The Coalition Government has partially reversed its opposition to Labour-era medium density housing rules and will now require Hamilton, Tauranga, and Wellington to keep them in law.
It is a flip-flop on a U-turn. The National Party pulled out of the bipartisan Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS) agreement in the lead up to the 2023 election, saying it didn’t give councils enough flexibility on zoning.
Instead, the party suggested it would allow councils to opt out of the MDRS if they were able to quickly put together an alternative plan to provide 30-years of housing growth.
Housing advocates warned at the time this would cause complications and delays. Even Paula Southgate, the mayor of Hamilton and opponent of the MDRS, didn’t welcome the policy shift saying cities needed certainty more than flexibility.
“It depends on them getting elected, and then living up to their election promise,” she said in May 2023. “Every time the government changes direction it costs ratepayers money. We can’t keep having plan changes.”
Her skepticism was warranted, as two years later Housing Minister Chris Bishop has decided Hamilton City will not be allowed to opt out the MDRS after all.
In a press release on Wednesday, he said most councils had spent years incorporating the MDRS into their city plans and had substantially completed the job.
“The practical reality is that if councils did vote to ‘opt out’ of the MDRS, they would have to pass a new plan change to do so, and due to the length of time this typically takes under the RMA, by the time this was complete, the Government’s new planning system is expected to be in place,” he said.
The Coalition is reforming the Resource Management Act and replacing existing planning rules with a new system aimed at speeding up housing and infrastructure development.
Because the new system will scrap individual council plans and replace them with regional frameworks, there is little point in councils opting out of the MDRS now—any changes would soon be overtaken by the wider reforms.
“Fundamentally, it would have achieved nothing, but cost ratepayers a lot,” Bishop said.
This means housing developers in Tauranga, Hamilton, and Wellington will be free to build medium-density homes almost anywhere in these cities. The compulsory MDRS is back, except in Auckland and Christchurch which have been given exemptions.
Auckland will be allowed to withdraw its incomplete housing plan, called PC78, which stalled after the Anniversary Weekend floods as the council was not legally permitted to downzone hazard-prone areas.
It will instead have until October 10 to draw up a bespoke housing plan which focuses on significantly upzoning around public transport links, such as the soon-to-open City Rail Link.
The bespoke plan must enable as much housing as the PC78 plan but it won’t be required to spread it equally across suburbs. It will instead allow housing to be concentrated in mixed-use zones around train and bus stations.
This means the suburbs of Mount Eden, Kingsland, and Morningside are likely to have heritage considerations ignored and be zoned for buildings of at least six stories — anywhere within a ten minute walk of a station.
Bishop said he expects the city to select “heights and densities that ensure we make the most of the opportunities offered by this transformational transport project”.
The $5.5 billion City Rail Link will double the number of Aucklanders who can reach the central business district within 30 minutes and double the number of trains able to run through it each hour.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown told media he was up for more intensification in the right places, such as rapid transit corridors where significant infrastructure had been built.
Christchurch will also be allowed a bespoke zoning plan as it had not finished implementing its MDRS and NPS-UD plans. Bishop said the city council will be allowed to now withdraw the MDRS elements of its final plan, provided it is able to allow for 30 years of housing growth at the same time.
Last week, the Minister rejected most of an Independent Hearings Panel’s recommendations which would have limited density in some suburbs and imposed a blanket rule to prevent new buildings casting a shadow over neighbours.
which had proposed limiting high-density zoning in suburbs such as Riccarton and Hornby, and imposing a city-wide rule to reduce shade cast by new buildings.
This intervention will mean more housing can be built in the city, but Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger said it was “incredibly disappointing” as the Council had hoped for more flexibility.
14 Comments
Last week, the Minister rejected most of an Independent Hearings Panel’s recommendations
Typical of this government
This means the suburbs of Mount Eden, Kingsland, and Morningside are likely to have heritage considerations ignored and be zoned for buildings of at least six stories
Honestly, it's a pity. They do have their charm as they are. I understand the need for better housing supply, but it can be done without destroying what is the appeal of this city - its low density
Could start with filling up the empty homes instead of destroying good neighbourhoods. I'm saying this as a European who's lived in both high and low density areas
'I understand the need for better housing supply, but it can be done without destroying what is the appeal of this city - its low density'
In physics terms, cities are nothing but a mid-stage in the (linear) extract/consume/discard regime. Stuff needs to be brought in, stuff needs to be taken out. The solar acreage needed to support cities, is 'elsewhere'.
They are therefore incapable of standing alone, and the majority of that 'elsewhere' - food for instance is many calories of oil to one of produced food - and that produced calorie already includes the real-time above-ground solar acre calories it was grown with. Meaning that beyond the carbon pulse, and the globalised system which we build on the back of it; cities are a moot societal construct.
Large parts of most, will be abandoned. Some parts - low-density and well-sited in solar terms - may survive, but ex the big-form services (a surviving suburb won't be sewering, for instance).
Both your European experiences were fossil-energy-supported. There is no scalable PlanB - everything else does electricity, and we're too late anyway - so this move of Bishop's can be seen as the last efforts of a Dominant System (the pursuit of exponential economic growth) to maintain itself. It will fail, and soon; the question, increasingly, is: What do we put in its place? And: What do we triage? The answer to the latter is: Anything housing too many humans but receiving too little solar energy. So CBDs are toast, work it out from there...
The article mis-states. Bishop actually rejected most of the CCCs NIMBY attempt to rewrite the Independent Panels recommendations at ratepayers cost.
Christchurch councillor says fighting government on housing was a 'balls-up' | Stuff
'A kick in the guts': Minister has final say on housing density rules for Christchurch | Star News
The Party Political Broadcaster is quick off the mark today
"You can’t handle the truth"
Just proves they have never had a proper understanding of local government, full stop.
I expect the next U-turn to have something to do with their cancellation of 3 Waters (central government ownership and management) and their Local Water Done Well (local government privatization of the assets and delivery) replacement. If they get another term that is. Meantime, ratepayers will see the full effects of this over the next 2 years. David Chaston pointed out the early unfolding costs - higher than the already historically high percentage rates increases. And under LWDW there will be no relief in sight - only greater percentage rate rises.
The LG revenue/taxation/funding framework simply does not have the flexibility to pay for these infrastructure deficits. I do not think they understand. If not, I have a 100-level planning lecture that would clarify this misunderstanding for them.
But it doesn't address my post above, does it?
Built structures - houses and services - tend to have lives of 50-100 years and even beyond. That means they WILL traverse the end of fossil energy. Do you - or does anyone - ask whether those structures are supportable post fossil energy?
They aren't.
So what is?
That's the only question in town.
So answer the question with data and a plan, I assume for self-sufficiency for the nation in the post-fossil world.
No good just saying we're all doomed. That does your grandchildren a dis-service.
With your knowledge - use it to chart a path forward for their country.
I'm not saying they're all doomed.
That is you, shooting the messenger.
I'm saying this construct is doomed, and we need to appraise what comes next.
Forward? Let's be more accurate: Ahead. I've gone there, for years. And can tell you it's not easy, takes thought and the acquisition of skills, takes cooperation and humanity and humility.
I've gone there, for years
So you've pointed out time and time again. But it's not scalable and you are talking construction years ago. As an exercise, design/build your house again (section included) in todays money, and make sure it meets whatever regulations exist today to get a Code of Compliance (as most people will not spend those big dollars without getting one).
Or, pick up the Building Act and tell us how the regulation should be amended in order to accommodate a development such as yours and the changing needs of a low-energy, low cost type of urban design/development.
Your vision - as is expressed in your own property development - reminds me of Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City - the idea that everyone in the city could provide enough food to sustain the household and with a form of barter system between neighbours - and a vision where work and the town centre were within walking distance for everyone - across as far as the eye can see flat plains of the American midwest.
You have the ability to create and to visualise and to communicate a blueprint for going forward. But it has to be communicated in today's cost and regulatory environment, like it or not. And if you don't like it - then recommend how it (the regulation) needs to be changed so that we can become a nation of build-your-own dwelling builders.
If we reduce population - and mother nature will force that on us anyway - then we don't need to build anything, indeed we will be able to pick and choose.
All regulations have been usurped by vested interests - essentially a commandeering of the remaining commons.
I'd drop the lot, barring coverage and shadowing/impacting. All the rest is ticket-clippers and backside-coverers.
So no it doesn't - today's regulatory environment (a word stolen, as is ecosystem - propaganda is insidious) is unsustainable, and therefore will not continue. Why use it as an impediment to deep thinking?
We (well, more appropriately, the world) is reducing population as we speak;
- Fertility is falling everywhere: rich and poor countries alike, booming and stagnating economies, secular and religious societies. The decline is happening far faster than anyone anticipated, even me, ten years ago!
- For example, Colombia’s fertility rate is 1.06, Iran’s is 1.44, and Turkey’s is 1.48, all of which are below the U.S.
- The decline accelerated around 2014, well before the COVID pandemic.
- As a result, humanity’s fertility is likely already below the replacement rate.
- Many assume the replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman. That’s true for rich, advanced economies. But not for emerging economies, where selective abortion and higher young female mortality push the replacement rate higher. Thus, for humanity, the replacement rate is closer to 2.2.
- The 2024 UN World Population Prospects are riddled with data and forecasts that, frankly, make little sense to my coauthor Patrick Norrick (at AEI ) and me.
- Most of the differences in economic growth among advanced economies over the past 35 years can be attributed to demographic factors. Once adjusted for this, Japan’s economic performance is roughly on par with the U.S.
Have sent you the full substack article via email.
But let me get you right. You'd drop all regulation. Have you visited today's urban development in Brazil, for example. Would you like to see NZ adopt a barrio future? Is that what you are saying?
I just don't 'get' why you resist helping wider society by turning your deep thinking into workable plans/solutions. Interest.co.nz is a perfect platform. Humanity could all live sustainably - I have to believe that for my grandkids who will be here for another (minimum) 70 years. And they'll want children, I suspect - and their children will want children. It's a human thing. And population will "right" itself. I think that too is predicted by the MIT model.
Reducing too slowly to address overshoot/depletion.
So there will be war(s) over what's left.
Rules at global and national scale, are essentially a child of surplus energy. Probably not maintainable (enforceable) far ahead of now.
Local rules are different - and some leadership wil be inspired, some not so.
I teach skills and lateral thinking, nowadays. Maker/DIY skills, food-production and preservation skills, Systems-thinking skills. Warning is taking a back seat as time runs out.
"Because the new system will scrap individual council plans and replace them with regional frameworks, there is little point in councils opting out of the MDRS now—any changes would soon be overtaken by the wider reforms."
If a CC has used the MDRS in its LTDP, how can the wider reforms make it more difficult for them?
For Akl and ChCh CC perhaps they should have accepted the MDRS or were they so different that the original MDRS was not applicable to them?
Was the original MDRS so bad that the CCs after allowing for it and then being relieved of having to carry it out decide to do a new one of their own? Beginning to think those who were forced initially to do it and then allowed to opt out later were bamboozled by their officials into saying MDRS was a bad idea let's do our own one. Perhaps those who know more can elucidate for their respective CC.
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