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@Snowy said in NZ Politics:
If they want to improve the housing supply they can start there, and I will do a few eco houses (at the right price) within commuting distance of Auckland that don't need infrastructure other than roads and power (ideally). Wastewater is easy and so is tank water.
Power should be able to go off-grid with some smart design and nothing too special. Could well be cheaper than paying development contributions to Vector!
Solar + Powerwall + smart appliances + wood/gas heating + solar hot water = off grid
Edit: our resident @nta should know the answer
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@nzzp In a perfect world yes. Not quite as simple as that though. The modern batteries are usually still grid connected as sections, houses and roof spaces aren't big enough to generate full household demand on power from current PV tech.
We will get there but we aren't there yet. The only fully off grid houses around here are still using lead acid. Which can be done O.K but not ideal.
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@Snowy yeah the resource consent thing on colours in particular can be a minefield. Worse if you get some goody developer who puts thier own covenants in as well.
So there was a condition about re-painting it too?
Alot of those rules are Central Govt, but the local council is the messenger you have to shoot...
@nzzp Dev Contributions are more about the extra vehicle/s on a road, extra people using council facilities etc rather than the power asepct.
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@Snowy said in NZ Politics:
@nzzp In a perfect world yes. Not quite as simple as that though. The modern batteries are usually still grid connected as sections, houses and roof spaces aren't big enough to generate full household demand on power from current PV tech.
We will get there but we aren't there yet. The only fully off grid houses around here are still using lead acid. Which can be done O.K but not ideal.
even on larger sections though? Which have to have space for the dispersal field?
Cheers though, seems like we shoudl be close. LED lighting must go a long way towards that, as long as you don't us a microwave much
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@taniwharugby cheers fella
this from 2005:
If the new subdivision is at the end of an isolated road with few other houses the dollars soon mount up: $25,000 per km for new power lines plus high voltage extension and transformers at $4000 to $5000.I thought you had to pay a contribution to assets when you connected - over and above your usual power bill? Certainly the case if you put in new infrastructure as referred to above; they hit you multiple times - force you to pay for the build, the maintenance, and still have to fork out the power prices!
Off grid sounds better every day, particularly if you are away from existing power lines
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@nzzp when we built, we had to pay NorthPower for a new connection (digging trench, meter, connecting to lines at drive)
But if you had a few acres and decided to sub-divide, depending on how many extra road movements, utility users etc you are adding, determines the development contributions you are paying to add more users to the services the council provides...after these sell, the people that bought the land would pay for the connection to thier house, even after you may have had to pay for the supplier to put a line to the property boundaries.
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@taniwharugby said in NZ Politics:
So there was a condition about re-painting it too?
It was supposed to be "maintained" I think the wording was. Given that they wanted flax and things planted directly in front of it would have been rather dificult and impractical. Yes some of it is central government, but not the case by case stuff like mine, which is done by an individual at council.
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@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
Which have to have space for the dispersal field?
Wastewater? You actually don't need that much space depending on the system. I just sold a 5 bed 5 bath place that had about 80 - 100 sq dispersal at a guess. That isn't huge for a big house but it was an electric multi tank system. I put venturi pumps and things in to reduce electricity use, but not as good as the gravity fed "wormerator" I have at the new place, and yes, bigger dispersal field.
Which gets back to the point about council / government and approvals. I need to get the whole thing designed and signed off by council. The consent system is too complex. It is an eco system, the waste water is clean and goes into the soil, we shouldn't have to submit plans for that. It should just be, what is it, where is it and you need "x" meters of dispersal. I have to pay people to submit every single bit of a development.
No wonder we are short of houses.
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@Snowy haha maintaining it, while behind flaxes...something they would never come and check on either!
Our effluent field was 300SQM of plantings, clean stream drip field I think?
Last year I pulled up all the hoses, cleared all the /trees*shrubs/fancy flaxes we spent an awful lot of money on, and I re-routed the hoses around the fenceline creating about 150SQM more lawn space for us, which sounds like more work, but is less as clearing the weeds that grew there before was much worse.
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@reprobate It's not as straightforward as you say
Yes NZ has plenty of land but the majority want to live in Auckland (not Taumaranui).
The majority want a fucking enormous (by world standards or when compared to what those nasty evil boomers started out in) stand-alone house.
So apart from a few brownfield developments that means building on the city fringes - cue massive infrastructure costs transport, schools, utilities. Longer and longer commutes. Congestion etc
the Unitary Plan tried to encourage density particularly along main arterials but the combination of RMA and nimbyism means these struggle to get off the ground.
One of the main issues is our cities are modelled on LA when we would be better off with Copenhagen.
Personally I would rather Auckland not swallow up all the arable land round Pukekohe etc - we can easily accomodate another 200K within the existing city limits and ultimately would be better off doing so, but it'll never happen when the minimum expectation is 4 bdrm 3 bathroom 2 .5 living areas and garaging for 3 SUV's....
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@dogmeat said in NZ Politics:
Personally I would rather Auckland not swallow up all the arable land round Pukekohe etc - we can easily accomodate another 200K within the existing city limits and ultimately would be better off doing so, but it'll never happen when the minimum expectation is 4 bdrm 3 bathroom 2 .5 living areas and garaging for 3 SUV's....
Not only that, but people are just starting to find out the true costs of brown field densification. Infrastructure upgrades are eye wateringly expensive. They get even worse in places like Onehunga, where you have to dig out basalt (sorry, break out basalt) to lay new pipes.
What annoyed me the most when we were looking to buy was the drive to a boring large single dwelling on a tiny site because that's what the plans drove. If you had offered us a 3 bed 130m2 walk up apartment in a 3-4 storey block, we'd have taken your arm off. They just don't exist, mainly because the planning rules are so tough.
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@taniwharugby said in NZ Politics:
haha maintaining it, while behind flaxes...something they would never come and check on either!
I didn't say that I was going to do it! I just didn't want to in the first place.
Dispersal fields can be pretty good to water orchards and things if you have gravity on your side (which I don't think you have). All of the waste water in our place just put moisture in the soil to water the trees. Never lost one in a drought and didn't water them.
We actually should have subsidies to get some of these things happening. Water is a problem in Auckland and yet are we collecting water in tanks? Electricty is an economic one for some households I would think, but we aren't helping with solar? Infrastructure for waste water also a problem and some of it can be fixed on a micro scale, particularly in more rural areas or larger urban sections.
We have some of the answers already, but politics, restrictions and a lack of innovative thinking gets in the way.
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@Snowy yeah our section slopes back to front and left to right (just a gentle 5-10 deg slope) but the effluent field at the highest point of the section (which is right at the back of our section)
Obviously the nutrient rich water not only makes all the stuff you plant there grow fast, so do the weeds...
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@taniwharugby said in NZ Politics:
so do the weeds...
Well there's a new business for you (maybe) in couple of weeks.
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@nzzp said in NZ Politics:
@Snowy said in NZ Politics:
If they want to improve the housing supply they can start there, and I will do a few eco houses (at the right price) within commuting distance of Auckland that don't need infrastructure other than roads and power (ideally). Wastewater is easy and so is tank water.
Power should be able to go off-grid with some smart design and nothing too special. Could well be cheaper than paying development contributions to Vector!
Solar + Powerwall + smart appliances + wood/gas heating + solar hot water = off grid
Edit: our resident @nta should know the answer
To go off-grid in suburbia is costly but also kind of pointless. You need about 4 days' energy at a minimum (look at your bill, divide kWh / days and figure it out) then you need contingency in the form of a generator anyways.
Most of the Lithium solutions aren't designed to be off-grid, so you're looking at lead acid (AGM) or flow battery (Vanadium or Zinc-Bromide) to suit the need, and the round-trip losses are a bit shit if you don't have much roof space to generate.
HOWEVER, if you're building a lifestyle block and you're looking at upwards of $100K for the network (Vector or whomever) to run power infrastructure to your place, it is a fairly easy decision to go spend $60K getting self-sufficient.
I think the money is better invested in more efficient design TBH. Most households are pissing away 20-25kWh/day on average across a year, and if you had double glazing for cold, awnings for heat, and insulation for both - in a good passive design - you could get away with a lot less in battery costs.
Problem with most new build houses is they're glorified single-brick tents with windows from the 1970s.
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@dogmeat I agree with most of that, but unfortunately the problem is no longer limited to Auckland. Basically everywhere is poked - Christchurch is slightly better - as far as the cities go. But again, RMA and the nimbys can be overcome via regulation / incentivisation if the governments have the will.
And as far as demand goes, if the option is a super expensive house and an hour long commute from somewhere you don't really want to live, then maybe the high density stuff starts to look a bit more attractive - I think it very much would from a rental perspective at least. -
@canefan said in NZ Politics:
@reprobate said in NZ Politics:
@chimoaus said in NZ Politics:
Whilst NZ housing affordability is very poor many other countries including Australia are in a very similar boat. One saving grace in Australia is that you can move to a regional hot as fuck town and pick up a bargain.
We are the worst. Sure Aussie is bad too, but not as bad and their house prices are dropping right now, while ours are continuing to go up and at an increasing rate.
That's bad. I don't know how they fix that, capital gains tax in Oz didn't have the desired effect of softening house prices did it?
In 1985? The problem in Australia is removing indexation from CGT which created an effective 50% discount. Add to that massive migration, the ability for non-residents to purchase property (and my lawyer has suggested I say that in no way implies it permitted people from certain "communist" countries to move ill-gotten gains into assets in a non-extradition country) and it's small wonder people want to become property barons.
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@antipodean said in NZ Politics:
@canefan said in NZ Politics:
@reprobate said in NZ Politics:
@chimoaus said in NZ Politics:
Whilst NZ housing affordability is very poor many other countries including Australia are in a very similar boat. One saving grace in Australia is that you can move to a regional hot as fuck town and pick up a bargain.
We are the worst. Sure Aussie is bad too, but not as bad and their house prices are dropping right now, while ours are continuing to go up and at an increasing rate.
That's bad. I don't know how they fix that, capital gains tax in Oz didn't have the desired effect of softening house prices did it?
In 1985? The problem in Australia is removing indexation from CGT which created an effective 50% discount. Add to that massive migration, the ability for non-residents to purchase property (and my lawyer has suggested I say that in no way implies it permitted people from certain "communist" countries to move ill-gotten gains into assets in a non-extradition country) and it's small wonder people want to become property barons.
The problem here in Oz, is also that the entire country is neck deep in property. Between our home loans, our investment properties, our SMSF's, and our super being tied up in those bank stocks, there is simply no way that a large, sector-wide destruction in value will be allowed. Certain pockets sure will ebb and flow, some more than others as you move further away from traditionally desirable areas. But if you're waiting for a 30% collapse to get in, then you're just going to miss the next upswing
One of the big factors across all societies I think is the double income effect. People just have more cash to throw at property now, and the extra psychological security blanket of a 2nd income adds to it. Treating property like an investment asset and allowing the CGT discount is also a mess, as said above.
I don't really see a solution other than adding extra stock in a controlled way that sees prices stagnate rather than decline.
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@voodoo said in NZ Politics:
@antipodean said in NZ Politics:
@canefan said in NZ Politics:
@reprobate said in NZ Politics:
@chimoaus said in NZ Politics:
Whilst NZ housing affordability is very poor many other countries including Australia are in a very similar boat. One saving grace in Australia is that you can move to a regional hot as fuck town and pick up a bargain.
We are the worst. Sure Aussie is bad too, but not as bad and their house prices are dropping right now, while ours are continuing to go up and at an increasing rate.
That's bad. I don't know how they fix that, capital gains tax in Oz didn't have the desired effect of softening house prices did it?
In 1985? The problem in Australia is removing indexation from CGT which created an effective 50% discount. Add to that massive migration, the ability for non-residents to purchase property (and my lawyer has suggested I say that in no way implies it permitted people from certain "communist" countries to move ill-gotten gains into assets in a non-extradition country) and it's small wonder people want to become property barons.
The problem here in Oz, is also that the entire country is neck deep in property. Between our home loans, our investment properties, our SMSF's, and our super being tied up in those bank stocks, there is simply no way that a large, sector-wide destruction in value will be allowed. Certain pockets sure will ebb and flow, some more than others as you move further away from traditionally desirable areas. But if you're waiting for a 30% collapse to get in, then you're just going to miss the next upswing
Agreed - no government is going to destroy the retirement assets people believe they've built up. It would be electoral suicide until the majority of them are renting because they can't buy.
One of the big factors across all societies I think is the double income effect. People just have more cash to throw at property now, and the extra psychological security blanket of a 2nd income adds to it. Treating property like an investment asset and allowing the CGT discount is also a mess, as said above.
I don't really see a solution other than adding extra stock in a controlled way that sees prices stagnate rather than decline.
Stopping this unfettered immigration would be a great start. Then we could focus on fixing the underlying productivity issues in our economy rather than counting on plane loads of people to add demand.
NZ Politics