Zoning changes imminent
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The Government recently issued a National Policy Statement - Urban Density (NPS-UD) which requires that Councils change their planning rules to allow what they said was the development of up to 3 dwellings of up to 3 storeys on virtually every site in all major cities in new Zealand without any resource consent or input from affected residents or the Council.
Auckland Council is now proposing changes to the Unitary Plan to accommodate this. They are asking for feedback from the public on their proposed changes by midnight on Monday 9 May 2022. These changes completely change the character of our suburbs, and so we encourage you to make a submission. It is very easy; just click here. We have provided further information to help you understand the issues, and to respond. Link to planning maps online viewer Our presentation to Council 6 May 2022 Guide to filling out the feedback form Our concerns Email politicians |
We recently sent the following emailo to the Mayor and each of the Auckland Council Councillors. We received a detailed reply from our local Councillor, Desley Simpson, but nothing from any other councillor - a bit disappointing.
Dear Councillor ___ Implementation of the Resource Management Amendment Act We, the Mission Bay Kohimarama Residents Association, recognise that the recently proposed changes to the Unitary Plan are necessary to accommodate the requirements of the Resource Management Amendment Act and the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, and that Council has relatively little control over the outcomes. We are very concerned, however, that it appears that there may well be serious unintended consequences arising from the way that Council staff are proposing to implement these requirements. Use of MHU zone to meet government requirements Council has chosen to modify the MHU zone rules to match the government requirements, and then to upzone virtually all MHS zones to MHU. This gives rise to two serious issues that we suspect are unintended but can be expected to have a huge detrimental impact on Auckland’s future. 1. While the government is only requiring 3 dwellings per site as-of-right (4 dwellings with a non-notified consent), MHU has no limit to the number of dwellings, and so Council is going well beyond what the government requires. The difference is highly significant. 3 dwellings per site will encourage the development of townhouses, flats and houses on subdivided lots, but will tend to discourage apartment blocks because they will still need resource consent. Conversely, unlimited dwellings per site will encourage apartment blocks rather than lower intensity forms of development. In short, the government is encouraging medium density housing character, but the Council is going beyond this to encourage high density. The result will be that any previous Council attempts to differentiate between different areas to retain some diversity of housing and character will be lost. We find it hard to believe that this was intentional. 2. The other serious issue with this approach relates to non-conforming developments. The Unitary Plan basically says that when rules are breached, the development is evaluated against the Policies and Objectives for the zone. Currently, the Policies and Objectives for MHU and MHS are different, as the intent in the Plan was for MHU to be more urban in character, and MHS more suburban. The Council’s approach of combining MHU and MHS into a single new MHU zone means, however, that any non-conforming applications will be assessed against the MHU Policies and Objectives. There is no reason why Council cannot retain two separate zones with different Policies and Objectives, even if the rules in each zone have to be similar or identical. This would allow the Council to maintain their previous intent of two separate zones, one more urban in character, and the other more suburban. For example, it would be possible to make it very difficult to exceed 3 levels in the suburban zone, but significantly easier in the urban zone. By choosing to cover virtually all of Auckland’s low and medium density areas with a single residential zone, the Council relinquishes the ability to have any further influence over the development standards at a suburban level. This cannot be good planning, and presumably is just an unintended consequence. Instead, we propose that Council modify the rules within the existing MHU and MHS zones to conform to government requirements, and carefully consider how to draft the Policies and Objectives to achieve different outcomes in different zones. Special Character We are also concerned about the loss of special character areas from our city. The work originally undertaken for the Unitary Plan identified areas that had character worth preserving, and the mechanisms chosen to preserve this were through overlays such as Special Character and Significant Ecological Area overlays, as well as zoning rules for zones such as Single House Zone and Large Lot Zone. Now we are told that despite the research that arrived at these outcomes, we are going to eliminate most of these protections. We believe that this is a decision that all Aucklanders will come to regret in the future and will accelerate the loss of valuable character. It is our understanding that Special Character overlays affect only 3% of the dwellings in Auckland. It is clear that whatever is done with these areas will have virtually no impact on the availability of land or housing, but has the potential to destroy much of the character that Aucklanders hold dear. There is a huge imbalance of risk and reward that suggests taking a conservative approach until more study can be undertaken and greater consensus achieved. We suggest, given the existing requirement for a review of the Unitary Plan by 2025, that Council encourage the government to defer the rezoning of Special Character until the 2025 review. We accept that this may be politically difficult to achieve, but there are no practical reasons to push this through urgently, only political reasons. We simply ask you to try. If this is not possible, then we encourage Councillors to try to retain as much character as possible. This can be achieved by setting a lower bar to qualify for Special Character, for example by allowing properties scoring 4, 5 and 6 on the Council’s scale to qualify, not just 5 and 6. Conclusion In determining the way forward on this vexed issue, we ask you to please fight for Auckland's future rather than choosing the simplest way to implement the government's edict. Yours sincerely Don Stock Chairman Mission Bay Kohimarama Residents Association
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You can see the proposed changes in the maps above. The tan areas that almost completely cover the proposed map are a modified version of the Mixed Housing Urban zone. This allows for unlimited numbers of apartments of up to 4 storeys (12m high) to be built as of right, with no resource consents required, no input from neighbours, and no input from the Council.
The lower map shows the existing zones, where the dominant zones are mixed housing suburban or single house zones shown in yellow. These zones allow for houses of 1-2 storeys. The contrast is huge. This will fundamentally change the character of all suburbs across Auckland from a predominantly house streetscape to an apartment block streetscape. While additional intensification may be good in some places, the Government is eliminating any choice to retain any traditional suburbs anywhere. |
AuthorDon Stock, Chair of Mission Bay Kohimarama Residents Association Our video submission to Council
9 May 2022 by video conference |