I tēnei ata your host is none other than Guy Montgomery (of Task Master NZ season 2 / Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee / hearty laughs about town acclaim)! He guides us through from 7-10am, with a healthy dose of fashion, zines, books, and renting rights sprinkled in between. Also, don't miss Guy's next adventure, watching the Wizard of Oz for the first time, at the Capitol Cinema (You'd Love It - stand up inc.)! Whakarongo mai!
Back in the saddle for the first time in a while. Frothing over the upcoming Jenny Don't & The Spurs show at the Piha RSA and playing all sorts of tunes, new, old, familiar and strange.
Some brand new tunes (Amigo the Devil) and some real oldies (Bob & Jimi). An exciting Wednesday cover of Drive By Truckers, more from Colby T Helms and a few strangers wander on into town as well as plenty of our familiar friends and aquaintances who are hanging out in the saloon. And that gorgeous Mel Parsons song that's doing the rounds all over playlist as well.
Just under a week ago, the government announced an action plan to combat homelessness in Aotearoa. The plan - to pledged three hundred million dollars to provide an additional one thousand transitional housing units.
In the accompanying press release, it was explained that the Government was already carrying out “a public housing plan on a scale that has not been seen in New Zealand for 40 years”.
However, the announcement did not come without its criticisms & one of the issues that people found disappointing was no further funding for state housing, making this claim not credible.
So I got in touch with Michael Sharp, a barrister based in Mount Maunganui & member of the State Housing Action Network, a network of organisations interested in state housing provisions around Aotearoa.
They believe the action plan fails to provide for increases in the state housing stock, which are essential for addressing the homelessness crisis. We start by addressing the recent announcement…
Aotearoa has a housing crisis. However, Auckland alone has 40,000 unoccupied houses.
Dr Anthony Hoete, a professor of architecture at the University of Auckand and director at QuakeCoRE, New Zealand Centre for Earthquake Resilience talked about issues with housing availability, how Māori housing needs can be rethought, and how different materials might solve construction issues.
Auckland council has released for consultation their proposal to rezone parts of the central suburbs for medium and high density housing development.
Casper spoke firstly to Auckland councellor Shane Henderson about proposal, what it will mean for Auckland’s housing development and how people can contribute to the feedback process.
Then, to bring in some wider perspective, Casper had a chat with Character Coalition chairperson Sally Hughes about a desire to preserve special character areas and how it might be reconciled with a need for more affordable housing.
Finally, to round out the discussion, Casper talked to Bill McKay from the Architecture department of the University of Auckland about the impact that the council’s proposal might have on the city in terms of livability, housing supply and the future of urban development.
A couple of weeks ago National Party Housing Spokesperson Chris Bishop indicated at an Auckland meeting that the party is open to making changes to housing zoning laws.
To get a clearer picture of National’s current stance on what policies are needed to allieviate the housing crisis, with a particular focus on Auckland and the discourse around special character areas and intensification, Casper spoke to National MP Dr. Shane Reti.
Casper first asked what major ongoing issues with the housing market could be alleviated by policy and how high a priority it is right now.
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