An Auckland mayoral candidate wants to base the city's rating system on the value of land, to discourage landbanking and boost home building.

Photo: 123RF

Legislation required the amalgamated Auckland Council to introduce ratings based on the capital value of a property, including land and buildings.

But mayoral candidate and social media consultant Chloe Swarbrick says a land value system would boost the cost of sitting on land that could be developed for housing.

Using land solely as an investment would become more nonsensical, she said.

"Look at those multi-million dollar properties in the CBD - there's carparks sitting next to skyrise apartment blocks.

"If those carparks and the apartment blocks were to, on balance, be paying the same amount of rates, we're going to see apartment blocks be going up on those carparks."