Latest news with #NationalPolicyStatementonUrbanDevelopment
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
'A kick in the guts': Minister has final say on housing density rules for Christchurch
The Government has issued its final decisions on a number of matters referred to it as part of the planning process for greater housing density in Christchurch. Minister for RMA Reform Chris Bishop has given Christchurch City Council his decisions on 20 alternative recommendations put forward by the council for its Housing and Business Choice Plan Change (Plan Change 14). Of those 20 alternative recommendations, Bishop has accepted three and deferred three, meaning the remaining 14 decisions default to the original recommendations made last year by the plan change's Independent Hearings Panel. The decisions take immediate effect. For example, the high-density zoning for Hornby, Riccarton and Linwood will now come in line with the IHP's recommendations. The minister also rejected the council's biggest recommendation, which sought to apply a special city-wide restriction to high-density developments, to provide greater sunlight access than is currently allowed for in Christchurch under the national Medium-Density Residential Standards (MDRS). This was a key concern of the council given its concerns over the shading effects of development on neighbours. Mayor Phil Mauger says the minister's response is incredibly disappointing for our city. 'In putting these decisions forward to the Government, we obviously wanted to get all of our alternative recommendations approved. So, to only have three of them get the tick is a kick in the guts. 'This plan change has been a huge undertaking for our city, and we've said right the way through that we want to get the best outcome we possibly can. This doesn't feel like the best outcome. 'To that end, we'll keep working hard as a council, and there are still major decisions yet to be made when it comes to housing density and planning across much of Christchurch, so watch this space.' To date, the council has only made decisions on Plan Change 14 that relate to policies 3 and 4 of the Government's National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which require greater building development within and around the central city, suburban commercial centres, and planned high-frequency and high-capacity public transport routes. Decisions have also been made on financial contributions for tree canopy cover and select other zonings. That means the council is yet to decide what housing intensification will look like for the rest of the city, which needs to be completed by the Government's deadline of December 12 this year, along with the balance of Plan Change 14's decisions. The Government has also proposed a Bill to modify the Resource Management Act to allow councils to withdraw undecided parts of Intensification Planning Instruments, such as Plan Change 14. That Bill is expected to become law in August and may allow the Council to limit the extent of where MDRS – which allows up to three dwellings of up to three storeys to be developed without resource consent – applies across the city. The council is waiting on further information from the Government's Select Committee on the Bill, which is expected to come later this month. Read the minister's letter here Plan Change 14 alternative recommendations Accepted: An increased building height overlay (to 36m) for the former Stockyards salesyards at 25 Deans Avenue Aligning the High Density Residential zoning for 231 Milton Street and 12 Johnson Street to parcel boundaries Local Centre Intensification Precinct around 8 of the commercial centres across the city e.g. Barrington, Prestons, Wigram. Rejected: Limiting High Density residential zoning around Riccarton, Hornby and Linwood, including any modification of associated height controls Restricting the commercial Town Centre Zone building height and any other modification of standards for Hornby and Linwood Not applying Medium Density Residential zone around the Peer Street Local Centre Changing the zoning for 20 Deans Avenue from Residential Medium Density to Mixed Use zone Greater consideration of Papanui War Memorial Avenues Applying the City Spine qualifying matter Sunlight access qualifying matter Riccarton Bush Interface Area qualifying matter Decreasing the threshold of consent within the Airport Noise Influence Area and removal of the a clause requiring notification clause to Christchurch International Airport. Deferred: Removal of the heritage listing and setting for Antonio Hall (265 Riccarton Road) and Daresbury House Removal of Piko Residential Character Area qualifying matter The Minister will make decisions on the council's remaining three alternative recommendations – related to Daresbury House, Antonio Hall, and the Piko Residential Character Area – after the balance of Plan Change 14 has been decided by the council.
Newsroom
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
Beware of the zero rates rise promise
When you vote in this year's local body elections – and you should vote – be wary of the candidate who promises zero rates increases. 'Zero rates increases are of course possible,' says Lower Hutt Mayor Campbell Barry, 'but they do have serious consequences on local services and infrastructure delivery. The low-rates approach – and our council suffered from it for a couple of decades – is the reason we're in the infrastructure deficit we have now. 'Across the country, I think it's about $52 billion in backlog of infrastructure deferrals that have happened, and those candidates who come out and say they're just going to slash the rates … they need to be upfront and tell people, 'Well, that also means our pipes aren't going to be renewed, we're going to look at closing libraries, we're going to obviously get rid of staff and the services they provide in local communities.' So they can't have their cake and eat it too; they need to be challenged and explain actually how they plan to do it.' Barry can speak frankly because he isn't standing again. Having become a councillor at 19, and New Zealand's then-youngest mayor at 28, serving two terms at the top, the 34-year-old is off to do something different. Today on The Detail he talks about local body revenue-raising options, the balance between rates rises and paying for infrastructure, and the level of central government interference in councils that is seeing the bills mount up on political whims … while politicians rage about how much councils charge households to pay for it all. But one of the biggest problems is voter turnout. While about 80 percent of eligible voters turn out in central elections, the figure for local elections is half that. 'It's such an important part of people's everyday lives, but there doesn't seem to be that level of interest,' Barry says. 'Voter turnout has been poor for some time. That's why we need to talk about it … people do need to take an interest and know who's representing them and making decisions of their behalf.' Barry points out that ultimately New Zealand is a very centralised country – most of the decision-making does come from central government and that's where the focus is. Councils would like some of that decision making, involving government mandates that councils end up funding, to be backed off. A classic example is traffic-calming safety measures introduced by Labour, only to have National promise in the lead-up to the election it would have speed bumps ripped up. 'Local government is asked to deliver on such a wide breadth of issues across their local area. The unfunded mandates that we get from government are significant, they are continuously asking us to do more, and to do more while also receiving less revenue.' In Lower Hutt it cost around $400,000 to implement speed-calming measures – a few short years later it cost another $400,000 to take them away. The National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which allows for more intensive housing development, cost the council $700,000. 'There are continuous policy changes from government which have that type of impact. And often councils look to try and just suck that cost up without putting additional burden on rates, but there is always a cost, because it means that your council officials are often having to re-prioritise and not do other things as well. 'So that is a constant battle.' Barry also talks on the podcast about the blunt tool that is rates, and the need to remove the restrictions on revenue raising that would spread the burden. 'All of the levers when it comes to revenue or tax relief or support, sit with government. But they refuse to have that conversation with us around how do we look to do things differently … how can local government have that tool box approach to different ways of raising revenue, more flexibility, more user-charge options. 'While we had some good conversations with the previous government, nothing really happened there, and not much is happening at the moment with the current Government. 'That's something that needs to change otherwise we are going to have this spiral which I think is already causing major problems with trying to fund these things purely through rates.' A possible change could be handing back councils the GST on rates – a tax on a tax. But 'there is a $1.5 billion-dollar reason the Government won't do it,' says Barry. 'Councils across the country collect around $10b in rates each year. If they were to take that tax-on-a-tax off, it would be around about a $450 to $650 decrease in the average residential ratepayer's bill, instantly. So it would make a really big difference for councils across the country and I think it's something the Government absolutely should consider.' The Government also doesn't pay rates on property it owns, such as schools and hospitals, and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is one of the civic leaders who've asked for that to change – for Auckland Council alone, it would put an estimated $40 million back in the coffers. In Lower Hutt the number would be $20m-$30m a year. 'That would make a significant difference,' says Barry. Local election voting opens at the start of September and we will have new councils around the country by October 11. Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here. You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
The Spinoff
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Auckland Council keeps trying to sabotage its own multibillion-dollar rail upgrade
We're spending $5.5 billion on the City Rail Link. The council keeps trying to stop people accessing its stations or building things nearby. About half an hour into Auckland Council's debate on upzoning the city centre last week, mayor Wayne Brown looked up with a puzzled look on his face. He didn't get why planners were telling his councillors they should vote to limit building heights on Karangahape Road. The area, he noted, was right next to a new train station on the rail line his council and the government have just spent $5.5 billion upgrading. 'The whole point of this, as I understand, is to get more jobs and residents near this expensive railway, the City Rail Link. It doesn't go far enough,' he said. Brown would only get more confused. The new city centre zoning rules his councillors were voting on were an upgrade on the council's current policy settings but still arguably illegal. They'd been served up to them by an independent hearings panel which was charged with giving effect to the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD), which commands councils to 'realise as much development capacity as possible' in central areas. Despite that, the panel had proposed height limits in broad swathes of the city centre. Though they had been instructed not to consider views, the panellists wanted to protect the 'visual permeability and connection as an expression of the built form [from] the city centre [to] the harbour', which is another way of saying 'we gotta consider views'. Most councillors weren't complaining though. Several actually wanted to limbo under an even lower bar of ambition. Not satisfied with just voting to stop some construction around the City Rail Link, they wanted more stringent limits in place. Albany councillor Wayne Walker led the charge, moving an amendment to add heritage protections to an empty gravel pit down the end of Karangahape Road. He won the backing of Waitematā councillor Mike Lee, who speechified incomprehensibly about short-term parking and 'standing up to vested interests'. At this point, something seemed to break inside Brown. He proposed an exchange: if Walker and Lee were successful in putting heritage protections on an empty site 600 metres from a new rail station, he would move to enable unlimited density near their homes in Whangaparāoa and on Waiheke Island. Councillors laughed nervously. Deputy mayor Desley Simpson started patting his shoulder and urgently making a cutting motion near her neck. But Brown wasn't done. 'To vote to have an empty site turned into a historic building is to demean the value of historic buildings, so you are actively working against preservation,' he said. 'This is stupidity.' Stupidity, maybe. Standard council operating procedure, certainly. Auckland Council is engaged in a war against its own City Rail Link on a surprisingly large number of fronts. In fact, the empty gravel pit Walker and Lee wanted to protect has already been protected once before. James Kirkpatrick Group had its proposal to build an 11-storey mass timber office block on the site knocked back in March after council planners and commissioners agreed it would 'dominate' the streetfront and compromise the heritage values of the surrounding area — a point which would have been more convincing if the surrounding area wasn't a Mobil station and a carpark. Planners relented on that call after it was mocked by everyone from the housing minister to some loser at The Spinoff, but their council compatriots remain committed to other CRL-sabotaging measures. Over at Cross Street, directly outside the new Karanga-a-hape station, Auckland Transport has watered down pedestrian improvements that received broad community support because it wants to retain as much car access as possible. The changes would make more sense if it wasn't for the fact tens of thousands of people will be walking through the area once the CRL opens, arguably creating a need for them not to be run over by a Ford Ranger. If there's a common thread in these decisions, it's councillors and their officials failing to adequately plan for just how much the CRL is going to change the city. The project is adding the transport capacity of a 16-lane highway. Despite that, AT still hasn't removed level crossings in places like Morningside, Mt Albert and Glen Eden, which may mean train frequencies are limited, or even in a small number of cases reduced, on some routes when it opens next year. Meanwhile, the council has retained special character protections on much of the land in suburbs like Kingsland and Mt Eden, preventing thousands people from living within walking distance of the upgraded railway system they've just had billions of their tax dollars poured into. At Thursday's meeting, Brown repeated his threat to turn Waiheke into Dubai if his councillors stopped one more tall building from being built. Simpson patted his arm even more urgently. The threats paid off. Brown won the battle. Walker and Lee were voted down, 20 to 2. But afterwards, ahead of the substantive vote on whether to adopt the IHP's plan, Waitakere councillor Shane Henderson lamented the lack of ambition for the city centre. 'Places where you're very close to train stations that we've invested billions of dollars into building and servicing, I just don't know why, rationally, we would say to a developer that can make it work, that can provide the homes, 'nah you've got to downzone it'. That's weird to me,' he said. When the meeting closed, Henderson told The Spinoff his colleagues were more interested in keeping as much of the status quo in place as possible than maximising the benefits of the CRL. 'There's no vision,' he said. 'The conversation tone is kind of 'what can we get away with?'' As it turns out, a lot. The council adopted the IHP's recommendations with zero votes against and only Henderson abstaining. As the result was read out, North Shore councillor Chris Darby, an ardent special character advocate, could be heard on a hot mic saying 'zero for the feds'. The council had pulled off another heist. The people who want to live and work near our largest ever public transport project will tally up their losses.
