Fine-tuning of the intensification instrument wielded by council took place in Auckland yesterday, with the majority of councillors voting to move forward with new zoning policies
Auckland Council has voted in favour of new zoning policy allowing for intensification, along with a list of exemptions to protect certain areas of Auckland’s rural towns, coastal areas at risk of erosion, areas of cultural significance to Māori and special character neighbourhoods.
The vote by Auckland Council’s planning committee on Thursday afternoon was carried 14 to zero, with seven abstentions.
Planning committee chair Chris Darby voted for, along with mayor hopeful Efeso Collins, deputy mayor Bill Cashmore and councillors Josephine Bartley, Pippa Coom, Linda Cooper, Alf Filipaina, Angela Dalton, Richard Hills, Daniel Newman, Paul Young and members Karen Wilson and Glenn Wilcox.
Councillor Shane Henderson also voted for the proposal, but voiced his dissent for special character areas putting a stop to intensification.
Councillors Christine Fletcher, Tracy Mulholland, Greg Sayers, Desley Simpson, Sharon Stewart, Wayne Walker and John Watson all abstained from voting.
Mayor Phil Goff and councillor Cathy Casey were both absent from proceedings.
The vote was a fine-tuning of the council’s intensification planning instrument - the set of rules development in Auckland will be governed by once central Government’s new policy on urban development is rolled out around the country.
The council was obliged to notify the public of its position before August 20, when a final period of consultation begins and the public is able to make submissions on the zoning changes.
It’s a step closer to the final form the rules will take, after two years of deliberation by the council and hours of behind-the-scenes work by staffers.
“It’s been arduous, it’s been all-consuming and demanding of this committee,” said Darby. But finally, the committee has made its penultimate decision.
From the ensuing consultation period it goes to an independent panel which is expected to deliver its recommendations towards the end of next year. The final council decision will be made by the potentially different faces around the council table in March of 2024.
Thursday’s vote enshrined certain qualifying matters which will protect parts of Auckland from intensification.
These include areas with water and wastewater infrastructure constraints, areas set aside as open space or community zones, and areas of Māori cultural significance - namely, Pukekiwiriki Pā and Pararēkau Island near Papakura.
The vote also prevents medium residential standards from being upheld in rural towns that recorded a population of fewer than 5000 in the 2018 Census.
Among these are Helensville, Karaka, Maraetai, Riverhead, Wellsford, Te Hana, Matakana, Clevedon, Waiwera and Kumeu-Huapai.
Lastly, the vote endorses low-density residential zoning in significant ecological areas, areas at risk of coastal flooding and erosion and most controversially, in areas considered special character.
The special character overlay is a categorisation of certain neighbourhoods where the villas and bungalows of an early Auckland are given protection for historical and aesthetic reasons.
The debate in council chambers at times grew heated as councillors disputed the merits of leaving these areas untouched.
Waitakere councillor Shane Henderson asked council staff how many properties had been added to special character protection, despite only a third of submitting respondents calling for expansion of the protections.
Around 400 had been added on balance, with 734 added and 330 removed from the category.
“I'm a bit confused as to why, given the minority, we've ended up with more properties. So what's the nature of the feedback that we're taking into account?” Henderson said.
Auckland Council heritage manager Noel Reardon’s answer makes it appear there is an idea of quality over quantity when it comes to feedback.
“We received feedback from a number of heritage and rate-payers groups,” he said. “The volume is irrelevant in terms of considering feedback.”
Henderson said the expansion of special character areas was a “dereliction of our duties”, but nevertheless put his vote behind the rest of the policies up for debate.
Meanwhile, councillors like Christine Fletcher expressed enormous reservations about the new rules, comparing them unfavourably to the historical legacy of the Sky Tower, which celebrated its 25th birthday on Wednesday.
“A lot of people 25 years ago were very unhappy about the Sky Tower. It was going to be seen as this monstrosity on the landscape,” she said. “Now there’s a fondness that people identify with it. I do not believe in 25 years' time we're going to look back with fondness at what we did with this national policy statement.”
She had choice words for politicians in central Government for bringing about the bipartisan policy, which she called an attack on local democracy and finances.
“We've got our parliamentarians rolling around like drunken or drugged party-goers staggering making grand statements that don't understand the long-term consequences of what they are doing,” she said. “They want to be seen to be associated with housing solutions.”
Darby also had concerns about overreach by central Government.
“The Government deadline was to be met by hook or by crook, and given the truncated response time it is a big risk that we have overlooked matters,” he said. “I can say hand on heart that we have done our very best within the constraints that have been given to us.... that's what happens when legislation is rushed.”
He appealed to Wellington to pursue a more collaborative relationship with local government.
“My message to the Government is please do not repeat that very un-collaborative way of centralised corporate urbanism, it does not fit this nation and it does not fit this city,” he said. “Localised urbanism is the future and that centralised model is not. But they hatched that plan, they delivered it to us, and we have to live with it.”
Councillor Glenn Wilcox said intensification was already happening unchecked, and the new rulebook was just a way of bringing it into visibility.
“As far as intensification is concerned, you hop on the train from Papakura [and] you can already see it in the backyards and the garages,” he said. “Intensification has already happened in a lot of these places, it's just unregulated.”
He said a shift to a new housing paradigm for the city wasn’t going to be easy, but remains the only path forward.
“If we don't do nothing, we actually end up with a bigger mess.”
