29521 (2025). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Housing

29521 (2025). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Housing: Does he think the use of Development Contributions has contributed to a transfer of wealth from younger generations to older homeowners by inflating house prices?

Hon Chris Bishop: Increasing house prices are caused by a number of factors. Work by the Housing Technical Working Group in 2022 (https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2022-08/htwg-assessment-housing-system-hamilton-waikato-aug22.pdf) identified restrictions on land supply as being one of the drivers of high house prices. Restrictions on the supply of land can be of many types: regulatory, geographical, lack of infrastructure, etc. Development Contributions are one of the mechanisms to fund the infrastructure required to build housing. They are not a perfect system and are being replaced by Development Levies. The Government’s Going for Housing Growth work program will address the restrictions to the supply of land by freeing up land for development and removing unnecessary planning barriers.