Auckland Councillors In The Dark Over Government’s Housing Intensification Rethink

Anneke
Smith, Political Reporter

The
housing minister has confirmed the coalition is taking
another look at housing intensification plans in Auckland
after pushback from critics.

Last year, Auckland
Council approved the initial phase of a new plan to accommodate
an extra 2 million new homes in the coming
decades.

The move was in response to the
government agreeing to let the council opt
out of medium-density rules that apply to most major
cities.

This was in exchange for setting up zoning
for 30 years of growth, which Auckland Council went on to
calculate as an extra 2 million homes.

The council’s
Plan
Change 120 set out the process for doing this, but the
government has since come under pressure from proponents of
heritage homes who have raised concerns about further
intensification in character areas that were already seeing
major development.

Housing Minister Chris Bishop
confirmed to RNZ on Friday afternoon the coalition was now
considering weakening housing intensification laws in a move
that could decrease the 2 million figure.

“The
government is considering a range of options around housing
capacity targets for Auckland, and as minister of housing I
will have more to say soon,” he said.

It was
understood this would not affect housing intensification
around major public transport hubs, like the Auckland City
Rail Link (CRL) that is due to open later
this year.

National under Judith Collins’
leadership originally supported the medium-density
residential standards, but signalled
a backdown under Christopher Luxon, who said changes
were needed.

Auckland
Mayor Wayne Brown said he had not had any direct contact
with government ministers recently and certainly had not had
any phone calls about scaling back intensification
laws.

“Nobody in the government has rung me back and
said we’re going to be taking this back… they’re leaking
to the press down there in preparation for it, but nobody in
the government’s rung me to say that they’re going to do
that.”

Brown said he supported intensification and
believed there had been “scaremongering and nonsense going
on” around the 2 million homes figure.

“I still remain
of the view that intensification, where we’ve got good
public transport and all of the infrastructure in place
already, makes sense.

“I think that some people have
oversold the worry about things. The people in those suburbs
which [are] apparently upset are already facing rules where
every section can have three-storey houses right up to the
boundary, which would be a lot worse for them than having a
multi-storey one every so often.”

The mayor said he
expected to be briefed on any updates when he saw government
ministers later this month.

The council’s Policy,
Planning and Development Committee chair Richard Hills said
he had heard rumours of the government relenting all summer
but had “no clarity at all” – and it was unclear how a
change would fit into the consultation process.

“Unless
you are spending millions of dollars on putting a new plan
out again, I am not sure what the law change the government
will be doing would enable… coming in halfway through a
process without talking to us, again, leads to even more
confusion.”

Another councillor, Christine Fletcher,
welcomed the potential change as “the only sensible thing to
do”, saying the 2 million extra homes approach was “blunt
and ill-considered and it did not take into account physical
and social infrastructure”.

“I think that the majority
of Aucklanders will welcome this. There will obviously be
some activists who will criticise the government… but slow
and steady is the way to actually win this particular
race.”

She said people were not opposed to
intensification, but it had to be done
properly.

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