Why house building needs to continue even in lockdowns
Armed with nearly 16 months of experience dealing with the Covid pandemic and a series of lockdowns up and down the country, a better outcome was expected of the government.
New Zealand's housing supply problem has already crossed the crisis level.
The government should have been more pragmatic in managing this current lockdown, especially at house building sites.
Government ministers should have weighed the various pros and cons, and a system and process should have been developed by now whereby a house building site should not have been completely shut.
Firstly, all building product manufacturers and their associated supply chain should be declared essential services.
If a plastic box manufacturer in South Auckland was deemed essential, the building products manufacturing industry could be too – for far more justifiable reasons.
Housing is undoubtedly an essential service, especially when the country is reeling under record shortages and homelessness that threatens to become chronic. The public housing waitlist has nearly 23,000 people on it, with an overall shortage of homes estimated at around 40,000.
Extraordinary circumstances need extraordinary responses.
Locking the country down is the easiest option and does not display any innovative or long term creative, solution-oriented thinking.
Secondly, residential house building sites should have been allowed to operate under strict rules and regulations. New Zealanders have proven that, by and large, they are a very compliant society.
A ruling could have developed and fine-tuned, which would limit the number of people, to say two per house site.
Allowing two workers per house building site, with appropriate social distancing norms, could have kept the wheels moving and to some extent, alleviated the issue of shortage.
Such innovative thinking and developing robust processes and procedures should have helped the current and future critical issue of housing supply our country is grappling with.
Allowing two people per site, masked and socially distanced, would have limited any possible spread just as such measures are expected to work in comparable situations.
Building product supply can be contactless, as has already been demonstrated by the big box retailers. If a courier can come and door-deliver clothes purchased online halfway across the world, so can be building materials.
Labour shortages are already knocking on our doors. The immigration minister continually accepts this problem but has done little to alleviate it or improve the archaic and broken immigration system we are suffering.
We all know we have issues to deal with; one is a severe housing shortage, and the other is Covid. We have two options, one dwell on the problems to the extent of wallowing in them, which we think the current government has mastered, and the second option is to find innovative, balanced, workable solutions and create win-wins.
Let's hope the powers that be wake up and find ways not to damage the building and construction sector further and exacerbate the housing crisis – all in the name of the pandemic.
Armed with nearly 16 months of experience dealing with the Covid pandemic and a series of lockdowns up and down the country, a better outcome was expected of the government.
New Zealand's housing supply problem has already crossed the crisis level.
The government should have been more pragmatic in...
Armed with nearly 16 months of experience dealing with the Covid pandemic and a series of lockdowns up and down the country, a better outcome was expected of the government.
New Zealand's housing supply problem has already crossed the crisis level.
The government should have been more pragmatic in managing this current lockdown, especially at house building sites.
Government ministers should have weighed the various pros and cons, and a system and process should have been developed by now whereby a house building site should not have been completely shut.
Firstly, all building product manufacturers and their associated supply chain should be declared essential services.
If a plastic box manufacturer in South Auckland was deemed essential, the building products manufacturing industry could be too – for far more justifiable reasons.
Housing is undoubtedly an essential service, especially when the country is reeling under record shortages and homelessness that threatens to become chronic. The public housing waitlist has nearly 23,000 people on it, with an overall shortage of homes estimated at around 40,000.
Extraordinary circumstances need extraordinary responses.
Locking the country down is the easiest option and does not display any innovative or long term creative, solution-oriented thinking.
Secondly, residential house building sites should have been allowed to operate under strict rules and regulations. New Zealanders have proven that, by and large, they are a very compliant society.
A ruling could have developed and fine-tuned, which would limit the number of people, to say two per house site.
Allowing two workers per house building site, with appropriate social distancing norms, could have kept the wheels moving and to some extent, alleviated the issue of shortage.
Such innovative thinking and developing robust processes and procedures should have helped the current and future critical issue of housing supply our country is grappling with.
Allowing two people per site, masked and socially distanced, would have limited any possible spread just as such measures are expected to work in comparable situations.
Building product supply can be contactless, as has already been demonstrated by the big box retailers. If a courier can come and door-deliver clothes purchased online halfway across the world, so can be building materials.
Labour shortages are already knocking on our doors. The immigration minister continually accepts this problem but has done little to alleviate it or improve the archaic and broken immigration system we are suffering.
We all know we have issues to deal with; one is a severe housing shortage, and the other is Covid. We have two options, one dwell on the problems to the extent of wallowing in them, which we think the current government has mastered, and the second option is to find innovative, balanced, workable solutions and create win-wins.
Let's hope the powers that be wake up and find ways not to damage the building and construction sector further and exacerbate the housing crisis – all in the name of the pandemic.
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