Which cities out-supplied upzoned Auckland?

If we trust the analysis, then London and Wellington are housing supply leaders

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Look at the below scatterplot from Auckland Council’s Chief Economist Unit.

It shows on the horizontal axis the per cent change in usually resident population in New Zealand regions between 2018 and 2023. The vertical axis shows the per cent change in the stock of dwellings over the same period. Each data point is a region.

If a region sits on the 1:1 diagonal line, this means the stock of homes in that region grew at the same rate as the stock of people over those five years.

Below that line, the stock of homes grew slower than the stock of people. Above the line, the stock of homes grew faster than the stock of people.

All except three regions (not marked, but they are Gisborne, Taranaki, and the Bay of Plenty) saw the stock of homes grow faster than the stock of people.

Some housing researchers considered this a solid analysis of the superior outcomes in Auckland due to upzoning in 2016 (e.g. here and here). Auckland is marked near the 2:1 diagonal line, which means the stock of homes grew more than twice as fast as the stock of people over that five-year period (to be exact, it grew 2.2x faster, with 5.4% growth in population and 11.9% growth in housing stock). In this chart, a move in the anti-clockwise direction indicates more dwellings were added per person added.

Auckland’s position seems like clear evidence of the success of the 2016 upzoning.

Here’s a map from that same report. It shows the number of dwellings added per 100 new people over the same period for Territorial Authority areas (TAs; most regions shown above comprise several TAs). As the authors note:

Among the authorities identified as ‘Tier 1’ urban areas in the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, Auckland and Lower Hutt had the highest ratios. Both have benefited from increased flexibility through changes to their land use policies, as shown in recent research [emphasis added].

Together, these statistics are seen as proof that Auckland’s zoning has been a success in achieving housing ‘abundance’—that “the more flexible land use permitted under the Auckland Unitary Plan has led to more new homes”.

Places like Wellington City, where the NIMBYs have a stranglehold on zoning, could never achieve this.

Auckland seems like a world leader in the rate of new housing supply compared to places like London, England, which are heavily constrained by planning and could never achieve these outcomes.

The idea that London builds a lot is just wrong—it permits few units, even fewer than other English regions (and England doesn't build much relative to other nations). The city added 30k new build completions last year—for context, NZ (which has 2/3 the population) permitted 46k

The evidence is in. Hoorah for upzoning—the fast track to housing abundance.

Back to reality

In the real world, the place with the most new dwellings per new person in New Zealand from 2018 to 2023 was the NIMBY heartland of Wellington City.

There were 4,000 extra homes built in Wellington City between censuses. But the usual resident population fell by 48 people over that period.

The scatterplot below replicates the Auckland Council analysis of census data for Tier 1 Territorial Authority areas (major urban areas subject to national planning directions).

Directly contradicting the explicit claim that “Auckland and Lower Hutt had the highest ratios”, Wellington City is the clear winner in delivering homes faster than population growth, as it had negative 48 extra people and nearly 4,000 extra homes.¹ You can see that in the chart below.