Urban Land Dashboard

The urban land dashboard has been developed as part of the Going for Housing Growth (GFHG) work programme. Its purpose is to provide a clear, data-driven view of whether urban land markets are becoming more efficient to support housing growth across New Zealand.

The dashboard brings together a set of indicators that provide a high-level picture of land and housing market conditions in the broader urban system context. These indicators help show how responsive residential development is to changing levels of demand in tier 1 and tier 2 councils.

By monitoring these indicators over time, users will be able to better understand:

• whether urban land markets are functioning well
• if there are any emerging constraints
• how development activity is keeping up with population or economic growth.

The dashboard brings together both urban land efficiency indicators and a set of contextual indicators that help explain the dynamics in land and housing markets.

About the indicators

Urban land efficiency indicators

• Price cost ratios (PCRs) for the housing market.
• Rural urban land price differentials (RUDs).

Context indicators

• Mortgage interest rates
• Population growth
• Building consents per 1000 people
• Rental Price index
• Rental affordability index

Additional indicators in the data download

• PCRs by typology
• PCRs for all territorial authorities

Use case

Under the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 (NPS-UD) tier 1 and 2 councils are required to prepare housing and business development capacity assessments (HBAs). HBAs must include analysis of how the relevant local authority’s planning decisions and provision of infrastructure affects the affordability and competitiveness of the local housing market. This analysis must be informed by price efficiency indicators. The Urban land dashboard can assist councils to meet this requirement in preparing their HBAs.

Also, the Government’s Going for Housing Growth work programme and the new planning system will place a strong emphasis on enabling competitive urban land markets. In practice, this means making a wide range of development opportunities available so supply can respond to current and expected demand. This dashboard will assist councils to assess whether their urban land market is competitive.

Tier 1 and 2 councils

Tier 1 Councils

  Tier 2 Councils