The Community Driven Housing Action Plan is Council’s initiative to shine a light on the increasing unaffordability of housing for Horowhenua residents. It also identifies the undersupply of a diversity of housing stock, so proactive initiatives can be considered now to achieve the community’s vision of “Homes for All”.
Measures of housing affordability and definitions of affordable housing must take account of local context. One measure used by Demographia to assess housing affordability is the median multiple. The median multiple indicates housing affordability in any given community. The median multiple is the ratio of the median house price by the median gross annual household income. Historically, this measure was around 3 to indicate what was affordable housing (i.e. a household doesn’t spend more than 30% of its household income on housing costs). Where the cost is above this indicates the degree of affordability of housing.
It is proposed that Horowhenua adopts the following generally accepted international housing affordability measure to inform its target for housing affordability in the district. Horowhenua housing affordability target “Housing in Horowhenua has a median multiple measure. It is noted that for those on low incomes, who may need public housing, that household spending should be no more that 25% of household income.