Councils could take over long-vacant shopfronts and auction off the leases to small businesses and creatives under a Green Party proposal to tackle the empty retail locations blighting city centres and main streets.
Under the proposal, councils could issue a notice to owners of commercial spaces left empty in CBDs for more than a year, giving them eight weeks to find a tenant.
If none appeared, the council could then step in to fill the space. Landlords could appeal where they intended to redevelop or move in themselves, and the party said the approach was modelled on a scheme that had operated in England since 2024.
Green Party co-leader and Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick said the goal was to fill empty spaces and bring life back to main streets.
"There is no shortage of people with amazing small business ideas, creatives who want space to allow their ideas the opportunity to flourish, to bring in audiences and customers, and to bring life and vibrancy to our city centres. But there also happens to be a lot of vacant commercial spaces. Something is not quite adding up here," she said.
She said the problem was rooted in incentives that made it more profitable for some landlords to leave spaces empty than to accept a lower rent.
The Greens' policy also took aim at commercial rent reviews, with Swarbrick proposing that market rent reviews should be able to lower rents as well as raise them.
"On most main streets in New Zealand you can find empty shops next door to small businesses paying high rents that were set when the market was stronger," she said.
Hamish Fitchett from Colliers speaks to BNZ Business Breakfast’s Mei Heron about new figures. (Source: Breakfast)
"Current commercial leasing rules let rents rise when the market goes up and hold them up when it goes down. Small businesses end up paying more than the market rate when consumer spending slows down.
"Many commercial leases contain a ratchet clause, which means a market rent review can never set the rent below what the tenant already pays. Property Council NZ's own standard lease, released in 2025, keeps a hard ratchet for every rent review.
"We will change the law so a market rent review can lower the rent as well as raise it.
"This will apply to new and existing leases for businesses with turnover under $30 million."
Any limit on how far rents can fall after a review must be matched to the limit on how far it can rise, the Greens said.
The party also wanted a ban on rent-review triggers that only a landlord can use.
A third strand of the Greens' proposal would be to create a low-cost tribunal for "qualifying commercial lease disputes", which the party said small businesses couldn't currently take to the Tenancy Tribunal or the Disputes Tribunal.
"For rent-review disputes, the tribunal will be able to use final-offer arbitration. Each side submits a figure and the adjudicator chooses one of them."
Swarbrick linked the policy to her electorate's recovery after years of upheaval.
"After years of construction and disruption in Auckland city centre, we can and must make the most of our awesome new City Rail Link by actively supporting vibrancy, which in turn makes our city safer," she said.
TVNZ has extensive coverage of the election campaign. (Source: TVNZ)
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