Council staff recommend stripping density from local centres, keeping transport corridors
Auckland's contentious housing intensification plan is set to shrink again, with council staff recommending six-storey apartment zoning be stripped from more than 20 local centres while density is retained along train lines and busy bus routes, according to 1News.
Local centres dropped, transport corridors retained
Councillors are due to vote on the staff advice at today's planning committee meeting, weighing a hybrid option that would shrink the plan's zoned capacity to between 1.5 and 1.7 million homes — above the legal minimum of 1.4 million dwellings the council must enable under central government rules.
The recommended option removes six-storey apartment and terraced housing zoning from local centres including Grey Lynn, Mt Roskill, Blockhouse Bay, and Mairangi Bay, while retaining apartment zoning along train lines and frequent bus routes within roughly 10km of the CBD.
Planning committee chair Richard Hills told RNZ the changes reflected feedback from local boards, who largely wanted density removed from smaller local centres while accepting the legally mandated density elsewhere.
"We're largely landing in the place where we're doing all the legal requirements, but adding density, so that's six-storey developments around frequent transport corridors — the really, really busy bus routes, mostly heading into the city," Hills said.
He noted the pared-back approach would leave only around 15% of urban Auckland affected by the plan change.
Price impact more modest under scaled-back plan
Auckland Council chief economist Gary Blick estimated the recommended option could mean 13% fewer new homes built over the next decade compared with the original two-million-home plan, with future house prices projected to be 3% to 5% lower than under current zoning — a smaller impact than the 5% to 8% reduction modelled under the fuller intensification option. Both scenarios would concentrate roughly 30% of new homes within 10km of the CBD, up from 17% under the existing Unitary Plan.
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