Auckland Council’s Policy and Planning Committee conducted an intense and heated seven-hour meeting back in September to consider two Government options for Auckland’s future planning regulations. By Alan Titchall.
Both options had to meet the Government’s demands to boost the number of dwellings Auckland can accommodate, based on estimates of future demand. The Government had stipulated that, whatever the council decided at the meeting, enabling up to two million more dwellings was locked in.
Mayor Wayne Brown said Housing Minister Chris Bishop told him this process needed to be completed in 18 months. So, if more time was spent locking in the plan there would be less time for consultation. He also said Bishop made it clear, had his council not made a decision, he would have.
Where it began
In 2022, the Labour Government (with agreement from National) hit tier one cities with new infill rules that rode over council urban plans and allowed three-storey homes to be built on most urban sites across the Auckland region.
Auckland Council then obediently brought these changes through ‘Plan Change 78’ that allowed for widespread housing density that enabled three homes of three storeys across most of urban Auckland, and five- to seven-storey buildings around the city centre, town centres and metropolitan centres, like Newmarket and Manukau.
A lot of this is driven by the massive (budget blow-out) $5.5 billion investment the Crown and Auckland Council have made in the 3.4 km City Rail Link (CRL), presuming planners have correctly estimated the extra passenger traffic it is meant to bring as a return on public investment.
It is also presumed a new percentage of Aucklanders will want to live and work in the inner city and employment opportunities will be there.
The obvious challenge
In January 2023, Auckland was hit with a summer cyclone (as it does about every 25 years) resulting in severe flooding and highlighting a lack of stormwater infrastructure and an urgent need for better rules to manage the risks of flooding and other natural hazards on homes and buildings in the future. Unfortunately, Plan Change 78, already underway, did not accommodate “restrictive zoning in areas with severe natural hazard risks”.
This year the Auckland Council lobbied Government for a law change so it did not have to apply the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) and ‘downzone’ areas of the city vulnerable to natural hazards like floods. In August 2025, as requested by Auckland Council, Parliament passed a law allowing Auckland Council to withdraw its controversial Plan Change 78 but only if it replaced it with another plan change that supports at least the same amount of dwellings-capacity (the equivalent of two million dwellings, referred to optimistically as “homes” in official Kiwi-speak).
This is beside the fact whether such a volume of dwelling is needed or even gets built by the real-estate market. And, as the council pointed out, since 2018 the city has built around 14,000 dwellings a year (approximately 100,000) which is the fastest pace ever, and it would take over 100 years to reach two million.
Auckland councillor Ken Turner argued the city did not need to zone for as much housing as the Government required. “We have to sign up to a capacity which we will never use in our lifetimes, or maybe even the lifetimes of others. Is that not the definition of irrational? Not logical or reasonable?”
Other criticisms of the Government’s urban intensification is that it does not account for Auckland’s well-protected and preserved special character areas, and the programme has been rushed through without enough public consultation.
Cliches versus social reality
Central and local government announcements share a lot of cliches in common at the expense of ‘detail’ such as ‘social anthropology’ and the folks who their polices are actually aimed at, resulting in a ‘disconnect’ between politicians talking up (and taking credit for) the ‘possible’ and the reality of living in ‘Aotearoa’.
Who exactly are the people who are going to want to live in and rent 15-storey apartments and what sort of employment will they be offered in the CBD?
In the middle of the ‘discussion’ over Auckland’s future urban design came a scathing survey conducted from September 23 to 26 that found that the businesses that are at the working centre of Auckland’s CBD are in despair over a lack of policing; general “neglect and disorder”; “frightening” antisocial behaviour crippling trade; and a lack of parking, all of which discourages Aucklanders from visiting their inner city.
Over 90 per cent of those surveyed say rough sleepers and begging were affecting their business, and over 80 per cent say the city centre will not currently attract significantly more people and investment. So, while the council and the government have been promising the ‘rewards’ from the CRL and the likes of the new convention centre, the reality is that the CBD – according to businesses surveyed recently – is a trouble spot with vagrancy, unmanaged rubbish and litter, “defecating in the streets”, drug dealers, and other degenerate and tolerated behaviour.
Who would want to live and work in such an environment and who will be supplying the employment opportunities in this overly-touted CRL ‘opportunity’ that looks like it will only get worse? And it makes you wonder what it does for the city’s much-needed tourism industry.
Following the survey results the NZ Herald went out into the city streets and asked inner-city residents and commuters what they thought, receiving a resounding chorus of “unsafe” (particularly at night) and an iteration of the transient problem (homelessness and un-home-able), plaguing the city; dirtiness and scary folks who arguably reflect our current mental health services.
The replacement plan
Caught between ‘Bishop’s choice’, the majority of councillors supported the new plan because it was more workable than the original option, which imposed medium-density residential standards on all Auckland urban areas.
Councillors voted 18 to five for dropping Change 78 for the Government’s high-rise alternative called Plan Change 120.
The council says the new plan allows it to apply a more focused approach to housing growth with apartment buildings of up to six, 10 and 15-storeys around the city centre, metropolitan centres and near fast and frequent public transport.
Auckland Council says it can apply stronger rules to steer development away from areas with a high risk of flooding, coastal erosion and other natural hazards with updated hazard maps – presumably based on the January 2023 floods that could have been a one-in-one hundred weather event? Some of these areas would be downzoned, and any building in a hazard risk area would need a stricter risk assessment, no matter the land zoning.
Any development in a hazard risk area must go through a strict risk assessment before it is considered for approval, says the council. This applies regardless of zoning. It will be harder to get permission to build where there is a risk of flooding or other natural hazards.
Infrastructure
Auckland Transport and Watercare claims this ‘focused’ approach of the replacement plan change instead of Plan Change 78 means it can handle the extra transport and water infrastructure any urban infill will obviously need.
What we call Auckland inner city was planned, designed and built closer to 19th century than the 21st, and it is a lot more difficult to retro-fit service in structure. However, Auckland Council says the likes of new water pipes and roads will be planned and staged as part of an integrated planning process with other agencies.
What happens now
The council had to confirm its decision with the Government by 10 October, which it did. Now a public submission period will run from November 3 to December 19. There will be hearings following that and it will be wrapped up in 18 months’ time.
The council says it could take at least two years for Plan Change 78, and any additional plan changes to deal with natural hazards, to become operative.