Auckland Council staff push back on liberalised rural urban boundary

Auckland Council staff are recommending most of the proposed changes in the draft unitary plan be adopted, but are pushing back on making the rural-urban boundary as loose as an independent hearings panel is proposing.

Staff backed the plan's proposal to bring the boundary to the district plan level and deleting it from rural and coastal towns and villages to allow for some growth in those areas but were against the dropping a policy target to focus growth in the existing metropolitan areas and opposed amendments guiding the location of the boundary.

Council officials were against deleting the target because the proposal was misaligned with the local authority's strategy to oppose urban 'sprawl'.

"Focusing intensification within the existing urban area delivers the benefits of a quality compact urban form, which include better public transport, proximity to amenity and services, efficient infrastructure servicing, environmental protection, reduced carbon footprint," according to an agenda for the Aug. 10 meeting of the Auckland development committee.

On planned changes setting out criteria shifting the location of the boundary, council staff recommend rejecting the proposal because "the recommended policy does not include either providing a quality compact urban form or the importance of land use and transport integration", and that if the boundary as to be supported at a district plan level - meaning fewer impediments to granting consent for development beyond the boundary - there needed a clear enough framework to allow " inappropriate proposals to be turned down".

The draft plan, released last month, recommended Auckland substantially reduce the areas set aside for single house zones in favour of more areas for multi-dwelling developments, including medium density developments, including apartment complexes, extending the size of the total urban boundary by 30 percent more than council initially proposed. The proposals would add land and appropriate zoning to allow as many as 422,000 dwellings to be built to meet the panel's estimated need for up to 400,000 new apartments, houses, and multi-dwelling units over the next three decades.

Council has until Aug. 19 to decide how many of the recommendations, if any, to adopt.

(BusinessDesk)

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