HOUSE-BUILDING ISN’T NEW, YET SOMEHOW there still seems a whole lot to trailblaze. Before you even queue for a builder, or eye up an estimate, there’s the start-up cost of land. For, while sites have been suburbanising into parcels, land values have somehow gone the other way and followed the steep cost inclines of building. It’s all gone exponential. Folk tempted to steer down the freedom trail to bespoke home-building might well turn off to tackle apartment appointments rather than navigate those windier questions of form or siting. It’s hardly the pioneering spirit but counting up those land costs can very quickly descend Home on the Range dreams to Home out of Range.
So why does building invariably start with purchasing dirt? Land ownership is a construct. It’s a line where not The tuning hasn’t yet simplified to “let us build on the land without owning it, please”. But why not? The idea of leasing rather than owning land might well have led to housing models with far less corralling. Those looking for somewhere to build today battle land entitlements of a far less vital kind when compared to those still playing out in our Treaty Partner discussions. Yet, with bank mortgagers continuing to gather surety in the ground under our feet, the axles to home-building don’t roll easily. So, as we all work to rein in histories out there on the range and, ironically, face ongoing struggles in finding places for us all to live, building without land ownership might just re-open a housing frontier: Home on the Lease.
