Mayor Wayne Brown hopes new Auckland planning rules won’t mean going back to square one as retired judge urges halt to suburban housing push
The Government’s move to scale back a controversial plan to allow for two million homes in Auckland’s new planning rules could force the protracted process to start again from scratch, Mayor Wayne Brown has warned.
Council chief executive Phil Wilson said this could mean reworking planning maps, reopening submissions, delaying the process by six months and adding several million dollars in costs.
Pressure is also coming on the Government from outside the council, with the Herald revealing that a retired Chief Environment Court Judge has urged the Government to halt its suburban plans and limit intensification to the five City Rail Link (CRL) stations.
Last month, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced the Government would water down the densification rules, with Bishop saying the Government is weighing a range of options for the targets.
At the time, Herald political columnist Matthew Hooton said National strategists had realised the two million figure had become a lightning rod for criticism and could spook potential blue voters who don’t want apartment blocks built alongside their homes.
Hooton said any U-turn would be a win for National “since it denies Act, New Zealand First and Labour a potent issue on which to raid the blue vote” at November’s general election.
Bishop’s solution is expected to focus intensification in the city centre, around CRL stations and along major transport corridors, while pulling back from the suburbs and reducing the overall housing capacity.
Brown and Wilson said the Government had to be careful in making changes to the planning rules, known as Plan Change 120.
“The ball is in the central Government’s court in how they handle any change to the process, including the theoretical housing yield [that allows capacity for two million houses over the coming decades],“ Wilson said.
“Our request of the Government is to move quickly, create certainty as soon as possible in terms of the process and what they expect of the council.”
Brown said he doesn’t want to restart the process, saying people had submitted on Plan Change 120 and want intensification around public transport services.
In response, Bishop said any changes to Plan Change 120 would have implications for the existing process and the Government is carefully working through all of this, but no Cabinet decisions have been made.
“I don’t intend to comment in advance of those decisions, other than to say it is legally complicated,” the minister said, adding that a decision was a few weeks away.
Laurie Newhook, who sat on the Environment Court for 25 years, nine of which as Chief Judge, told the Herald PC120 was one of the worst plans he had seen.
Through a lawyer, Alan Webb, KC, Newhook wrote to Bishop last month offering a ”very neat solution to the problems presented by Plan Change 120”.
In an attached submission, Newhook argued the plan change should be halted across suburban Auckland, saying it had been rushed, poorly evidenced and was out of step with the Government’s new planning regime.
In his view, it should proceed only around the five CRL stations at Maungawhau, Kingsland, Morningside, Baldwin Avenue and Mt Albert.
Among the problems he highlighted were:
- Inflated housing demand projections with PC120 planning for up to 1.4 million new dwellings when council evidence suggested a need for roughly 241,000 over 30 years.
- Overstated walkable catchments around town centres that failed to account for constraints such as topography, main roads and heritage.
- Ignoring existing development capacity in business zones, metropolitan centres and future urban areas.
- A more controlling regulatory approach than the earlier plan changes.
Newhook said PC120 was “arguably the biggest and most complex planning instrument” since the Auckland Unitary Plan, yet it was released only weeks before the Government unveiled sweeping Resource Management Act reforms through the Planning Bill and Natural Environments Bill.
The new legislation required regional spatial planning over a 30‑year horizon, precisely the kind of structured, evidence‑based process that Newhook said PC120 lacked.
Proceeding now, he said, was a case of “the cart before the horse”.
He maintained that the existing Unitary Plan, combined with targeted intensification around CRL stations, provided more than enough capacity for the next two to three years while the new national planning instrument and regional spatial plans were completed.
The former judge, who retired last year, also pointed to widespread public anxiety over the scale of intensification proposed in suburban areas, much of it not previously signalled, saying PC120 in its current form would impose “tremendous” costs on communities and the council.
Bishop said he had received Newhook’s submission but hadn’t had a chance to consider it.
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