Counterfutures Journal Issue 9.

Issue nine of Counterfutures is a special issue on the question of housing in Aotearoa New Zealand. They draw a range of views on the housing crisis, including decolonising and community egagement perspectives a call for universal state housing, and investigations of the cooperative housing movement.

Our committee member Mark Southcombe pens a journal article titled:

Re-socialising Aotearoa New Zealand Housing.
A vision for a 21st-century cooperative-housing model for Aotearoa New Zealand. Cooperative housing as a third way between ownership and renting.

Urban housing in Aotearoa New Zealand is predominantly unit-titled, individualised dwellings whether the housing is an owner-occupied or rental investment. As housing increases in density, the provision and management of common space become necessary. In Aotearoa New Zealand, when this occurs, the extent of privately owned housing space is typically privileged and shared common space minimised. In contrast, cooperative housing integrates housing, economic factors, and social contexts to create long-term socially and economically sustainable housing. Since the 19th century, cooperative housing has provided evidence of internationally awarded and recognised, self-help, community-generated housing that includes shared components. Cooperative housing offers a third way of achieving affordable housing security, one that lies between homeownership and renting. Legislatively mandated and protected cooperative housing is needed in Aotearoa New Zealand to augment our existing housing production systems and types, and to help address the need for enduring, affordable, and socially sustainable housing.

View the full article below.