Housing Minister Chris Bishop Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Requirements for housing densification around City Rail Link stations are about future-proofing Auckland for the next 20 to 30 years, the Minister for Housing and for Resource Management Act Reform says.
The government will require Auckland Council to allow apartments of at least 15 storeys around the Mount Eden, Kingsland, and Morningside Stations, and 10 storeys around the Mount Albert and Baldwin Avenue stations.
Originally, the plan was for six-storey buildings, however, Chris Bishop says the new directive from the government is supported by Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and most councillors.
The changes will be part of a Resource Management Act amendment bill.
Bishop told Morning Report it would take some time to build the developments, but it made sense to ensure residential and commercial development was possible around those key train stations.
"We're building a $5 billion rapid transit rail link in Auckland. We should have some development, mixed use apartments and commercial, by the train stations.
"I think that makes a lot of sense."
North Shore councillor Richard Hills said the government's directive to allow 15-storey apartments near train stations won't transform the city overnight.
He told Morning Report that council was moving in that direction anyway.
High rise developments took a long time and would develop slowly over many years.
Hills believed the directive would lead to more housing and more people near transport infrastructure.
The blocks would be built within 800 metres to 1200 metres or a 10-minute walk from each station, he said.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Auckland Minister Simeon Brown say allowing intensification will unlock economic opportunity.
The Character Coalition hopes special character areas along the rail project are not affected.
Chairperson Sally Hughes said her group was especially concerned about the areas Bishop was focused on - Kingsland, Morningside, Mt Eden and Mt Albert.
"We'll be sacrificing special character areas for some intensification when it's not really necessary."
There was still plenty of land available near railway stations.
The coalition was not against intensification but it needed to be done in the right areas of the cityand needed to be done with "nuance".
One example causing concern was Owaraika which had 224 special character properties and only 20 were in the walkable catchment for a train station.
"So why take that special character area completely off that area just to allow for 20 properties to be redeveloped?"
They were mostly "beautiful villas" worth between $2 million and $5m so it was unlikely to be financially feasible to redevelop them.
Just one 15-storey apartment block among a group of villas would ruin an area that had had special character status in the past, Hughes said.
'We don't get a lot of bang for buck'
Meanwhile, leaky hospitals, rotting schools, mould in police stations and courthouses, and outages on ferries and commuter rail - those are some of the problems laid bare by the Infrastructure Commission in its first report into the state of the country's assets.
It's found New Zealand is spending lots of money on infrastructure but getting little back out of it.
Bishop said the report made for a "sobering" read.
"We don't get a lot of bang for buck. In fact, the commission says we're in the bottom 10 percent in the OECD for value for money."
It was a problem stretching back up to 30 years. The need for long-term asset registers and maintenance plans and looking after the infrastructure the country had rather than building new things had been identified years ago, he said.
He was determined to change the system, particularly at central government level.
Health was a classic example. Uniting the district health boards was a good move by the Labour government because it would help identify what they owned and the condition those buildings were in.
"Half of government agencies don't have an asset register - it's pretty depressing."
It would soon be a legal requirement.
He was keen for a bipartisan approach not only to a projects pipeline but also for legislation changes in the resource management area.
He said there were 1400 different zones around the country and these would be reduced drastically.
"Getting the system right is a fundamental paramount importance and that's what this government is up for."
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