By Christine Rose

The Government’s proposals for mass produced housing projects while letting developers off the hook for costs they incur spell disaster for West Auckland and its residents says Waitakere Councillor candidate Christine Rose.

‘Too many Westies already live in badly built, cramped, noisy and damp conditions, where they’re socially isolated and car dependent. The Government’s proposals for more sprawl on the city’s outskirts, are cheap and nasty, while families and the environment will carry the costs, not the developers who incur them’ says Mrs Rose who was the Chair of the Auckland Regional Council’s Transport and urban Development committee until 2010.

Last week Maurice Williamson, Building and Construction Minister announced plans for bulk building construction, and Housing Minister Nick Smith declared a reduction in the charges developers would pay for services in new subdivisions. Mrs Rose, says in her 15 years in local government, Councils worked with developers to create fair, reasonable and transparent charges which reflected the costs incurred, and the standards required to fit subdivisions into Council networks. “To arbitrarily change the services developers pay for, and the standards they must meet, runs the risk of short cuts, and Councils and ratepayers picking up the costs. We should learn as a society from the leaky building fiasco, and remember that the free market has served residents badly in an unregulated building market. New Zealanders don’t deserve to live in ticky tacky little boxes, no matter how desperate they are for a home of their own’.