Issue #963

by Paul Taylor, Lakes Weekly Bulletin

Is Robin Hood a hero or a villain? I only ask because while watching the latest Queenstown Lakes District Council meeting, I heard Wānaka councillor Barry Bruce describe the now-failed move to make property developers pay towards affordable housing as “akin to a Robin Hood tax”. I’m pretty sure he was using the phrase to criticise the plan, saying we should not, in fact, rob from the rich to give to the poor. You can read more about the ‘inclusionary zoning policy’ on p4.

Now, I’m not suggesting it’s a good thing to hide in the woods in green tights, jump out and ‘stand and deliver’ passing rich Queenstowners, fun as that might sound. But the whole thing with Robin Hood was that the taxation from King John was so unfair, the system so rigged, and the peasants so worked-to-the-bone and destitute, that a bit of redistribution was, if not legally, then at least morally defensible.

Where are we now? According to Westpac research, released last month, home ownership rates in New Zealand have fallen below 60% and will fall below 50% by 2048 based on current trends. In Queenstown Lakes, the average house price in July according to realestate.nz is $1.6 million, up 7% from last year. With the new debt-to-income ratios coming in, you need a household income of, wait for it, $250,000 to mortgage such a property, after you’ve somehow saved $320k for the deposit. The average household income here is $133,000. You can debate mean v average but we all know, it’s bloody expensive. So, no chance for most, and definitely not the 1300-or-so households on the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust waitlist.

It seems pretty rigged against anyone who hasn’t got rich parents, a very good job, or got on the ladder years ago. But the most annoying thing about the policy being abandoned is that it has been happening anyway on a voluntary basis. The majority of developers have reached agreements with council over the years, and have made a contribution. Hopefully that continues because we have thousands upon thousands of houses downstream.

I don’t believe in inheritance tax or capital gains tax. I think you should largely keep what you earn and be able to pass it down, and that people should be able to see a return on investment and be inspired to work hard. But society shouldn’t be held together by philanthropy, by a rich nobleman flicking you a gold coin as he trots by on his horse. If developers are making a very substantial value uplift from the council rezoning rural land as residential, some of the benefits should be used, as a rule, to create more affordable housing. That way our children might be able to live here too.