Adapted from a Facebook post from Councillor Desley Simpson.
We’ve got less than two weeks left before submissions close on Plan Change 120. I want to take the opportunity to address a couple of claims we’ve seen in media recently, so you have the full picture. I’m sorry, but it will be a bit technical!
Claim: The whole city, and especially Orakei ward, will be indiscriminately “blanketed” by higher-density homes
Answer: Taller buildings are only proposed in certain areas, mostly enabled near train stations, frequent bus routes, and near town centres where jobs, shops and services already exist.
These are locations where analysis has shown that public transport access and housing demand are strongest, and which help to support higher productivity across Auckland.
Despite that, large parts of Orakei ward will actually have less density under PC120 than they would have under Plan Change 78. Part of that is because the rules for Mixed Housing Urban are much stricter than the old Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS).
Have a look at the top map below . Dark blue means a lot less density, white means no change, and dark red means a lot more density. You can see the increases are clustered along transport routes.
Claim: Christchurch successfully pushed back on intensification, Auckland should too!
Answer: Christchurch has also had to make significant changes to its planning rules to meet government’s intensification requirements.
Christchurch recently withdrew from some parts of the government’s housing intensification requirements only because it could prove that its updated planning rules enabled enough housing capacity to meet what the legislation required – 30 years of capacity that has been shown to be commercially feasible to build. This is the legal test that applies to Christchurch. Government had already rejected an attempt by Christchurch to evade the main elements of intensification.
Auckland’s housing capacity requirement is completely different, whether we like it or not. The legal test for Auckland is that the new Plan Change 120 must enable at least the same amount of housing as the withdrawn Plan Change 78 (the previous plan change required by central government) would have enabled. But yes, the reality is we are being asked to create a bigger margin for capacity than Christchurch – that was the government’s choice and directive to us.
Christchurch and Auckland are very different cities with different growth-related challenges, different legislation and their legal housing capacity requirements are not calculated in the same way. Christchurch hasn’t previously had to do this kind of intensification, and its geography and lower population (400K – we are 1.8m) makes it easier to find capacity in concentrated town centres.
I note that in both Wellington and Christchurch, the Minister made decisions to enforce greater capacity, where he felt those councils or their hearings panels were going against his direction.
Claim: 2m houses is far too many, we will never need that much housing even in the next 100 years or more.
Answer: The Council information sheets, webinars and public meetings have been clear on this point – 2million is the theoretical number of homes that could be built if every suitable site across Auckland was fully developed to the maximum the rules allowed. In reality, far fewer homes are built, even over many decades, and not every site will be developed. How many will actually be built we do not know for sure.
However, what we can say is that in 2023 Council estimated the numbers for Plan Change 78 – see the table below from the Housing and Business Development Capacity Assessment (HBA).
To translate: “RER” = reasonably expected to be realised – and you can see that something like 50% of additional residential capacity was likely to turn into actual houses. This analysis is required by the National Policy Statement on Urban Development. It is underway for PC120will be given to the Hearings Panel for its deliberations.
Claim: My suburb will change overnight with new buildings appearing
Answer: Plan Change 120 doesn’t trigger immediate development. Planning rules only set out what’s allowed to be built, they do not require that homes get built or that development happens.
When development does occur, it happens gradually, even over decades, and varies widely across neighbourhoods.
Council’s Chief Economist has recently produced an analysis indicating not only where capacity might be but where houses might actually be built, based on past development trends.
Read the full 2 page Insights Paper here.
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