Not everywhere, of course. A few favoured blocks in the CBD will be permitted to reach for the sky – provided they don’t offend a protected viewshaft, cast an unauthorised shadow, or challenge our collective sense of scale. But outside that core, the Council has drawn a firm line: 72.5 metres. Generous, but not excessive.
It’s being hailed as a step forward. Floor area ratios have been abolished. Modelling shows development capacity will more than quadruple. But the ambition remains strikingly limited. While cities across the Tasman are building 30- and 40-storey towers above suburban train stations, Auckland has opted for mid-rise restraint.
This, in a country where housing remains among the least affordable in the world and home ownership has been falling for a generation. The planning system restricts supply and then blames the market for the consequences – as though scarcity were a market flaw, not a planning feature.
But this isn’t just about planning. It’s a national disposition – a preference for small, polite improvements over structural change. We’re drawn to gestures that look bold on a press release and feel safe in committee.
And so, in the same breath that the Council celebrates the City Rail Link – a $5 billion investment in underground mobility – it imposes above-ground controls that prevent that investment from being fully realised. One can have a world-class train station. One just shouldn’t build too much above it.
There is, of course, a cultural logic to all this. New Zealand was the perfect filming location for The Lord of the Rings – not just for the scenery, but for the sensibility. We took Hobbiton to heart. A tidy hillside, a front door rounder than it is tall, and nothing so vulgar as a skyline.
Some part of the national psyche remains deeply committed to being “mainly harmless.” Big is risky. Presence is showy. And we know what happens to tall poppies.
And so, we get a planning regime that permits growth – but only at speeds that won’t alarm the neighbours. Unlimited height in a small zone. Thirty metres in another. Seventy-two and a half if you ask nicely.
It’s not a system designed to fail. It’s a system designed to gently underdeliver – consistently.
In other words, it’s Auckland Council at its best.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
This, in a country where housing remains among the least affordable in the world and home ownership has been falling for a generation. The planning system restricts supply and then blames the market for the consequences – as though scarcity were a market flaw, not a planning feature.
But this isn’t just about planning. It’s a national disposition – a preference for small, polite improvements over structural change. We’re drawn to gestures that look bold on a press release and feel safe in committee.
And so, in the same breath that the Council celebrates the City Rail Link – a $5 billion investment in underground mobility – it imposes above-ground controls that prevent that investment from being fully realised. One can have a world-class train station. One just shouldn’t build too much above it.
There is, of course, a cultural logic to all this. New Zealand was the perfect filming location for The Lord of the Rings – not just for the scenery, but for the sensibility. We took Hobbiton to heart. A tidy hillside, a front door rounder than it is tall, and nothing so vulgar as a skyline.
Some part of the national psyche remains deeply committed to being “mainly harmless.” Big is risky. Presence is showy. And we know what happens to tall poppies.
And so, we get a planning regime that permits growth – but only at speeds that won’t alarm the neighbours. Unlimited height in a small zone. Thirty metres in another. Seventy-two and a half if you ask nicely.
It’s not a system designed to fail. It’s a system designed to gently underdeliver – consistently.
In other words, it’s Auckland Council at its best.
Roger Partridge is chairman and a co-founder of The New Zealand Initiative and is a senior member of its research team. He led law firm Bell Gully as executive chairman from 2007 to 2014. This article was first published HERE
3 comments:
30 stories in the shaky isles and on a volcanic zone. Bugger that!
Why we don't have retail and housing above and around every station has always had me wondering about the people making the decisions.
Aucklanders put enormous effort into the regional plan a few years ago. Its zoning caused grief for many neighbours. Theoretical capacity existed to last decades. Then the sweeping govt over rule, with support from National.. Everyone threatened by 3 stories hard alongside. To 800m from railway stations the threat of 6 stories plus. A possible bonanza for the section seller but a hideous disaster for the once comfortable family homes in the created canyon next door and beyond. No compo as for flood and quake victims. NZ is not overseas. We do not have intense industrial manufacturing complexes requiring thousands of workers. People came and come to NZ to escape the horror of intense high rise housing. Work from home has hugely reduced the need for access to rail to the city. It is sad to see hundreds of well built copper plumbed, no chipboard state and other houses bulldozed in large part because of the pedantic insulation, ventilation, heating etc letting rules craftily obtained by lobby interests. Apartment living with its attendant common maintenance body corporate nightmare is only for the brave.
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