Housing and RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has welcomed Auckland Council’s decision to proceed with a new replacement plan for housing intensification.
Yesterday, Auckland Council voted in favour of a housing intensification replacement plan that will see 10-15 storey high-rise zoning around public transport hubs.
The council’s plans to allocate up to two million new homes across the city in the coming decades became clearer on Wednesday afternoon.
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Councillors voted for the plan by 18 to five, and were limited between voting for the original Plan Change 78 (PC78), which focused on three-storey residential buildings across Auckland, and the high-rise alternative called Plan Change 120.
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has directed the council to allocate up to two million homes in the coming decades and downzone parts of the city at risk of natural hazards.
Moments after the decision, he said Auckland had the opportunity to decide how and where the city grows.
“PC78 was too ‘one size fits all’, applying the Medium Density Residential Standards in a blanket way that was rejected by Aucklanders and its council. It also did not allow the city to ‘downzone’ flood-prone areas.
“Parliament has changed the law to let Auckland Council withdraw PC78, provided it is replaced with a new plan that delivers at least the same overall housing capacity and allows for greater density around key stations that benefit from investment in the City Rail Link.
“To improve housing affordability in Auckland we need the city to grow both up and out – and now the council has much more flexibility to decide where and how that growth happens,” he said.
Bishop said the next step was for Auckland Council to seek his direction on timeframes and process for their replacement plan change, which they must do by October 10.
“I have previously indicated that I am considering a submission period of November 3 to December 19, as earlier requested by the council. That gives Aucklanders a clear window to have their say on how and where housing growth should occur.
“In the new year, I consider it appropriate for the Plan Change to be heard by an independent panel of experts.
“A hearings panel would hear from Aucklanders who submit on the plan change, consider views of submitters and make recommendations to the council,” the minister said.
Heritage group worried about more submission costs
An Auckland heritage group said the community had been left out of having a say on the new housing intensification plan for the city.
Character Coalition chairperson Sally Hughes told Morning Report they were happy with parts of the plan, but the process had been rushed.
“The [Medium Density Residential Standards] that rule that allowed three-by-three on every section in Auckland is gone, and that’s a good thing. We’re also really happy that the council are now able to downzone the areas of land that are subject to natural hazards,” she said.
“And it’s great actually that there will be density around the [City Rail Link]. We’re in favour of that.
“However, even the council has admitted yesterday that the process was less than ideal and that the plan still has a number of faults.
“There was no proper consultation process before the plan was submitted to the council. The community hasn’t really had a chance to have its say yet.”
Hughes said some in the community had already spent thousands on submitting to Plan Change 78.
“The community faces that again which seems really tough when only a year ago they had done it already.”
She was concerned about further intensification of Auckland’s character areas that were already seeing major development, including Saint Mary’s Bay, Parnell, and Remuera.
“There are quite a lot of the original special character areas that will have a lot more intensity in their suburbs,” Hughes said.
“What we’re hoping through the submission process is that it will be made a lot more user friendly for the community. And that we can go through a process with the local boards where communities can say ‘well actually in our suburb this is where it would be great to have some intensity here but not over there’.
“We just would like the community, through the submission process, to be able to have a bit more of a say.”
Result ‘inevitable’
Among those who will be making submissions in the coming months is Auckland resident Will McKenzie.
“I think it was an inevitable result, I watched the presentation at the start of the meeting, and they had very little choice other than to adopt the second, the 120 plan.
“However, what it does is it gives 18 months for a decision to be made, two months to make submissions, and then an independent hearings panel.”
He said Plan Change 120 was the best option of the two.
“There needs to be a transition from the special character areas, which are mainly single-storey, to the 15-storey, which are 50 metres high.
“So in every other jurisdiction in the world, there’s a transition where you have graduated heights, and we need something along those lines.”
“I’d also like to see entire blocks be character rather than half a block and that, again, that goes back to that transition, it’s much more sensible to have one coherent block as a character area than bits and pieces,” he said.
RNZ spoke to Auckland councillor Shane Henderson shortly after the vote.
The Waitākere Ward councillor was more optimistic about what the housing intensification decision represented for future generations of Aucklanders.
He said he strongly encouraged Aucklanders to voice their opinions in the feedback process.
“These debates can get quite fiery because we’re talking about the future of the city, but I think the right decision’s been made, it’s a good day for the city.
“We’ve taken a lot of the intensification over the past decade and we’re happy for the houses, happy for new Westies, but we want fairness across the city, and we want the central city areas to kind of do their bit and actually create a vibrant, world-class city centre that, you know, people want to live, study and enjoy, you know.
“So it’s sort of fairness for us from a West Auckland perspective, but also the opportunities there for young families to move into the city in greater numbers, that’s really exciting for Auckland.
“I think we should be focusing on the positives and the exciting potential that we have. When we invest in the city rail link, can we actually use it to its full capacity by allowing housing around it,” Henderson said.
Auckland councillor Richard Hills said the plan would safeguard several of the city’s character suburbs, though areas like Mount Eden and Kingsland could still be affected.
“They do have some character that will be no longer protected. It doesn’t mean it will change any time soon. People would have to sell or develop their own properties to get rid of their own character home if they wanted to do that.
“But this actually protects a lot of the character areas that are no longer are being forced to have that three-storey zoning underneath.
A previous policy limited development to three-storey residential buildings across the city.
Hill said the new plan also had stronger controls on unsuitable development in flood-prone areas.
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