Matt Nolan

Green MP wants to limit access to universities

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Sorry, that was just me interpreting a consequence of this article – where a Green MP stated that he wants to outlaw cold damp flats.  As he says:

“We know that there are a lot of cold damp rentals out there and that lots of people have to live in them because they don’t have the money to move.”

Exactly, so by reducing the supply of rental properties and driving up their price, this bill will ensure that students who move to the city to get access to university won’t be able to – and so will have their lifetime options cut down.  That is exactly what would have happened to me, if I hadn’t have been able to live in dingy dingy properties.

And of course, this ignores the costs of administering the scheme – are we going to have people constantly patrolling flats for quality now?  Won’t this lead to “black-market” rentals.  If they think there are external benefits to insulation, subsidise the damn thing – don’t run around with poorly thought out policy like this please.

Anyway, I’m off to watch the Phoenix play …

3 replies
  1. StephenR
    StephenR says:

    Sure it’ll drive up the price, but IMHO people will just choose to live further away – watch Johnsonville boom!

  2. scrubone
    scrubone says:

    Certainly at Otago (back when I was there, and nothing’s changed since AFAIK) if you wanted a nice flat, it wasn’t hard to find one – but you might have been further from the parties.

    Flats close to uni are cold and damp because the students (well, they trash them for starters) chose to live in them. If they refused to rent dumps, the landlords would have to fix them. And in many cases, that’s what they did.

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