Auckland's housing intensification plan would shrink to between 1.5 and 1.7 million homes, under a staff proposal to councillors — with upzoning kept for bus and train lines but stripped from two dozen local centres.
Councillors are due to consider the advice from council staff at a planning committee meeting today, where they will vote on what moves forward in the process.
Staff have recommended a hybrid of the two intensification scale-back options consulted on last month, retaining capacity above a legal minimum of 1.4 million.
The most notable change includes the removal of six-storey apartment and terraced house zoning from more than two dozen "local centres" across the region — including Grey Lynn, Herne Bay's Jervois Rd, Mt Roskill, Blockhouse Bay, Mairangi Bay and others.
Controversial zoning changes known as plan change 120 will introduce more high-rise buildings to certain suburbs. (Source: 1News)
While the upzoning around the centres themselves may revert to existing plans, apartment zoning would remain along train lines and also frequent bus lines running past many local centres if they were within 10km of the CBD.
Bigger "town centres" would also retain six-storey apartment zoning.
Auckland Council planning committee chairperson Richard Hills told 1News the proposal capped five years of back-and-forth over the shape of the region's intensification.
"It has gone through a lot of changes and ups and downs, but this obviously has a far clearer direction — that housing should be built where the infrastructure is, especially transport and water."
He noted the recommended plan still meant the overwhelming majority of Aucklanders would now see no zoning changes for a street near them.
"Some people will be happy with that. Some people potentially won't like that," he said.
"It does give us a clear plan moving forward, especially for figuring out where the next generation wants to live and where people want to downsize from their homes as they get older, and provide different types of housing nearer the city centre and transport."
He said the recommendation also again strengthened provisions to reduce building in flood zones and hazardous areas, as the original plan had done.
The proposal, Plan Change 120, is a Government-driven rezoning designed to boost housing affordability by enabling more development. Councillors have spent months winding it back after Housing Minister Chris Bishop walked back legal requirements.
The plan had originally been required to zone for at least two million homes when it was notified last October, attracting about 10,000 submissions, before Bishop slashed the figure this year.
Cabinet has agreed to reduce the minimum housing capacity the supercity must zone for from approximately two million dwellings to 1.6 million. (Source: 1News)
In June, Auckland Council's planning committee agreed to consult local boards and iwi on two scale-back options — a stripped-back "essentials only" plan and a slightly more ambitious version — with the latest staff advice now blending the two.
At the time, Mayor Wayne Brown said he wanted a plan focused on density in the right places, rather than "simply hearing from the loudest groups and individuals who are against virtually everything".
Staff said a capacity buffer above the minimum would ensure a hearings panel "retains some flexibility to listen to Aucklanders' submissions and respond accordingly".
House prices 3% to 5% lower under staff-proposed plan
Auckland Council chief economist Gary Blick estimated that a plan similar to the recommended option could mean about 13% fewer new homes built over the next decade, compared to the original plan to zone for up to two million dwellings.
Future house prices were estimated to be 3% to 5% lower than under current zoning rules, compared with 5% to 8% lower under the full two-million-home version.
Both versions would concentrate growth closer in, with around 30% of new homes expected within 10km of the CBD, compared with 17% under the existing Unitary Plan.
Average rental price in New Zealand has also dropped 3% to $626 per week, according to realestate.co.nz figures. (Source: 1News)
A bare minimum option - known as "Scenario A" - given to councillors last month would only reduce house prices by 1% to 2% with fewer productivity gains from density.
Staff have also recommended the council formally withdraw the plan change across residential areas no longer proposed for rezoning — a step that would rule existing submissions on those areas out of scope for the hearings process.
The report acknowledged the trade-off, stating withdrawal "would also remove the ability for Aucklanders to submit in those areas" and would result "in some submitters no longer being able to achieve the outcome they sought".
But staff said narrowing the plan would give the council and submitters greater certainty, cut the number of hearing topics and associated costs, and give the council "the best chance" of meeting its statutory deadline for final decisions by June 30, 2027.
Hills acknowledged the trade-off, saying that with no change proposed across about 85% of Auckland, it was "faster and cheaper" to withdraw those areas.
"It does mean that those people don't get to have a say on their property, because it just goes back to what it was under the Unitary Plan," he said.
After the vote on the plan tomorrow, it will go out for public submissions for 20 working days and an independent hearings panel process.
It then lands back on councillors' desks next year for approval — at which point, making further changes would be "quite difficult" unless the panel's recommendations were out of step with submissions, Hills said.
Local centres dropped from recommended proposal
The recommended option strips six-storey apartment and terraced house zoning from more than 20 local centres, walking back a form of intensification that councillors had earlier voted to keep on the table for consultation.
Those local centres include Albany Village, Balmoral, Blockhouse Bay, Botany Junction, Chatswood, Clendon, Dawsons Road, Eden Valley, Greenlane West, Grey Lynn, Hobsonville, Jervois Rd in Herne Bay, Kelston, Kepa Road/Eastridge, Lynfield, Mairangi Bay, Māngere East, Meadowbank, Meadowlands, Mt Roskill, Mt Wellington, and Te Atatū South. The zoning would've applied within 200m of the edge of each local centre.
The retreat marks a shift from the "Scenario B" option consulted on last month, which had retained six-storey zoning around the local centres. Under the most stripped-back "Scenario A" option, those centres had always been set to be removed.
But apartment and terraced housing would still be kept along frequent bus lines within roughly 10km of the city centre — such as Great North Rd, Dominion Rd and Sandringham Rd — many of which go through those same neighbourhood centres.
One area gains upzoning — the Remuera Rd bus corridor may be extended to St Johns Rd and College Rd — reflecting feedback that the frequent bus line continues down the road.
In the staff proposal, heights at Meadowbank train station were trimmed down to six storeys, with overall intensification also reduced around the edges of Takapuna.
The zone for 15-storey towers around the future Maungawhau station in Eden Terrace would also shrink, after Auckland Transport advised the council early this month that the City Rail Link station would have a single entrance rather than three.
How the plan got here
Auckland has been wrestling with the rezoning of its Unitary Plan since 2021, when then-bipartisan reforms first required widespread townhouse zoning across major cities.
At stake was how Auckland responded to a housing shortfall that drove prices to what were widely seen as "crisis" levels in the 2010s.
Plan Change 120 replaced the earlier proposal, Plan Change 78, which had entitled most property owners to build up to three homes of three storeys on one site.
The replacement plan had initially zoned for the same overall amount of housing, but more densely focused around town centres and public transport.
Pro-housing advocates argue zoning capacity must significantly exceed demand for the market to work — giving developers enough choice of sites to make projects viable and allowing prices to respond to demand, making them lower than they would otherwise be.
Residents' groups have argued that further intensification made possible under the changed zoning signalled the wholesale transformation of established neighbourhoods.
Concerns were most acute in inner-city suburbs like Mt Eden and Parnell, which hold "character" protections on aesthetic and architectural grounds. Others raised concerns about infrastructure and the amenity impacts of taller buildings, including on sunlight.
The mayor says the council's hands are tied as it's having to bow to the Government's push for greater housing intensification. (Source: 1News)
Amid an election year, the plan had become a political lightning rod before Bishop's backdown, with the two million figure seized on by opponents as proof it went too far — despite being a measure of theoretical zoned capacity rather than a building target.
The region's existing zoning already accounts for around 1.2 million additional homes. Bishop flagged a reduction from a minimum of two million to 1.6 million in February before Parliament legislated the lower 1.4 million floor in March.
The minister said at the time the changes would mean "more growth around the areas that make the most economic sense and where there is the most support — City Rail Link stations, rapid transit stations, metropolitan centres".
Councillors voted in June to consult local boards and iwi on two scale-back scenarios — but only after an amendment to adopt the bare-minimum option alone was defeated.
"It's been five years — hopefully... we can move forward with a plan to get this over and done with," Hills said.
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