Simplocation
THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET THAT WILL SOLVE THE HOUSING CRISIS.
Housing supply needs to increase so that more people can own a home for the first time.
Simplocation is useful for:
Existing homeowners - people with mortgages;
Property buyers and developers; and
Professionals
For Home owners
Simplocation provides a handup to homeowners to get mortgage free faster and allows
potential buyers to access desirable land and own their own home without having to live in a
shoebox apartment.
Simplocation allows homeowner to learn about the development potential of their property at
a quick glance. With simplocation, no one needs to trawl through pages of the district plan
anymore.
With Simplocation, a homeowner simply types in their address and clicks search, and is shown
a dashboard of information unique to their land zone.
For Buyers
If you are a buyer, you’re currently restricted to existing homes or subdivisions. Simplocation
is a new property market for underutilised land.
With Simplocation, the buyer can search all properties in a specific area to identify which ones
can be subdivided; then approach the owner of the property to begin a process that will leave
both parties better off.
Background statistics:
Wellington region projection (Stats NZ datasets) for 2017-2038 proves surplus of the new
premises needs and market capacity:
Population growth
49.6 K.
around 0.5% yearly growth
Households growth
16.5 K.
based on sub-national household
projections by regions (median)
In average that means that 3 people in average per household
Number of new dwellings consented
36 K.
based on 1.8 K. per year - regional new
dwellings data
The only limitation if the physical land utilisation and sub-divisible areas.
Benefits
With Simplocation, potential buyers and owners with surplus land are able to connect.
Buyers get a home of their own in a good location and owners gets to retire mortgage free.
Additionally, Simplocation is a great platform for professionals such as planners, builders and
bankers to market their services to potential clients.
New banking and legal products will help realise the full potential of Simplocation. We are
looking for investors to make Simplocation come to life.
Simplocation - more New Zealanders living in their own home.
Team Members
Andrew Sknar, Zac Clark, Reece Bassett, Daniel Cairns, Gabriel Brougham, Waruna Padmasiri,
Rayan Amarasekara, Weihong Jiang.
Data used
Source
Factors
Number series
scope
Fields
LINZ
geospatial
data
www.linz.govt.nz
Location by section
Restrictions (Statutory
Actions)
Static as at 22
July 2017 (5
days time lag)
Area (polygon
– geospatial);
District Plan
www.wellington.go
vt.nz
2 layers of geospatial
data + district planner
rules:
Zoning by suburb
(actual zones – spatial
area);
Relevant provisions of
district plan.
Static/Actual
Site coverage;
Inner
residential
area,
outer
residential
area %;
Quick stats
www.stats.govt.nz
Tenure of household
Yearly,
Quarterly
adjusted data;
Mortgage payments
made;
Mortgage payments
not made;
Total households in
dwellings owned or
partly owned.
Base map
http://js.api.here.c
om/v3/3.0/mapsjs-
core.js
Original View -
Wellington
Static
Geospatial - Location
Household
and
dwelling
projections
www.stats.govt.nz
Regional split: sub-
national household
projections by regions;
regional new dwellings
data;
Yearly adjusted
data.
Calculated
projections;
Figure 1: Solution Architecture Diagram
The solution consists of 5 main elements:
1. Row data feed from the open data sources: LINZ, Wellington City Council, Stats NZ;
2. Conversion and transformation of data for the Load;
3. SQL storage of the multiple factors data;
4. Laravel (php. Framework) is used to both: creation of the SQL platform and
visualisation linked to Maps; Java scripts developed to support data processing;
5. Web-Application representing the overlaid data on the Maps.
For the Proof of Concept the data used was restricted to a specific region.
Award Categories
Simplocation is entered in the following categories:
Open Government: Simplocation uses data to help people to learn about the
development potential of their own property and the District Plan.
Citizen Engagement: Simplocation allows citizens to engage with the District Plan in a
meaningful way.
Data Journalism: Simplocation uses data visualisation tools in an interactive way to
make complex District Plan information accessible and understandable.
Geospatial location: Simplocation uses HERE location capacilities for scalability, use
and API functionality.
Re: invention: Simplication transforms delivers a more effective and engaging way of
interact the District Plan data.
Sustainable New Zealand: Simplocation contributes to Goal 10: Reducing inequality
within and amongst countries and Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities by
increasing housing supply and making housing more accessible.
Challenges Experienced
#
Challenge
Mitigation
1
Initial idea was to build a multi-factor definition (based on
a user Profile) of multiple layers of the location priorities.
Priorities can include: economic, social and infrastructural
factors. The representation of the heat-map would be
projected based on district data and combined in one
single map. The idea was challenged as too broad and
narrowing-down split the team.
Still using map as the
basis for visualisation;
Re-prioritisation of the
scope; narrowing the
analysis to the
subdivision of land in
Wellington region;
2
Framework based on here-maps was proven complex and
required adjustments; using the LINZ data to render the
section Polygons onto the Here-map.
Solved by not using API,
but using local storage of
data;
3
Statistical data on the sub-divisible parcels is insufficient
and would require geological (by elevations)/
infrastructural / construction assessment in each particular
case.
Percentage of the Site
coverage is used as first
approximation to
defining if the Parcel /
Block of land is
potentially sub-divisible.
4
There is no spatial split for open data related to the house
construction costs.
To limit the analysis by
the maps data (polygon
analysis).
