BEVS

I was hopeful for a good reset and rethink during the height of the pandemic . Diversify interests rather than many eggs in one or two baskets. Get a bit real on just how the 21st century for this small country and landscape will work overall . Not just for humanity but also for the so-called much treasured landscape, wildlife , ecology.

Now the country must face the increasing weather events and how to manage this . Places that were settlements beside rivers in the past are now not such great places to live. Same for hillsides and foreshores.

Several decades of inadequate investment into infrastructure or even thinking about the welfare of the entire population of this country now shows . The roading and any transport is 3rd rate imvho and always has been. Houses are put up anywhere regardless. Quality native landscapes are eroded for $$ and so to then is the wildlife. Tourism is so much beyond saturation it is a nightmare & dreadful. Farming & forestry is not in tune with the land itself and causing harm.

Forget the governments we've had. Forget them. They've all, every one of them, pushed the land to this place we now find ourselves at. Maybe that was in the push to be something on a world stage which I am not sure that NZ belongs. Not really. Mind you the people of this place are also responsible for where NZ now sits. I have always seen little personal responsibility on the whole from much of the population and a whole lot of blame and barracking.

Small country. Small population. Certain special assets. Could have been a wealthy, choosy, country if anyone was up for putting in some work and hard yards but the population ,as a whole, chose otherwise. She'll be right.

Justcol

I'm off to ponder this one. I'll get back to you 😉

jarv5116

You know what a kiwi will say!
If you ain’t happy F off home Pommy.

BEVS

Actually, most all of my post encompasses a whole lot of subject matter that all manner of New Zealanders are saying at the moment. It is that others, born and bred here, are saying such things for themselves is what gave rise to my post. There is a whole lot of concern & more out there & rightly so.

The question posed is what direction(s) to take.

Justcol

You'd never guess, but some say, at times, I can be a tadge opinionated. But despite that, I have never been told that from anyone in NZ

Still pondering the original post 🤔

BEVS

I am also.

LittleGreyCat

From my very biased outside view I think that a touch of reality is creeping in at last.

Environment:

NZ has been touted as a super green country full of environmental beauty.
However there seems to be a lot of use of poisons for such an environmentally friendly place.
The countryside it littered with warnings about poison and traps.
Gardening seems to be at least partly spraying all the edges of lawns and borders with weedkiller.

Noting also that Kiwis have grumbled for years about all the mess and rubbish that tourists leave.
Strangely, during lockdown there was still the same rubbish being dumped.
Phantom tourists, or was it the locals all along?

Housing:

This trip has been a bit of an eye opener as we were really looking for the first time about the practicalities of buying a house.

Cross Lease - we had no idea. Having to agree with all your neighbours if you want to change anything on your property is not attractive.
Building Standards - they were relaxed around 1990s to 2000s so there is an age of house you have to be very wary about.
Rendering - cheaper than cladding when building. We couldn't believe the prices quoted for re-cladding a rendered building. We think that the cost includes stripping off the render than replacing much/most of the underlying timber because of rot before re-cladding. Often as expensive as a complete rebuild, if not more.
Leaky buildings - see Building Standards. Cold, damp, poorly ventilated, unheated poorly insulated. This may encompass much of the housing stock in the lower price ranges.
Lack of insulation and double glazing - why? Proud of suffering through the coldest part of winter and hottest part of summer? In the UK the houses used to lack this but they have mainly been upgraded now. Central heating replacing coal open fires. Loft insulation. Draught proofing. Doesn't seem that hard to do.

The number of houses with a nnA or nnB as the street number. The number of drives with multiple post boxes. subdivision has gone mad. See also cross lease. Friends have bought a brand new house which is lovely but you could poke a stick over each boundary fence and hit the next door house. What happened to the Kiwi dream of a bungalow on a full section?

The recent catastrophic weather in and around Auckland has illustrated that consents have been given for building in completely inappropriate places.
Buyback of houses consented in wrong place
OK planning has been given in the UK to develop flood plains (we know to avoid these houses) but we now know that just because a house has consent in NZ doesn't mean that it is in a good or safe place.
Things must be pretty bad if owners are demanding their properties are bought back to avoid financial ruin.
It seems as though they can repair/rebuild in the same place but if you've already been flooded out twice or more you can expect a repeat.
I would be especially worried if I owned the lowest subdivision on a sloping site.

TL;DR - much of the housing stock is rubbish quality. Nearly all the housing stock is vastly over priced.

And another thing:

Shortages of medical staff - this is a world wide problem but our local GP has been good so far. Yet another thing to consider when scouting locations. Closeness to a decent hospital is also a key issue.

No doubt I will have more to say, but it isn't looking good at the moment.

Moses2013

I know I'm not in NZ now, but everything that has been said in relation to environment could be replaced with Ireland. That's the thing with countries that are considered green and you see the destruction before your eyes. Growth that has been happening elsewhere over a century happens in these countries over a shorter period and people don't appreciate what they have. In England everything has already been destroyed and replaced with concrete, so the little that's left is now carefully maintained. In the UK there are so many roads already that the idea now is to create a small greenspace while in NZ or here it's more about how can we destroy that space and build more roads and houses quickly (no real planning). More people just means more destruction and I don't see any solution, unfortunately that doesn't help but you are not alone with these problems. Climate challenges will be an issue for all of us, be it NZ, Europe etc.