Development opportunities aplenty
By Gerard McCarten, Planning Manager
Auckland Council has unveiled its proposed approach to updating the city's Unitary Plan, and a significant increase in development capacity across Tāmaki Makaurau is forecast.
The changes are on the back of the government's National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UP), published in July 2020. They set a clear direction for councils to enable intensification in their districts, emphasising at least six storeys in and around centres and areas providing good accessibility.
It also requires councils to undertake housing and business development assessments, provide sufficient capacity, use clear evidence, and prepare six-yearly development strategies.
This is the same NPS that directed the removal of minimum parking rules from district plans in February. In addition, the government rushed through the RMA (Housing Supply) Amendment Act at the end of 2021, which introduced the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) and a unique streamlined plan change process to bring about the changes required by the
NPS-UD. The council describes the plan as a "draft response" to the NPS for public feedback before finalising everything in August.
The result for Auckland is significant. The city is now predominantly a Mixed Housing Urban zone, with larger rings of Terraced Housing and Apartment Zone around the region's more prominent and accessible town centres. However, no changes are proposed within neighbourhood, local, and town centre zones.
The NPS-UD does allow councils to temper intensification where "qualifying matters" apply, such as natural hazards, heritage, significant infrastructure and matters of national importance.
Perhaps the most well-known of these is the use of the Special Character Area (SCA) overlay to prevent large swathes of inner-Auckland suburbs and other specific areas from remaining as single dwelling zones – until now. The NPS requires councils to use clear evidence, which has caused them to review SCAs at a house-by-house level rather than at a broad suburb level. The result has been a significant reduction in their extent.
Other qualifying matters of interest are coastal inundation and related hazards – leaving most coastal properties as lower intensity. Interestingly, the council does not seem to have chosen the one per cent AEP floodplain as a hazard that warrants reduced intensification.
The council has also flagged its intent to develop a qualifying matter based on long term significant infrastructure constraints, such as chronic limitations with stormwater and wastewater networks. This is not shown in the mapping tool, so the implications of such a qualifying matter are yet to emerge. For now, the council is interested in whether there is in-principle support for the idea.
There is still lots to investigate in these proposals. Still, it is refreshing to see that the changes should at least reduce pointless arguments with council planners about the appropriate scale of developments when close to town centres.
Consultation closes 9 May.
Council will publish its formal plan change by 20 August.
