Housing Minister Chris Bishop has brought back blanket medium-density rules for most large cities, while offering Christchurch and Auckland bespoke intensification plans

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.