The investor problem

Investment builds cities. The question is what gets built, how fast, and by whom.

We are not against investors. We are against rushing.

Investors build the homes, offices and shops New Zealand needs, and they take real risks to do it. New development brings jobs, people and opportunity into a city. We want more of it, not less.

The problem is how it gets built. Projects are pushed through as fast and as cheaply as possible, and too often the architects working on them are not given, or do not take, the time to do the job well. Facades get flatter, ground floors go blank and the cheapest cladding wins. The blame is shared: developers chasing speed, designers who accept it, and rules that ask for nothing better.

It also matters who designs what. Designing a suburban house and designing a library, a station or a public square are different jobs that need different skills. Our biggest public buildings deserve architects with the training, time and ambition to design something a city will be proud of for a century.

How good intentions end in bad buildings.

Nobody sets out to build something ugly. It happens because every pressure on a project points the same way, toward faster and cheaper, and nothing points back.

1. Speed over everything

Every month a project sits in planning costs money, so the design that gets approved fastest wins, not the one that is best for the street.

2. Design as a cost to cut

Architects are too often hired to get a building consented and built for the least money. Even good ones are rarely given the time or the brief to do more.

3. Rules that ask for nothing

Planning rules control height and site coverage, but say almost nothing about how a building looks or meets the street. Nothing is asked for, so nothing extra is given.

What rushing looks like in one city.

484

new homes built in central Christchurch over the past year.

50

new residents who actually moved in. Most of the rest were held for short-stay income.

A house is not a library.

Most of what gets built in New Zealand is designed by firms that do good, careful work on houses and small developments. That is a real skill.

But a library, a station or a building that fronts a city square is a different job. It shapes a street for a century. It needs architects with the training, the time and the ambition to design something a whole city will be proud of, and clients willing to pay for that.

What a city should ask for in return.

New Zealand needs investment to build the homes and streets it is missing. The question is what we accept in exchange. Other countries attach clear expectations to the right to build. We can too.