortage? The sunday roast, that’s what! Well, also baked chippies and stir fried veggies on the hobbs top . Because having that oven (and associated hobbs) as a second oven/hobbs cooking unit  in one residence – indeed on one residential site – means that you would be deemed to have two dwellings on one residential site. A  regulatory no no!! It doesn’t matter that a normal residential site can have a house with second , third,  or..nth … bedrooms, ensuites, baths, showers, spas, dens, music rooms, entertainment rooms, living areas, closets, laundries, attics, dining rooms, basements, decks…the defining characteristic of a second dwelling is that second fixed “cooking facility” that turns a games room bar, sink,  bench top and cupboards into a “kitchen”.

How do I “know” this? At first I thought the stumbling block was the restrictive “family flat ” regulations (see my earlier post), but those regulations are so insanely anal (can I copyright that?) that they probably never were a binding constraint!  But after a  thorough reading and analysis of  the City and BP DIstrict Plan(s) – no mean feat in itself – and then, after  an iterative process, receiving information from City Planners in response to a very specific pragmatic question:  how does the current  residential zoning regulations and/or the “temporary accommodation” scheme apply to an attempt on the part of a private individual homeowner to supply, for rent, a decent self contained apartment in existing, green-zone area in Christchurch -” I have seen the enemy…and them is us”.  I will spare you the citations to chapter and verse: the gist of it  is that instead of simply having to get a building permit for safe and fire rated enclosure of an oven  and stove top and have the unit installed by a qualified tradesperson, as I would in any regular kitchen,  I actually have to make a full scale Resource Consent  application for a special “discretionary activity” to put a second dwelling on a single residential site (for which I in Governors Bay “need” 1000 sq m and you in Christchurch “need” 450 sq m) – all of which the duty planners tell me I or anyone else would be very unlikely to get under the current regulations . Hmm ,talk about the tail wagging the dog!

No wonder the simplest approach to flexible secondary suite style housing policies in Canada defines the problem away by simple regulatory reform: permitting a second self contained living  area inside an existing residence in a residential zone – no questions asked – more or less, with some exceptions about parking –  except that all self contained living areas, primary or secondary,  comply  with the building codes of the time and the residence owner pays required taxes, rates and utilities!!

New Temporary Accommodation Policies for Christchurch : old wine, new wineskins

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There are a few nice features of the new Christchurch City temporary accommodation scheme that permits the construction of an “accommodation unit”. An accommodation unit is  “a structure of no more than 150m² in gross floor area for the purpose of providing temporary residential accommodation. The unit may include facilities normally associated with residential accommodation such as a kitchen, living area, bathroom, toilet and bedrooms. Accommodation unit may also include a campervan or caravan.” There is a fast tracking system for getting pre construction advice and approval in 3 to 5 days  – for free. Of course all building consents need to be in place…but this isn’t necessarily a big hurdle for a well designed and well constructed unit.

The problem is that  “earthquake related” accommodation units are surrounded by a host of ancillary use constraints and regulations that strangle the (apparent)  intentions behind the scheme …: eg whatever faciltiies are constructed  must be temporary,  one-storey,  relocateable,  used only for accommodation by and for   households directly dislocated by the earthquake, and removed when their temporary need has dissipated or when CERA instructions say so or when CERA is disbanded four years away in April 2016. Consider the financial incentives induced by these regulations:

I estimate the cost of putting a 70 sq metre modern two bedroom “accommodation unit” below my garage out in my home in Governors Bay at around $110k with a separate access drive.  I wouldn’t  have any trouble at all complying with ALL of the requirements spelled out in the  check sheet P033 . We  have a large site with well established trees, unbelievable view , the street is quiet, the school is nearby, we’re in the green zone, ….I could go on and on but the long and short of it is we live in a beautiful place.

However, I do not have any specific persons in mind who might be displaced from their homes who I would be able to accommodate – a requirement to comply with the new regulatory policy. Instead I am thinking of temporary (long or short term) rental for people/ families who actually are displaced or for workers who would be employed in the rebuild of the city or Lyttleton Harbour. The current regulations and their implementation prevent me from doing this becasue how am I to verify whether any particular long or short term tenant is actually displaced from their home by the earthquake. And why do I care? For example with rising rents and expiring leases many people/families will be “displaced” and need places to rent – after all there IS a housing shortage! But these people wouldn’t qualify. Moreover, workers, their partners, their families wouldn’t qualify under these rules either!!

I reckon demand would be pretty strong though, given the shortage of decent rentals in good places in Christchurch:  say $300 a week for a furnished modern warm self contained accommodation unit. That’s not  a bad rate of return on a $100k investment – except for the fact that it wouldn’t last for any longer than 4 years becasue of the “parameters” of the temporary residential housing policy.  Why  would I ever invest $110k knowing that in 4 years I’d have to remove the “temporary accommodation”?

So…what do we conclude: willing buyers , willing seller but the transactions that would help alleviate accommodation shortages for the next few years are effectively stymied by inadequate regulations . Multiply this 1000 fold and you’ll see why “temporary”  inadequate approaches to zoning regulations – ones that don’t challenge the existing order – are a real bottleneck for dealing with rental accommodation shortages.

The plain fact is that the new  temporary accommodation orders, while well intentioned, simply avoid the underlying regulatory problems that limit the development of small scale private investments that could do plenty to alleviate our city’s accommodation problems. It’s just old wine in a new wineskin  – CERA and the city managers say we’ll facilitate something for you but then enclose it in a shrink wrap agreement that precludes it being used!

The temporary accommodation order itself  would have been  redundant had the zoning and development regulations been tweaked to permit residential activities to have secondary suites, as in Vancouver and many other Canadian municipalities – something that I am arguing in my other posts..

 

Regulatory reform for housing and the NZ Productivity Commission report

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I just scanned through the NZ productivity Commission’s report (check out the media release and or download the report here) . It’s 343 pages, and clearly has some useful material on reforming zoning planning laws and regulations. Ditto for the City Consultant’s report to CHRANZ (here)  which contains a wealth of survey style information on the demand side of housing markets in NZ.

But  the authors of neither document  seem to be  aware of  decades of policy  research on affordable housing in Canadian municipalities like metro Vancouver and Toronto, where both rental and home ownership costs have rapidly become beyond the reach of even middle income individuals and families  (I did a search on the pdfs for the NZ documents for terms like Canada, Vancouver, secondary suite, family flat, granny flat…and came up with 0 hits!!).  How on earth did our NZ based researchers missed  Canadian style   “Smart Growth” strategies that cultivate an active  secondary suite market? A shame really…but we’ll change things!! The economic and public policy common sense of secondary suite policies of Vancouver and related metropolitan municipalities is overwhelming – especially to those who believe that regulatory reform at the municipal level is needed, and needed badly, to address growing affordability problems in  Auckland and now (for a different reason) my home, Christchurch.

John

Auckland’s post-war housing policy: Did we (ever) follow Canada , permitting secondary suites?

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Here is an open letter to anyone with knowledge of New Zealand’s regulatory policy on self contained accommodation units in residential “zones”. I’ve asked Lisa Truttman over at her interesting  timespanner site to help me out here….but heck, I’ll accept information from anyone in the know!!

I have both a personal and a professional  interest in this topic: personal because I live in Christchurch (Lyttleton Harbour actually) and there is a critically serious accommodation shortage here that will only escalate over the next decade as the rebuild of Christchurch begins (when it ever does begin!!) , and professional,  because I am an academic economist at the University of Canterbury beginning some research into the effects  of regulations at municipal levels on serious accommodation shortages and the associated unaffordable rents and house prices  (think Auckland ). You’ll see from my recent posts that I have been exploring how regulatory reform in Canada on secondary suite policy  has changed the residential landscape there – for the better, for tenants, owners, and municipal councils.

Here is my question: I  would like to find out what special measures – especially at local levels – have been  taken in New Zealand urban areas (esp Auckland, possibly other main centers) during the post-war period in times of housing shortages . I am particularly interested in local community initiatives to help returning servicemen/women and their families obtain housing, either rental or ownership, in the main urban areas in New Zealand.  I don’t mean in State provided housing or  in purpose built camps/comppunds, but  in options for self contained accommodation  provided by existing residents in the areas where returning servicemen and their families would have wanted to live – ie in proximity to good  transport,  schools, parks, shopping and other services – but found both rents or house prices  in these places unaffordable. An archivist at the  Alexander Turnball  pointed me to a Dept of Housing booklet “Buy, Build or Rent: housing assistance for the ex-serviceman” (1946)  . This booklet mentions the existence of many initiatives at local community levels – but has no further information about them.

I suspect  there may have been some significant and interesting local community changes in regulatory policies that either actively encouraged or turned a blind eye to initiatives taken by existing residents to provide secondary suite type self contained accommodation …but am only guessing at this stage. By “secondary suites” I mean self contained accommodation units (could be as small as a studio size apartment these days, or more substantial 2 or 3 bedroom units with separate living areas, bedrooms, kitchen facilities, toilet/shower, etc) , internal  to or external to an existing dwelling- eg  renovations of an existing house/garage/sleepout  to create a second  self contained accommodation unit  . In NZ and OZ these go by the name “granny flats “, but of course their tenants, or owners, could be anyone but granny herself!

Did we in NZ ever follow Canada in this regard? For example,  in Canada, returning servicemen after WW2 were provided with subsides and loans, as well as special tenement style housing as they were in New Zealand, but also existing homeowners in local communities were permitted and encouraged to develop secondary suite type accommodation for returning war vets .  For example in Vancouver the City managers of the time actively encouraged these sorts of secondary suites for the first ten years after WW2 ended , but then in a succession of by-laws in the late 1950′s rescinded these permissions. In the 1990′s a policy u-turn occurred,   especially in the greater metropolitan regions of Vancouver or Toronto where house  prices and rents became out of reach for even those on middle class or higher  incomes. [ [ I grew up in one such war vet tenement compound in Vancouver where the qualification for entry was to be a returning war vet  with at least three  kids to qualify - I think that may have been the "reason" my brother Michael was born in 1949 actually !] ]. In fact the BC provincial government has even put out a guide for municipalities seeking to implement a secondary suite policy (http://www.housing.gov.bc.ca/pub/secondary_suites.pdf) and CMHC  is a strong advocate of permissive  policies towards secondary suites as part of a portfolio of solutions to housing unaffordability problems in urban areas  http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/renoho/refash/refash_040.cfm

The problem is I’m not sure where to start to look for such information. I found only a short  reference in Bush’s  Decently and in Order (1972, p 289) in his discussion of end-of-war accommodation crises in Auckland…but that’s all:

“Towards. the end of the War the problem worsened: the Council concentrated more and  more of its resources· on housing, “desperate” being increasingly supplanted by “critical’.’ in official terminology. At Dr McElroy’s ·suggestion, the standing Housing Committee was reconstituted in April 1944: the Mayor, John Allum, emphasized that the provision of more housing accommodation was second only in importance to winning the war. The Council’s major contribution towards ameliorating the situation, was of course, the transit camps converted from American army establishments. But they belong more properly to the post-war era and will be considered in a later chapter. Otherwise, the policy was “a combination of rehabilitation of existing houses and strict enforcement of the zoning scheme and by-laws.” Nevertheless, a number of the latter relating to building were revised or relaxed to facilitate the renovation of existing dwellings. In July 1945 regulations concerning fire-proofing and the sharing of amenities were eased.” (p 289, emphasis added)

My guess is that as a Commonwealth country NZ might have followed Canada in this after WW2….but it’s only a conjecture. And we certainly haven’t followed changing Canadian policy in the last decade!

Thanks for any help you can provide.

John

What’s in a name?: Secondary suites, Granny flats, Family flats, Garden suites

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Self contained living units of the sort we are thinking about have many different names: secondary suites, granny flats, family flats, garden suites, coach houses, etc. In truth, the term “secondary suite” doesn’t appear in our City’s district Plan . Instead, the kinds of living unit we are discussing is called a  “family flat” in this definition from the Christchurch City Plan:

“self contained living accommodation, whether contained within a residential unit or located separately to a residential unit on the same site, which is occupied by family member(s) who are dependant (sic)  in some way on the household living in that residential unit; and which is encumbered by an appropriate legal instrument which ensures that the use of the family flat is limited to dependant family members of the household living in the residential unit”.Volume 3 Definitions: Family Flat; emphasis added

The highlighted bold words are fine. We’re talking simple functionality here – “self contained living accommodation”  located on the same site of a residential dwelling which itself is a self contained living accommodation. The  living accommodation can be inside the residential dwelling, attached to it, or separate from it – eg as a  stand-alone  building or perhaps part of or attached to a garage or other stand alone building on the site.

But the remainder of this  “definition” – indeed even the simple adjective “family” in the name “family flat”  is far from innocuous.  Two important regulatory constraints on residential living are embodied: one a social and conventional l constraint ,  the other an intrusive and costly legal restraint aiding in the enforcement of the social constraint.

What kind of a constraint is this? Should we even care?. Well, I think so. Would you accept this kind of restriction on your own residential unit? I doubt it.

For a single residential  unit on a site  there is no restriction whatsoever on who may use the living arrangements for that unit. Who in fact does live in residential units in New Zealand these days? Well almost anyone and everyone one if our census is to be believed: old, young; rich, poor; healthy , sick; religious or atheist; educated or being educated; married ,  in a civil union or single….basically any and every way you might want to slice the demographic cake. Do you have to be “family” to live in a residence? No way! Ditto for tenure arrangements.  Owners might live in the residential unit , but as often as not they don’t, and renters use and occupy a residence. Think of a group of professionals or students  or workers or stay-at-home mums or dads or …. all of the above… We’d simply call most of those arrangements… a flat – and be done with it. Restricting “flats” in a primary residence to be used only by family would be rightly regarded as an unjustifiable intrusion on home owners and home renters rights and privleges.

So why do we even think of tolerating it for secondary suites – ie self contained living accommodation internal to or external to a residence?

This is a good question. Hold it in (only) your mind for a moment, savor it, let it roll around. But don’t think for a moment that the sensible answer lies in some intellectual rationale about preserving neighborhood values or standards in primarily residential areas.  That sort of reply to a question like – why do we have such and such by-law? – is (also) typically a smoke-screen to cover up an intricate thicket of self-interested and often  excessively conservative behaviors that brought the by-law into existence and keep it in existence in spite of pressure for change. It may well be that there are “impacts” on residential neighborhood quality from many kinds of typically residential activities, flats secondary suites or otherwise . But typically with a controversial by-law there are at least several self interested groups in action: those wanting a change, those opposing a change, and those “civil servants” wanting to keep control of the regulatory bureaucracy and political processes that are part of local body governance.
As a famous Roman judge is alleged to have asked: Cui bono? (to whose benefit?) (see Wikipedia) “The famous Lucius Cassius, whom the Roman people used to regard as a very honest and wise judge, was in the habit of asking, time and again, ‘To whose benefit?’”

 

I’ve been reading sections of Graham Bush’s fascinating book Decently and in Order (1971)  on the history of local government in  Auckland . Did you know that up until the mid 1930′s playing tennis and using children’s playgrounds on a Sunday were forbidden? that bathing suits were required to be neck to knee? that a motion came before the City Council to have a bronze statue of a discuss thrower in the domain “fig-leafed” (it failed to pass)? I mention these as a reminder of how recently social conservatism and prudery ruled the local body governance roost. But even removing the obvious conservative influences, zoning laws and regulations create a playing field for other forms of strategic self  interest to emerge.  Consider this slightly cynical viewpoint:  when self contained living accommodation is restricted to to immediate dependent family members, the restriction needs to be seen not just for what it includes (what decent person  wouldn’t want to help out their dependant children or grandparents  – hmmm, i can think of some…) but for what it excludes: all the “undesrieables” to those who are already established inside a specific residential area , whoever they might be – students, immigrants, working classes, …. The family flat restriction becomes a blank template for incumbents  to fill in the demographic they don’t want in their area of town. Of course they couldn’t get a policy like that enforced on existing residences on site, the primary dwelling  – but woe to any “additional” intensification of land use!!

The history of the U-turn in Canadian provincial  and local government policies towards secondary suite type self contained accommodation in established residential areas will provide  deep insights into the forces for and the forces against.   I’ll be synthesizing and commenting on that in an upcoming blog. But a point worth remembering is that the changes in Canada have come in urban areas

  • where house prices have made both ownership and rental unaffordable to large numbers of the middle class population (not just the poor) ,
  • where green spaces and historical characteristics of residential areas are highly valued and urban sprawl and high rise proliferation  isn’t
  • where diverse and thriving communities of people living, shopping, working, playing, all close to and interconnected to decent public transport networks (i e reduce reliance on cars, increase cycling and walking alternatives in pleasant and safe environments)
  • permit continuity   of living through time for  all ages – from pre school kids to teens  within walking distance of  local schools to older adults and seniors being able to “age in place” , in familiar, friendly, pleasant environments for living shopping and relaxing

Current (Draconian) Christchurch Regulations on secondary suites

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This is just a quickie post to get down some basic information relevant to introducing secondary suites into Christchurch and Lyttleton Harbour (the latter being covered by the Banks Penninsula  – BP -District Plan – the former by the CCC Plan)

First, what I am calling “secondary suites”,  the CCC Plan and BP plan  calls “family flats”. There is a very helpful pamphlet published by the CCC “So you want to build a family flat” that sets out the ground rules.  There is also a “bond contract/agreement” , creating a legal obligation or “encumbrance” to be signed by anyone planning to create a family flat.  (These documents are also available at the City’s website.) But the long and short of it (the existing regulations) is :

  • a family flat/secondary suite can be inside an existing dwelling – perhaps from converting or developing (according to regular building codes) say internal rooms and living spaces into  “separate” living facilities -  or external to an existing residential dwelling – the cottage in the back yard , or a semi detached building.
  • the residential unit is only defined as a family flat/secondary suite if it contains a kitchen – bedrooms ,bathrooms,  laundries,  living rooms, games rooms, studies, garages,  and all other aspects of typical residential space for living  all seem to be fine
  • What’s a kitchen? A kitchen is not defined in the city plan – however the guidelines in the pamphlet  say that it a kitchen contains all three of a sink, a bench and “facilities that allow cooking equipment to be set up” – legal advice that I have had seems to think that since toasters, kettles, microwaves, refrigerators, and all kinds of portable plug-in appliances  are in widespread use throughout the city’s  residences and B&B’s , that cooking equipment here is most likely operationally defined as fixed cooking equipment such as an hobbs and/or oven with fixed specialized wiring (This makes sense since the draconian powers of remedy for the Council include charging you for “removing” the cooking equipment deemed to be in breach – hardly a problem for a plug-in appliance – but don’t quote me on that – even the legal advisor I discussed couldn’t tell me for sure!)
  • What “categories”  of people can live in the residence? Living (which I guess means using the kitchen cooking facilities – since everything else in relation to using residential space is more or less permitted !) is narrowly restricted to a “dependent family member”  . Note that this “user type restriction” differs from regulations for   B&B’s , Holiday home, and Homestay accommodation in Christchurch . These regulations permit , as an accepted  - “by-right”  - residential activity,  as many as 4 “paying” people in any type of standard residential living zone in the City  (how many nonpaying people??) . Such visitors guests … don’t have to be related by family connections in any way whatsoever – just as in the standard student or professional flatting arrangements where no family connection is required, or often desired. Whether or how these types of regulations on “acceptable people” are enforced or not is a complete unknown, since there is no registration requirement for either home stay or holiday home or B&B short stay or flatting type rental  accommodation, and even if there were who could verify/dispute a claim, easily? No one knows how much, or how little, of this private accommodation activity goes on in the City. If the experiences of other cities where accommodation is in short supply is any indication, it will be  a quantitatively significant  activity. For example more than half of all homes and more than 2/3 of all new homes in some well established residential areas of Vancouver engage in secondary suites accommodation service supply. Word “on the street” in Christchurch is that everyone who knows anyone at High School will have heard of the lucrative weekly income that comes form having students on short or long home stays.
  • a $5000 bond “without cash” must be formally posted, registered through a solicitor – at your expense –  for a hefty $400-500 transaction fee with the City, and the “agreement” between you and the City must have the consent of the institutions holding your mortgage! . In case of breach of the conditions for having a family flat this is a legally binding penalty  that the City can enforce; the “agreement” also includes rights for the City to monitor, inspect, and forcibly shut down any activities inspectors deem to be breaching the family flat agreement; it is an obligation that is attached to the property, not the person – so any prospective buyer will be taking on such a registered obligation. With these kinds of restrictions one can see why people or households  who would otherwise love to have a family flat (read second cooking facilities) , even for for family members, much less a secondary suite, for anyone else, paying or not, simply wouldn’t register it!!
  • 65 sq metres is a maximum size (for either an internal or an external unit)

It is worth mentioning  that the  provisions of the new temporary accommodation regulations  approved by Council and Cear define an accommodation unit much more liberally : “a structure of no more than 150m² in gross floor area for the purpose of providing temporary residential accommodation. The unit may include facilities normally associated with residential accommodation such as a kitchen, living area, bathroom, toilet and bedrooms. Accommodation unit may also include a campervan or caravan.” But as you’ll see in an upcoming post – this attempt at non-regulatory reform is just old wine in new wineskins. What kind of policy advice are authorities receiving – and accepting – to make them  think this sort of regulation will encourage investment in accommodation units? Put the another way – as a statement answering the question  - there is no real interest in or commitment to providing incentives for small scale, privately initiated and funded, investment in accommodation units at all!!

JF

Changing regulations and by-laws to accommodate new forms of housing

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I just finished reading The Affordability and Choice Today Guide for Developers and Planners . The ACT acronym is a bit unfortunate for K iwis since we associated it with a centre right political party! However, what’s in a name the bard would say!!To avoid confusion for kiwis I’ll use A.C.T as the acronym for this program.

The leading idea for the entire   program  is to improve affordability and choice in housing (rental or ownership, or both) through regulatory reform. In this particular document (one of many published resources  on the website actprogram.com )  development standards (regulation) are tackled and a number of “alternatives”  suggested.

How relevant is this to the secondary suite debate here in New Zealand? It’s more about new building and larger scale inner city/suburban rennovation standards than conversions of existing household stock…but it begins to address the factors which planners in NZ will want to see addressed. But at a more general level,  besides discussing general and specific standard, it provides some wonderful case studies of communities in Canad that have implemented some alternatives to conventional regulation of housing development(s). Being able to observe something in practice helps overcome the general conservatism of city/municipal planners, and to some extent developers. The document rightly points out that most planning standards were determined in the 50′s (or earlier) when land was cheap, the w.a.s.p. nuclear family was a dominant cultural ideal , and environmental awareness was, well, low or non-existent! In many modern cities – take earthquake devastated Christchurch or   Auckland (rents land and housing prices skyrocketing…as per Vancouver and Toronto) – these “contextual” factors have all been turned upside down, completely. Multiculturalism, large and growing immigrant populations, expensive land, high rents, and a deep consciousness of environmental issues and amenities are the new context. And A.C.T asks (and begins to answer) sensible  questions about how to remove regulatory barriers to affordable housing in this changed environment.

The table of contents, which I have shamelessly copied over for you below, gives an idea of what specific topics this document addresses. But as important as the detail is here  – about parking , about water, about storm-water, about sewage etc etc – there is a general philosophy that recognizes that these alternatives have to sold: developers have to have incentives to embrace them, city planners have to be motivated to risk implementing them, and Everyman and Everywoman  have to be have incentives to try something new.

 

INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………….. 2
• About this guide
• What are alternative development standards?
• Benefits of alternative development standards
• Barriers and success strategies
BUILDING LOTS ……………………………………………………………………………….. 6
• Lot size
• Lot configuration
• Lot distribution
STREETS AND PARKING ……………………………………………………………….. 9
• Street layout
• Right-of-way dimensions
• Streetscape design
• Parking for single-family dwellings
• Parking for multiple-family and mixed-use developments
STORMWATER AND SERVICING …………………………………………………. 14
• Stormwater management
• Utilities and services
• Sewage treatment

RESOURCES …………………………………………………………………………………….. 18

Accommodation shortages in Christchurch – lessons from Vancouver

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This is a short article I  submitted to the Christchurch Press. The ideas in it derive from many useful background papers that explore how the City of Vancouver planners are using secondary suite development to help deal with the serious (un)affordability of accommodation in Vancouver. One report from  2009  a gold mine of useful information on both the history of and obstacles to the current permissive policy in Vancouver : click here to download the report , Secondary Suites Study jf ,

 

Monday’s editorial and recent Press articles and letters have identified the escalating problem of (un)affordable rental accommodation in Christchurch. However, I don’t share the Editor’s or Gerry Brownlee’s pessimism that central government can do nothing to help create a rapid solution.

 


Can you imagine adding thousands of new bedrooms, bathrooms, toilets, kitchens, living rooms and laundries to the useful rental stock of accommodation in Christchurch – all fully insured and easily financed – within the next year? I can. Simply follow the example of Vancouver, Canada. City planners there have embraced a wide range of initiatives to legalise and encourage secondary suite accommodation in residential areas to help meet the problem of unaffordable accommodation shortages in this beautiful, but expensive, city. City planners (or EQC commissioners) can do the same thing here in Christchurch with the stroke of the regulatory pen. Simply remove the existing stifling regulations on family flats and secondary suites in our City Plan (keeping all the other good building consent processes already in place).

 

A secondary suite is a self-contained dwelling unit that has been created “within” a larger principal dwelling. A unit typically shares the main dwelling’s yard, parking area, laundry, and storage space, but has its own kitchen, living area, bathroom and entrance. Generally, no ownership nor subdivision is permitted (although ownership solutions in the form of laneway houses, smaller self contained units or cottages in the back of a residential property, work well in Vancouver). Almost half of all new residential homes now contain one or more secondary suites, adding to the stock of tens of thousands of such suites in Vancouver.  High rise tenements in marginal regions that become tomorrow’s ghettos and today’s eyesores, are not wanted in Vancouver. But secondary suites in prime residential areas, like Kitsilano and Commercial Drive, are actively embraced.

 

Not so here in Christchurch. The current City Plan permits small family flats or secondary suites in residential areas, but only under extreme restrictions that effectively negate the viability of having extra self contained accommodation on a property. B&B’s are of course completely legal anywhere Christchurch, with a nominal restriction to no more than four guests, but no B&B is permitted to have a “kitchen” – the trinity of a stove/hobbs with a sink and benchtop. No one knows how many non-consented secondary suites or B&B’s with functioning kitchens that there are in Christchurch. But in the last two years they will all have been to put to VERY good use, illegally of course. To continue to make secondary suites persona non grata in post quake Christchurch with its’ serious accommodation shortages is bordering on the insane.

 

It’s really a matter of demand and supply. Give a solo parent or family with small kids, young single professionals, older retirees, or migrant trades persons and their families, a self contained two bedroom apartment attached to an existing, beautiful home in a pristine residential area close to schools, parks and restaurants/shops  - think Ilam, Merivale, Selwyn, Sydenham, Riccarton, Beckenham, Cashmere, Lyttleton, Governors Bay, Addington, St Albans , etc – and the demand soars. And from Vancouver’s experience, so does the supply.

 

Consider the logic. An established couple whose children have moved on, with a four bedroom home in Ilam, Sydenham or Lyttleton Harbour  could spend perhaps $20,000- $40,000 adding in separate kitchen, bathroom, laundry, and/or living space to their existing home. For $100k a small self-contained cottage could be built out the back on the quarter acre section. Their insurance company is happy to extend their existing policy to the new extension – completely the reverse of any other form of new residential construction in Christchurch. An unfurnished unit in a desirable area might be rented for between $200-$300 a week, more for a furnished unit. That’s between $10k and $15k return a year on a $30k investment! And of course that rental income stream and insurance on the underlying asset keeps the banks happy lending on such small scale projects.

 

To the scare mongers who would cry that such a change would lead to the destruction of local family residential neighborhoods, I can only say- visit Vancouver, year after year rated in the top 3 most desireble cities to live in in the world. Read the history of their debates about legalizing secondary suites. It took them 50 years to overcome established property owners objections. Maybe it will only take us two years and 10,000 earthquakes. The beauty and social diversity of the wide range of residential neighborhoods in Vancouver testifies to the power that a properly (less) regulated market in secondary suites has for helping to solve rent crises and accommodation shortages.