September 17, 2025 • 27 mins
Auckland is under pressure to make space for two million homes, and councillors have little choice in the matter.
On September 24, the city’s policy and planning committee will decide whether to press ahead with the existing Plan Change 78, which allows three-storey housing across most of the city, or back a new plan that concentrates apartment blocks up to fifteen storeys around key transport hubs.
Both options have sparked heated debate. From fears of flooding and towers overshadowing suburban homes, to arguments that the city desperately needs more density to tackle the housing crisis.
Minister for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop has made it clear that Auckland must provide for growth, while promising locals a stronger voice in how it plays out.
So, what’s really at stake for Aucklanders — and how much power does the council actually have?
Today on The Front Page, NZ Herald senior reporter Simon Wilson joins us to break down the battle over Auckland’s housing future.
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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Cure. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and this
is the Front Page Daily Podcast presented by The New
Zealand Herald. Auckland is under pressure to make space for
two million homes and counselors have little choice in the matter.
On September twenty fourth, the city's Policy and Planning Committee
will decide whether to press ahead with the existing Plan
(00:27):
Change seventy eight, which allows three story housing across most
of the city, or back a new plan that concentrates
apartment blocks up to fifteen stories around key transport hubs.
Both options have sparked heated debate, from fears of flooding
and towers overshadowing suburban homes to arguments that the city
desperately needs more density to tackle the housing crisis. Minister
(00:51):
for Arima Reform, Chris Bishop, has made it clear that
Auckland must provide for growth while promising locals a stronger
voice in how it plays out. So what's really at
stake for Auckland is and how much power does the
council actually have Today? On the front page, New Zealand
Herald's senior reporter Simon Wilson joins us to break down
(01:12):
the battle over Auckland's housing future. All right, So first off,
simon what exactly are these designing changes that have been proposed.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
At the moment. Auckland Council has a plan in place
that says that it will create the capacity for two
million homes in the city over the coming decades. This
is a requirement of the previous government and has been
in place with the existing government until now. The existing government, however,
told Auckland Council that it could get out of that
(01:48):
option if it produced a new plan that's still allowed
for two million homes but didn't have the instruction that
was there in the labor plan. That or pretty much
all property could be subdivided and pretty much all property,
even subdivided could go up to three stories. So the
(02:09):
Auckland Council has produced a new draft plan change that
proposes there will be the capacity for those for all
those homes. It doesn't mean that it'll be built, but
it's a capacity. But it focuses the development around train stations,
along arterial roads and in town centers, places where there
(02:30):
is already the infrastructure for denser development, and at the
same time has recognized because the government has instructed it
to keep the two minion capacity. It's recognized that it
has to also allow more density in various other parts
of the city. So some of the suburbs and some
parts of some of the suburbs will have a denser
(02:53):
capacity than is currently the case.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And so you mentioned the Labor government putting thing a place.
That's the Plan Changed seventy eight. It's cored this controversial
sort of directive. Parts of that have been progressed, but
why is the government looking to replace that?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So Plan Change seventy eight is based on something called
the MDRS, the medium Density Residential standards. These were originally
introduced by Labor and National under the Labor government. It
was a coalition deal that they would both support them,
and the idea there was that it took the very
(03:32):
contentious housing issue away from partisan politics because both sides
agreed and recognized that long term development of the city
was required and we weren't going to get it if
it became too much a question of party squabbling. So
that was the plan, but National reneeded on that deal
before the last election. So the MDRS was what said
(03:53):
that basically everything can go up to three stories anywhere
and there's a lot of opposition to that. The new
plan change proposal comes in and under the government saying okay,
you can, you can be more flexible about it. You
can do more density where it's a good idea to
do it, and not have as much density where it's
more problematic.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, because this talk of like obviously the Hawkland floods
might be a contributing fact. There's been sort of discussion
that it's addressing zoning issues and those high risk areas.
How much of that actually is that.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Is an important part of it. Under the MDRS and
Plan Chained seventy eight, the rules were that you couldn't
downsize the capacity of sections. So where after the Anniversary
weekend floods and cyclone Gabriel at the beginning of twenty
twenty three, Auckland Council recognized really clearly that it had
(04:47):
a whole range of area parts of the city where
they were at risk of flooding or coastal erosion and
it was not a good idea to allow more housing
in those places. In fact, the reverse that to it. Okay,
regulations prevented the dune zoning of those areas. So the
new plan allows for that so they have established a
(05:08):
whole range of areas, but eighty percent of them are
on the coast. Auckland has an enormous coastline because it's
two coastlines, and the rest are flood areas that are
liable to flood. In the Wairau Valley, some parts of
Henderson and West Auckland margery places that were it is
simply not appropriate to build.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Aside from just abstaining from the vote, there are two
options at place well.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
The proposal in front of council that they will vote
on next week is to adopt the new plan change.
The legal language is that they will notify it. It
doesn't mean that it becomes the law. It means that
it then becomes open to public consultation and there is
a lengthy process for that. If they don't notify the
(05:57):
new plan change, then Plan Change seventy eight, the existing one,
which creates the three x three housing density situation, that
will remain in place. So it's a yes no on
the new one. But the choice they have counselors are
facing between those two options, both of which allow the
(06:18):
capacity of two million homes.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I thought, like Chris Bishop said that you know, promising
to allow Aucklanders to have their saying that what is
that process?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Okay, So Bishop has announced just this week what the
consultation process will be. It was always assumed there would
be one, but it was unclear exactly what it would be.
And so what Bishop has made clear now is that
from early November until just before Christmas there will be
an open public consultation process. Now early November is significant
(06:52):
because that is the time when the new council, because
we've got council elections underway and that's the time when
the new council will take office. They will be in
charge of that consultation. It won't be something happening in
the middle of the election campaign and that's a good
thing for everybody. And then that something like six seven
week period of public consultation will be followed next year
(07:17):
by an independent hearings panel being established. These are experts
in the field and they will hear submissions from They
will hear the submissions and consider the submissions of everybody
who wants to front before them who's submitted in that
public consultation process. At the end of this year, and
(07:37):
that whole process, the Minister says, will probably taken around
eighteen months, so there is a very there's a good
period of time for the public to have their say
formally as part of the process, and then there is
a lengthy period of the panel considering that and hearing
from that and deciding what to recommend. It is a
(07:59):
standard process, but it is the Minister's now made it
very clear that they're not going to convent that in
any way. It will be done properly.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
As someone who's never engaged in a public forum like that, like,
how do those exactly work, that feedback process and how
likely is it to actually change it?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So there will be a whole range of public submissions
and it will be as simple as you will, I imagine,
going on previous experience, you'll be able to go onto
the council website and fill in a form or send
them a one sentence note saying I object to this
or I love this.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Through too.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
There will be groups that get lawyers involved and do
very considered submissions. There will be groups who get planners
and other experts involved and make their submissions on the
basis of that, they spend some money, and then the
Independent Hearings Panel their job is to filter all that
and assess it and the fact that you, as a
(08:57):
member of the public, have done your It costs me nothing,
but I have a heartfelt opinion and I want them
to know about it. Now. They'll recognize that for what
it is and they'll consider that properly.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Or they're supposed to.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
But they will also, of course have a whole lot
of that expert submitted material as well to consider, and
they'll do a balance and the council will report on
it too. They'll say, we've had this many submissions from
the public, We've had this many submissions from lobby groups,
We've had this many submissions from the expert areas. These
are the opinions that we've had from other parts of
(09:33):
the democratic process, like the local boards and so on.
They'll report on all that, so we'll be able to
see all that, and they'll probably quantify it, so we'll
know roughly the public opinion was sixty forty this way
or that way or whatever it is. They will tell.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Us do we have any indication sort of which way
counsel or general public are leaning between the options?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, there's no single view. If you go to a
public meeting in mud Eden or remu Era parnell as
I've been doing. You'll hear some very angry locals. If
you go out to Mangaee, which I did last weekend,
you won't find them talking about it at all. They
(10:18):
Marngoy is a fascinating suburb because it was built after
the war to house the floods of people migrating to Auckland,
particularly Maori from the north. It was built without with
hardly any proper sewage and water services. It was very
very basic that all came to a head and was
(10:39):
very problematic. Margarray in the last ten to fifteen years
has been very substantially rebuilt. There are a lot of
apartments and denser housing. They've got good services. They put
it in underground. It cost money to do it because
they have to do it underground, and it's quite a
transformed suburb now down there. In this election, they're not
talking about oh my god, we don't want density. They've
(11:02):
got it. They like it because it's given them warm, dry,
safe houses to live in and created communities. They're talking
about other issues, you know, like employment. Those sorts of
things very different depending on where you go. If you
got to fung A Perrara, was there last weekend. Again
they're talking about the inability of infrastructure to help with
(11:23):
development up there. And it's different again from what's happening
in the central city.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
When you go to those suburbs where they are getting
really fired up about this. What are the concerns that
they're raising.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I think there's two main areas of concern. One of
them is the minister has said that around the railway
stations that are close to the central city, which he's
calling the CRL stations, like what used to be Munden
and now to be known as Mongopho in Kingsland and Morningside,
those stations will have the capacity to take buildings at
(11:56):
are fifteen stories tall, and so people are worried about that.
The second concern is not the fifteen stories, but people
living in leafy suburbs, in nice villas with their neighbors
and villas are worried that a three or a six
story apartment block might appear on their street or might
appear right next to them. And so that's it, and
(12:19):
that's actually fundamentally a separate concern. There are two concerns there.
Most quite possibly many people would say, if we're going
to have growth in the city, people have to live
somewhere and putting dents living around railway stations, particularly because
the CURL will transform the railway network and double its capacity,
(12:40):
that's a good place to put them. And that's a
different issue from saying, do we how many apartments do
we want in those leafy suburbs, those villa suburbs.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
If you like, yeah, it's because you know, we're talking
about quite affluent suburbs, and especially you know people outside
of Auckland as well might be looking at these Champagne problems.
Are these legitimate concerns or are these just like sort
of not in my backyard.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
It depends whether you're in one of the streets concerned.
Shane Henderson, who is a counselor out at Tiatatu in
the Henderson in the Waitaker re Ward there, he argues
very strongly that Tata two is being completely built out
with apartments because those suburbs closer to town, which have
(13:26):
better services, much better services, particularly transport and water, are
refusing to allow development there. So you could say that's nimbiaism.
It's easy to say the word nimbiaism. Personally, I think
that's a good example of it. Not in my backyard.
It's quite literal. But of course people who don't want
the character of where they live changed to say, it's
(13:46):
not nimbiaism. It's preserving character and heritage, and there are
values that we need to look after, so you know
that's where they come from. One of the ironies on
it is that there was a report that I wrote
up over the weekend about where the demand in Auckland
is for apartment living. The two suburbs or the biggest
(14:07):
demand are Anywhere and Mount Eden, and that is largely
people who live there now but whose kids have left
home or they've retired. They want to downsize. They want
to stay living in their suburb, but they don't want
to stay living in the big family home anymore. They
want somewhere smaller that is still good, so they want apartments.
(14:29):
So while family X living in a really nice house
and Remuera might not want apartment blocks near them, they're
neighbors who are retiring do want the apartment block because
they want to live in it. So that's a inside
the suburb engine.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Like we've picked the first five CRL stations, they are
the most important stations. We just really want to get
it into law. That these stations like Kingsland Morning Side
for example, you know, we really should be having dense
apartments around there. They're not going to happen straight away.
It's not like you're gonna wake up tomorrow and find
(15:07):
a fifteen story building next to Kingsland train station. But
over the next few years you will see more buildings
like that in these key stations. We've come over the
top with CRL and actually the men supports that. There
people sort of saying, well, I'm sort of forcing them
to do it, and in some senses I am in
the sense that we're legislating for it. But the Mayor
and I've had a lot of discussions around it, and
he's actually on the press release we issued yesterday around it.
(15:29):
So there's a lot of support from Mayor Brown and
many councilors and awkward for it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In terms of the ones around the Transport hubse we
talked about the fifteen story potentially apartment blocks. Chris Bishop
mentioned that, you know, the head calls them the CRL
sort of things. You know, that's potentially opening soon hopefully,
but is that infrastructure, the transport infrastructure going to be
able to support that many more people living around those hubs.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yes, it is one of the things that people say
in those suburbs where they don't want the density to happen,
is that infrastructure should happen first. If they don't want
the density to happen, they probably don't want it at all,
so they probably don't want the infrastructure either. But actually
it doesn't work like that. Under the old Auckland Unitary
Plan passed in twenty sixteen, they said in thirty fifty
(16:20):
years time, we're going to have the capacity to do
this much housing. They didn't have all the infrastructure in place,
they just knew that over those decades it would be developed.
And that is what's happened, certainly with the CRL and
with wastewater also in central Auckland. So the CRL is
one of the two really big projects that they've been building,
(16:41):
and the other one is something called the Central Interceptor,
which is a big wastewater pipe that runs right through
the Isthmus and takes the waste out to Mungery where
the big plants are. And that will revolutionize the capacity
of Isthmus Auckland to manage wastewater, particularly when they're a store.
It should mean that there is no fecal contamination on
(17:03):
the beaches any longer. That's a major change. Maline is
one of the suburbs that will directly benefit from that.
So that infrastructure is there, but in places where it
more is needed. Partell is a good example. Parnell pipes
have burst recently, quite famously. There is a plan. Water
Care has a major plan for the whole city in
(17:24):
fact of when it's going to build the new infrastructure,
and it's all staged according to what they understand the
demand to be. So that's underway. It's not like the
council's doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's funny, like we're talking about all these different suburbs
and like it seems that you look at the maps
of the proposed changes and it's like they've just circled
an entire suburb. Gone, Yeah, the apartments can go here,
the three stories can go here, how much like Nuance
is normally Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So you are right. The government put the council on
a very strict timetable to get those new maps done.
And some of them are AI generated and there are
mistakes of them. There are places in those plans where
you go that's clearly the map makers or AI whoever
it was or whatever it was, assumed that was a
(18:19):
bigger wider road than it is. You're just not going
to be able to carry sustain that many people living
on it. So those things will change the consultation that
we will see next week when the Council comes back
to decide on the new plan change, there will be
revisions to those maps, but there'll be more. The notification
period is one of the reasons for it is it
(18:43):
allows everybody to say you've got it wrong here, and
for the Council to have a really good, careful look
at that and to modify the plans accordingly. So there
will be changes that Meghan Tyler, who's the Council's Chief
Planning officer, she says, you know, that's just the normal process.
Of course, we'll do it because that's what we always
do when we have plan changes. So we can expect
(19:06):
that happening as well.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So with these maps, though I've read about there are
overlays which then override what's been that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
One of the examples of an overlay is flood risk,
which you might say this suburb is going to be
zoned for, or this part of the suburb is going
to be zoned for six story apartments because it's got
an arteria road running through it. But actually in that
part of it it's prone to flooding there, so there'll
be an overlay that protects that from development, and that
(19:36):
is what's called a special character overlay. Another kind of
special character overlay, which is much more valued by many people,
is where the housing is judged to have a particular
historic value. I suppose it might not be a historic
it be it might be a subdivision of extremely exciting
architecturally designed new places that want that are going to
(19:58):
be preserved, But actually that's not how it works in reality. Villas,
bungalows and other historic places where there's a concentration of
historic housing that gets an overlay on it. And the
best example in Auckland is Devenport. Devenport, apart from navy buildings,
(20:18):
has no buildings of any height at all. There's an
overlay over there. No one's been allowed to build anything,
so it's just the old houses.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And how do these overlays come into it?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So what that means is if you think it a
think of a place like the Mungofold station or the
Kingston Railway station, there are places near those stations that
are within the walkable areas which have a concentration of
historic housing, and so there's a ring on the map
if you like that says okay, in those areas, you're
(20:51):
not going to have the density requirements that places outside
that ring will be subjected to. There are fewer special
Character areas is preserving historic housing in the new plan
change than there were in Plan Change seventy eight. I
think it's something like fifteen hundred fewer homes. Therefore, there
(21:12):
is concern that the city could lose a number of
those historic homes. When I say historic, I live in
one of them. Now. I live in a special Character
area where actually in our street almost all the houses
are workers cottages. They were built in the nineteenth century.
They're very simple, but over the years people have put
(21:33):
false or new verandas on them in the colonial style.
My house had the previous owners to us did that.
It looks very pretty, but it's fake, as the verandas
on most of my neighbours' houses. They are fake too.
But the council went down that street and went this
is lovely and called it a special character So that
(21:56):
limits the development on our street, which is I think
kind of weird. Which is not to say that genuine
villa streets, as there are many in Mount Eden and
Pontsybu Graylin, Devenport, et cetera, not to say that they
they are the same, they villa streets of villa streets.
Having said that, in Mount Eden, you drive around Mount Eden,
(22:20):
you will see a lot of apartment blocks already, which
happened in the seventies, and a lot of what's called
sausage flats, where because the height limit was in place,
developers built just to one or two stories, and there's
a whole lot of apartments in a row back from
the street, and they're called sausage flats in the sense
that they look like a six pack of sausages there
(22:42):
sitting next to each other, and you won't have any
green space, a very small exactly, whereas if if that
had been built as a sex story apartment block, you
could have had a park around it, you know, for
the for the residents. So that's one of the reasons
why people are saying, actually, sausage flats is not a
(23:03):
good way to develop us up. The other factor that
is significant in this is what's called walkable catchments. So
around the city center Auckland City Center there is a
twelve hundred meter walkable catchment. Effectively, they've said if you
can walk, if it's fifteen minute walk from downtown, then
you can build densely in that area. And for the
(23:26):
railway stations it's an eight hundred meta radius for a
ten minute walk. It's not an absolute radius, it's not
just a circle. They looked at the geography, they looked
at the things like where the railway lines are. You
can't just walk across a railway line, of course, and
a good example of that is Kingston Railway station, where
(23:47):
if it was just a circle, the walkable catchment would
include Great North Road on the other side of the motorway.
On the west side of the motorway, it doesn't because
that's a big dip and it's a longer walk. So
the walkable catchmentsps on the railway station side of the motorway.
So they did take account of all that. But in
those walkable catchments it will be possible to build more
(24:09):
densely because those are the places where they want people
to live close to the train station. Unless there's a
special character over it's complicated.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Finally, I just want to circle back to something at
the start. Might be sound quite surprising to hear this
number of two million homes, but that's not actually like
a promise of we're going to build two million homes.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That's correct, and it's not too many more either, as
many people have been saying. I find one of the
ways that's quite useful to look at it is to think,
if the council knows that we're going to build, let's
say we're going to build twenty thousand new homes a year.
In fact, they've never got to that. They've got to eighteen,
and the peak year, which is twenty twenty three, slipped
(24:53):
back a bit now. I think it's fourteen at the moment.
But let's say twenty. Let's say the economy picks up,
growth occurs, and they're doing twenty. That will mean over
thirty years there's something like six hundred thousand new homes,
not the two million. But if they only zoned for
six hundred thousand new homes over the next thirty years,
(25:14):
that would mean that every homeowner, every property owner, whether
you're a developer or just living in your own home,
would be required to build to the maximum the zoning
allows on that section. We would tell you own your section,
but it's zoned for three stories, so you've got to
build three stories. You know. We would tell a developer, sorry,
(25:35):
you can't put three story townhouses there. We want you
to build a six story apartment block there. And the
developer would say, it's my land. I can do this
the way I want to because it's my land. And
they might have a very good reason for not putting
six stories in because that's more expensive. You've got to
build a stronger building, you've got to put in lifts,
(25:55):
you've got to put in fire sprinklers and other things.
It's a more expensive proposition. Some developers don't have the
cash flow or don't want to take the risk to
do that. We don't live in a country where people
can be told what to do with their property in
that way. So that's why there's a much bigger capacity
than we're going to need, so that choices exist for
property owners. And it also indicates that over time, although
(26:20):
there will be more density, it absolutely does not mean
there will be density everywhere.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Well, thank you so much for joining. I shan't keep
you any longer. Yeah, I know, You're going to have
a very busy week next week dealing.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
With this great questions.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Thank you very much for joining us. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at inzidherld dot
co dot z. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye.
I'm Richard Martin. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
(26:52):
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
Cure. I'm Richard Martin in for Chelsea Daniels and this
is the Front Page Daily Podcast presented by The New
Zealand Herald. Auckland is under pressure to make space for
two million homes and counselors have little choice in the matter.
On September twenty fourth, the city's Policy and Planning Committee
will decide whether to press ahead with the existing Plan
(00:27):
Change seventy eight, which allows three story housing across most
of the city, or back a new plan that concentrates
apartment blocks up to fifteen stories around key transport hubs.
Both options have sparked heated debate, from fears of flooding
and towers overshadowing suburban homes to arguments that the city
desperately needs more density to tackle the housing crisis. Minister
(00:51):
for Arima Reform, Chris Bishop, has made it clear that
Auckland must provide for growth while promising locals a stronger
voice in how it plays out. So what's really at
stake for Auckland is and how much power does the
council actually have Today? On the front page, New Zealand
Herald's senior reporter Simon Wilson joins us to break down
(01:12):
the battle over Auckland's housing future. All right, So first off,
simon what exactly are these designing changes that have been proposed.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
At the moment. Auckland Council has a plan in place
that says that it will create the capacity for two
million homes in the city over the coming decades. This
is a requirement of the previous government and has been
in place with the existing government until now. The existing government, however,
told Auckland Council that it could get out of that
(01:48):
option if it produced a new plan that's still allowed
for two million homes but didn't have the instruction that
was there in the labor plan. That or pretty much
all property could be subdivided and pretty much all property,
even subdivided could go up to three stories. So the
(02:09):
Auckland Council has produced a new draft plan change that
proposes there will be the capacity for those for all
those homes. It doesn't mean that it'll be built, but
it's a capacity. But it focuses the development around train stations,
along arterial roads and in town centers, places where there
(02:30):
is already the infrastructure for denser development, and at the
same time has recognized because the government has instructed it
to keep the two minion capacity. It's recognized that it
has to also allow more density in various other parts
of the city. So some of the suburbs and some
parts of some of the suburbs will have a denser
(02:53):
capacity than is currently the case.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And so you mentioned the Labor government putting thing a place.
That's the Plan Changed seventy eight. It's cored this controversial
sort of directive. Parts of that have been progressed, but
why is the government looking to replace that?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So Plan Change seventy eight is based on something called
the MDRS, the medium Density Residential standards. These were originally
introduced by Labor and National under the Labor government. It
was a coalition deal that they would both support them,
and the idea there was that it took the very
(03:32):
contentious housing issue away from partisan politics because both sides
agreed and recognized that long term development of the city
was required and we weren't going to get it if
it became too much a question of party squabbling. So
that was the plan, but National reneeded on that deal
before the last election. So the MDRS was what said
(03:53):
that basically everything can go up to three stories anywhere
and there's a lot of opposition to that. The new
plan change proposal comes in and under the government saying okay,
you can, you can be more flexible about it. You
can do more density where it's a good idea to
do it, and not have as much density where it's
more problematic.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, because this talk of like obviously the Hawkland floods
might be a contributing fact. There's been sort of discussion
that it's addressing zoning issues and those high risk areas.
How much of that actually is that.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Is an important part of it. Under the MDRS and
Plan Chained seventy eight, the rules were that you couldn't
downsize the capacity of sections. So where after the Anniversary
weekend floods and cyclone Gabriel at the beginning of twenty
twenty three, Auckland Council recognized really clearly that it had
(04:47):
a whole range of area parts of the city where
they were at risk of flooding or coastal erosion and
it was not a good idea to allow more housing
in those places. In fact, the reverse that to it. Okay,
regulations prevented the dune zoning of those areas. So the
new plan allows for that so they have established a
(05:08):
whole range of areas, but eighty percent of them are
on the coast. Auckland has an enormous coastline because it's
two coastlines, and the rest are flood areas that are
liable to flood. In the Wairau Valley, some parts of
Henderson and West Auckland margery places that were it is
simply not appropriate to build.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Aside from just abstaining from the vote, there are two
options at place well.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
The proposal in front of council that they will vote
on next week is to adopt the new plan change.
The legal language is that they will notify it. It
doesn't mean that it becomes the law. It means that
it then becomes open to public consultation and there is
a lengthy process for that. If they don't notify the
(05:57):
new plan change, then Plan Change seventy eight, the existing one,
which creates the three x three housing density situation, that
will remain in place. So it's a yes no on
the new one. But the choice they have counselors are
facing between those two options, both of which allow the
(06:18):
capacity of two million homes.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I thought, like Chris Bishop said that you know, promising
to allow Aucklanders to have their saying that what is
that process?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Okay, So Bishop has announced just this week what the
consultation process will be. It was always assumed there would
be one, but it was unclear exactly what it would be.
And so what Bishop has made clear now is that
from early November until just before Christmas there will be
an open public consultation process. Now early November is significant
(06:52):
because that is the time when the new council, because
we've got council elections underway and that's the time when
the new council will take office. They will be in
charge of that consultation. It won't be something happening in
the middle of the election campaign and that's a good
thing for everybody. And then that something like six seven
week period of public consultation will be followed next year
(07:17):
by an independent hearings panel being established. These are experts
in the field and they will hear submissions from They
will hear the submissions and consider the submissions of everybody
who wants to front before them who's submitted in that
public consultation process. At the end of this year, and
(07:37):
that whole process, the Minister says, will probably taken around
eighteen months, so there is a very there's a good
period of time for the public to have their say
formally as part of the process, and then there is
a lengthy period of the panel considering that and hearing
from that and deciding what to recommend. It is a
(07:59):
standard process, but it is the Minister's now made it
very clear that they're not going to convent that in
any way. It will be done properly.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
As someone who's never engaged in a public forum like that, like,
how do those exactly work, that feedback process and how
likely is it to actually change it?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So there will be a whole range of public submissions
and it will be as simple as you will, I imagine,
going on previous experience, you'll be able to go onto
the council website and fill in a form or send
them a one sentence note saying I object to this
or I love this.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Through too.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
There will be groups that get lawyers involved and do
very considered submissions. There will be groups who get planners
and other experts involved and make their submissions on the
basis of that, they spend some money, and then the
Independent Hearings Panel their job is to filter all that
and assess it and the fact that you, as a
(08:57):
member of the public, have done your It costs me nothing,
but I have a heartfelt opinion and I want them
to know about it. Now. They'll recognize that for what
it is and they'll consider that properly.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Or they're supposed to.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
But they will also, of course have a whole lot
of that expert submitted material as well to consider, and
they'll do a balance and the council will report on
it too. They'll say, we've had this many submissions from
the public, We've had this many submissions from lobby groups,
We've had this many submissions from the expert areas. These
are the opinions that we've had from other parts of
(09:33):
the democratic process, like the local boards and so on.
They'll report on all that, so we'll be able to
see all that, and they'll probably quantify it, so we'll
know roughly the public opinion was sixty forty this way
or that way or whatever it is. They will tell.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Us do we have any indication sort of which way
counsel or general public are leaning between the options?
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Well, there's no single view. If you go to a
public meeting in mud Eden or remu Era parnell as
I've been doing. You'll hear some very angry locals. If
you go out to Mangaee, which I did last weekend,
you won't find them talking about it at all. They
(10:18):
Marngoy is a fascinating suburb because it was built after
the war to house the floods of people migrating to Auckland,
particularly Maori from the north. It was built without with
hardly any proper sewage and water services. It was very
very basic that all came to a head and was
(10:39):
very problematic. Margarray in the last ten to fifteen years
has been very substantially rebuilt. There are a lot of
apartments and denser housing. They've got good services. They put
it in underground. It cost money to do it because
they have to do it underground, and it's quite a
transformed suburb now down there. In this election, they're not
talking about oh my god, we don't want density. They've
(11:02):
got it. They like it because it's given them warm, dry,
safe houses to live in and created communities. They're talking
about other issues, you know, like employment. Those sorts of
things very different depending on where you go. If you
got to fung A Perrara, was there last weekend. Again
they're talking about the inability of infrastructure to help with
(11:23):
development up there. And it's different again from what's happening
in the central city.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
When you go to those suburbs where they are getting
really fired up about this. What are the concerns that
they're raising.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I think there's two main areas of concern. One of
them is the minister has said that around the railway
stations that are close to the central city, which he's
calling the CRL stations, like what used to be Munden
and now to be known as Mongopho in Kingsland and Morningside,
those stations will have the capacity to take buildings at
(11:56):
are fifteen stories tall, and so people are worried about that.
The second concern is not the fifteen stories, but people
living in leafy suburbs, in nice villas with their neighbors
and villas are worried that a three or a six
story apartment block might appear on their street or might
appear right next to them. And so that's it, and
(12:19):
that's actually fundamentally a separate concern. There are two concerns there.
Most quite possibly many people would say, if we're going
to have growth in the city, people have to live
somewhere and putting dents living around railway stations, particularly because
the CURL will transform the railway network and double its capacity,
(12:40):
that's a good place to put them. And that's a
different issue from saying, do we how many apartments do
we want in those leafy suburbs, those villa suburbs.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
If you like, yeah, it's because you know, we're talking
about quite affluent suburbs, and especially you know people outside
of Auckland as well might be looking at these Champagne problems.
Are these legitimate concerns or are these just like sort
of not in my backyard.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
It depends whether you're in one of the streets concerned.
Shane Henderson, who is a counselor out at Tiatatu in
the Henderson in the Waitaker re Ward there, he argues
very strongly that Tata two is being completely built out
with apartments because those suburbs closer to town, which have
(13:26):
better services, much better services, particularly transport and water, are
refusing to allow development there. So you could say that's nimbiaism.
It's easy to say the word nimbiaism. Personally, I think
that's a good example of it. Not in my backyard.
It's quite literal. But of course people who don't want
the character of where they live changed to say, it's
(13:46):
not nimbiaism. It's preserving character and heritage, and there are
values that we need to look after, so you know
that's where they come from. One of the ironies on
it is that there was a report that I wrote
up over the weekend about where the demand in Auckland
is for apartment living. The two suburbs or the biggest
(14:07):
demand are Anywhere and Mount Eden, and that is largely
people who live there now but whose kids have left
home or they've retired. They want to downsize. They want
to stay living in their suburb, but they don't want
to stay living in the big family home anymore. They
want somewhere smaller that is still good, so they want apartments.
(14:29):
So while family X living in a really nice house
and Remuera might not want apartment blocks near them, they're
neighbors who are retiring do want the apartment block because
they want to live in it. So that's a inside
the suburb engine.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Like we've picked the first five CRL stations, they are
the most important stations. We just really want to get
it into law. That these stations like Kingsland Morning Side
for example, you know, we really should be having dense
apartments around there. They're not going to happen straight away.
It's not like you're gonna wake up tomorrow and find
(15:07):
a fifteen story building next to Kingsland train station. But
over the next few years you will see more buildings
like that in these key stations. We've come over the
top with CRL and actually the men supports that. There
people sort of saying, well, I'm sort of forcing them
to do it, and in some senses I am in
the sense that we're legislating for it. But the Mayor
and I've had a lot of discussions around it, and
he's actually on the press release we issued yesterday around it.
(15:29):
So there's a lot of support from Mayor Brown and
many councilors and awkward for it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In terms of the ones around the Transport hubse we
talked about the fifteen story potentially apartment blocks. Chris Bishop
mentioned that, you know, the head calls them the CRL
sort of things. You know, that's potentially opening soon hopefully,
but is that infrastructure, the transport infrastructure going to be
able to support that many more people living around those hubs.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yes, it is one of the things that people say
in those suburbs where they don't want the density to happen,
is that infrastructure should happen first. If they don't want
the density to happen, they probably don't want it at all,
so they probably don't want the infrastructure either. But actually
it doesn't work like that. Under the old Auckland Unitary
Plan passed in twenty sixteen, they said in thirty fifty
(16:20):
years time, we're going to have the capacity to do
this much housing. They didn't have all the infrastructure in place,
they just knew that over those decades it would be developed.
And that is what's happened, certainly with the CRL and
with wastewater also in central Auckland. So the CRL is
one of the two really big projects that they've been building,
(16:41):
and the other one is something called the Central Interceptor,
which is a big wastewater pipe that runs right through
the Isthmus and takes the waste out to Mungery where
the big plants are. And that will revolutionize the capacity
of Isthmus Auckland to manage wastewater, particularly when they're a store.
It should mean that there is no fecal contamination on
(17:03):
the beaches any longer. That's a major change. Maline is
one of the suburbs that will directly benefit from that.
So that infrastructure is there, but in places where it
more is needed. Partell is a good example. Parnell pipes
have burst recently, quite famously. There is a plan. Water
Care has a major plan for the whole city in
(17:24):
fact of when it's going to build the new infrastructure,
and it's all staged according to what they understand the
demand to be. So that's underway. It's not like the
council's doing nothing.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's funny, like we're talking about all these different suburbs
and like it seems that you look at the maps
of the proposed changes and it's like they've just circled
an entire suburb. Gone, Yeah, the apartments can go here,
the three stories can go here, how much like Nuance
is normally Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
So you are right. The government put the council on
a very strict timetable to get those new maps done.
And some of them are AI generated and there are
mistakes of them. There are places in those plans where
you go that's clearly the map makers or AI whoever
it was or whatever it was, assumed that was a
(18:19):
bigger wider road than it is. You're just not going
to be able to carry sustain that many people living
on it. So those things will change the consultation that
we will see next week when the Council comes back
to decide on the new plan change, there will be
revisions to those maps, but there'll be more. The notification
period is one of the reasons for it is it
(18:43):
allows everybody to say you've got it wrong here, and
for the Council to have a really good, careful look
at that and to modify the plans accordingly. So there
will be changes that Meghan Tyler, who's the Council's Chief
Planning officer, she says, you know, that's just the normal process.
Of course, we'll do it because that's what we always
do when we have plan changes. So we can expect
(19:06):
that happening as well.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So with these maps, though I've read about there are
overlays which then override what's been that's right.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
One of the examples of an overlay is flood risk,
which you might say this suburb is going to be
zoned for, or this part of the suburb is going
to be zoned for six story apartments because it's got
an arteria road running through it. But actually in that
part of it it's prone to flooding there, so there'll
be an overlay that protects that from development, and that
(19:36):
is what's called a special character overlay. Another kind of
special character overlay, which is much more valued by many people,
is where the housing is judged to have a particular
historic value. I suppose it might not be a historic
it be it might be a subdivision of extremely exciting
architecturally designed new places that want that are going to
(19:58):
be preserved, But actually that's not how it works in reality. Villas,
bungalows and other historic places where there's a concentration of
historic housing that gets an overlay on it. And the
best example in Auckland is Devenport. Devenport, apart from navy buildings,
(20:18):
has no buildings of any height at all. There's an
overlay over there. No one's been allowed to build anything,
so it's just the old houses.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
And how do these overlays come into it?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So what that means is if you think it a
think of a place like the Mungofold station or the
Kingston Railway station, there are places near those stations that
are within the walkable areas which have a concentration of
historic housing, and so there's a ring on the map
if you like that says okay, in those areas, you're
(20:51):
not going to have the density requirements that places outside
that ring will be subjected to. There are fewer special
Character areas is preserving historic housing in the new plan
change than there were in Plan Change seventy eight. I
think it's something like fifteen hundred fewer homes. Therefore, there
(21:12):
is concern that the city could lose a number of
those historic homes. When I say historic, I live in
one of them. Now. I live in a special Character
area where actually in our street almost all the houses
are workers cottages. They were built in the nineteenth century.
They're very simple, but over the years people have put
(21:33):
false or new verandas on them in the colonial style.
My house had the previous owners to us did that.
It looks very pretty, but it's fake, as the verandas
on most of my neighbours' houses. They are fake too.
But the council went down that street and went this
is lovely and called it a special character So that
(21:56):
limits the development on our street, which is I think
kind of weird. Which is not to say that genuine
villa streets, as there are many in Mount Eden and
Pontsybu Graylin, Devenport, et cetera, not to say that they
they are the same, they villa streets of villa streets.
Having said that, in Mount Eden, you drive around Mount Eden,
(22:20):
you will see a lot of apartment blocks already, which
happened in the seventies, and a lot of what's called
sausage flats, where because the height limit was in place,
developers built just to one or two stories, and there's
a whole lot of apartments in a row back from
the street, and they're called sausage flats in the sense
that they look like a six pack of sausages there
(22:42):
sitting next to each other, and you won't have any
green space, a very small exactly, whereas if if that
had been built as a sex story apartment block, you
could have had a park around it, you know, for
the for the residents. So that's one of the reasons
why people are saying, actually, sausage flats is not a
(23:03):
good way to develop us up. The other factor that
is significant in this is what's called walkable catchments. So
around the city center Auckland City Center there is a
twelve hundred meter walkable catchment. Effectively, they've said if you
can walk, if it's fifteen minute walk from downtown, then
you can build densely in that area. And for the
(23:26):
railway stations it's an eight hundred meta radius for a
ten minute walk. It's not an absolute radius, it's not
just a circle. They looked at the geography, they looked
at the things like where the railway lines are. You
can't just walk across a railway line, of course, and
a good example of that is Kingston Railway station, where
(23:47):
if it was just a circle, the walkable catchment would
include Great North Road on the other side of the motorway.
On the west side of the motorway, it doesn't because
that's a big dip and it's a longer walk. So
the walkable catchmentsps on the railway station side of the motorway.
So they did take account of all that. But in
those walkable catchments it will be possible to build more
(24:09):
densely because those are the places where they want people
to live close to the train station. Unless there's a
special character over it's complicated.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Finally, I just want to circle back to something at
the start. Might be sound quite surprising to hear this
number of two million homes, but that's not actually like
a promise of we're going to build two million homes.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That's correct, and it's not too many more either, as
many people have been saying. I find one of the
ways that's quite useful to look at it is to think,
if the council knows that we're going to build, let's
say we're going to build twenty thousand new homes a year.
In fact, they've never got to that. They've got to eighteen,
and the peak year, which is twenty twenty three, slipped
(24:53):
back a bit now. I think it's fourteen at the moment.
But let's say twenty. Let's say the economy picks up,
growth occurs, and they're doing twenty. That will mean over
thirty years there's something like six hundred thousand new homes,
not the two million. But if they only zoned for
six hundred thousand new homes over the next thirty years,
(25:14):
that would mean that every homeowner, every property owner, whether
you're a developer or just living in your own home,
would be required to build to the maximum the zoning
allows on that section. We would tell you own your section,
but it's zoned for three stories, so you've got to
build three stories. You know. We would tell a developer, sorry,
(25:35):
you can't put three story townhouses there. We want you
to build a six story apartment block there. And the
developer would say, it's my land. I can do this
the way I want to because it's my land. And
they might have a very good reason for not putting
six stories in because that's more expensive. You've got to
build a stronger building, you've got to put in lifts,
(25:55):
you've got to put in fire sprinklers and other things.
It's a more expensive proposition. Some developers don't have the
cash flow or don't want to take the risk to
do that. We don't live in a country where people
can be told what to do with their property in
that way. So that's why there's a much bigger capacity
than we're going to need, so that choices exist for
property owners. And it also indicates that over time, although
(26:20):
there will be more density, it absolutely does not mean
there will be density everywhere.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Well, thank you so much for joining. I shan't keep
you any longer. Yeah, I know, You're going to have
a very busy week next week dealing.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
With this great questions.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Thank you very much for joining us. That's it for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at inzidherld dot
co dot z. The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye.
I'm Richard Martin. Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio
(26:52):
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
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