Ministers have ordered Auckland Council to enable greater development around city rail stations. Photo: RNZ / Kate Newton
How Auckland Council will allocate up to two million new homes across the city in the coming decades will become clearer on Wednesday.
Councillors will decide whether to continue with Plan Change 78, which allows for three-storey residential buildings to be erected anywhere in the city, or take up Plan Change 120, which focuses on 10-15-storey high-rises around public transport hubs in some central-city areas.
Earlier this year, Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Auckland Minister Simeon Brown directed Auckland Council to allow for even greater housing and development around City Rail Link stations.
Character Coalition's Sally Hughes has been one of the leading community leaders concerned with the plans and says they've been rushed through by authorities.
"I think it's the rushed nature of this plan that has people the most worried," she said. "There is some misinformation circling, because nature abhors a vacuum and so people, when they didn't know what really was going to happen, they got really anxious.
"There is pushback over character, because the special character areas are already so tiny that any reduction of them is always a concern. I think, generally, people are just concerned about the extent of the intensification and that it's just been sort of put all over, and they would have liked to have had a say.
"We don't want to retain the Plan Change 78, because there's a lot that isn't good for character and heritage, but the new plan, while it is a bit different, it does require the same capacity of intensification.
"There's some downsides for that too. There are some positives, but there are also still, for some areas, some really extreme intensification."
Ōrākei local board member Troy Churton has been another outspoken critic of the housing plans and feels frustration before the vote.
"Personally, I'm still disappointed, because the nature of the vote is still within the framework that's been set by central government, which is we have to come up with a plan change based on a two million housing site capacity. Because of that, I think the choices that council has are grossly distorted."
While he was concerned around the retention of special character across Auckland, he said it was a distraction from the bigger picture.
"Less than three percent of the total residential land available has a special character overlay in it, so I don't believe anybody's going to be that prejudiced, if we go to the effort of saving that special character overlay and we can offset that to get capacity elsewhere.
"The problem is that, by having a two million capacity setting, we are forcing council to make zoning changes that can lead to significantly bad outcomes and spot areas of poor intensification all across the city landscape."
Hughes said she also wasn't convinced by the economic argument put forward by the government.
"Thinking about the unitary plan again in 2016, 900,000 zoning opportunities were put forward in that plan, but they haven't been taken up," she said. "Less than 20 percent capacity has been taken up over the last 10 years and housing prices have certainly not gone down.
"We don't think that is a justification for flooding the market, as Minister Chris Bishop says, with a whole lot of extra zoned properties."
Churton said housing supply was "a very distinct beast from housing affordability, which is an income-related issue for most people".
"I just think there's an opportunity for this government to be far more responsible, and let council have far more time and do it right.
"We are going down a road to ruin, in my view, with the current approach."
Auckland Council chief economist Gary Blick said land zoned for more intensive housing tended to increase in value, because it allowed for more productive use.
"When we enable more to be done with land, we're improving its productive potential," he said. "We're allowing for more development potential and the value of that gets capitalised into the land, so we generally see an increase in the value of land, when we enable more development potential."
"While land value does appreciate, it means you can do more with that land and you can be more flexible about how you use it. You've got more flexibility to have more homes on that piece of land and so that actually enables the expensive bit of a home, which is the land.
"You're giving people the choice to use less of it and so that's supportive of people having more choice for their income. If you can think of buying into a location, you might not be able to afford a full section, but you could afford part of a site, if you've got a multi-unit type dwelling, so that could be a terraced house or an apartment building."
Marcus Amosa of the Avondale Business Association said the intensification of housing also represented opportunities for small businesses. He's also been a resident in Avondale for the past five years or so.
"If I wear my business association hat, 100 percent, I am for the customers," he said. "If I am wearing my community resident's hat, you want that vibrancy connection with people, so I am for it both ways.
"My thoughts as a resident are that the vibrancy of our town requires people - different kinds of people and all sorts of people" he said. "Personally, I am supportive and, from a business association perspective, I am also supportive."
Dinesh Mani of the New Lynn Business Association supported that view.
"I think businesses will benefit quite a lot from it, especially restaurants and small business owners, apart from the mall, will benefit from intensification through people coming into New Lynn," he said.
Blick said planning rules weren't only about housing supply - they were also an economic lever.
"I can imagine that, for some local centres or town centres, enabling a bit more density around those centres, where people can walk to access the services that are already there, it's probably quite beneficial for those customer-facing services, if they're in retail, personal services or even hospitality.
"You've got more people in your local catchment that might be able to access your business, so it might support the sustainability of businesses that are already there, as well as perhaps support the growth and business hubs."
If council decides to withdraw and replace Plan Change 78, Aucklanders could have their say through public submissions from 3 November to 16 December.
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