Auckland Council’s Planning, Environment and Parks Committee, on 4 May, approved a Consultation Draft of their Auckland Future Development Strategy 2023-2053 (“draft Strategy”) on how Tāmaki Makaurau should grow and change over the next 30 years.
This comes after there have been some questions regarding intensification through Plan Change 78, which is currently on hold as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle and other recent deluges which have shown Auckland to be ill-prepared for future challenges as a result of climate change.
The urban area of Tāmaki Makaurau is now home to over 90% of its residents, yet only covers approximately 20% of the region’s land mass.
The draft Strategy focuses on Principles for growth and change. These are:
- Principle 1: Support greenhouse gas emission reduction
- Principle 2: Adapt to the impacts of climate change
- Principle 3: Make efficient and equitable infrastructure investments
- Principle 4: Protect and restore the natural environment
- Principle 5: Enable sufficient capacity for growth in the right place and at the right time
Significantly, many of the principles involve discouraging urban sprawl, and focusing intensification in established urban areas. This could involve a move away from creating new Future Urban Zones and greenfield development, which the Council says is likely to cause more emissions than brownfield developments. Indeed, the draft Strategy’s supporting actions to the future urban spatial response focus on strengthening matters against which plan changes are assessed, particularly private plan changes. This is because (according to the draft Strategy), such plan changes severely undermine coordination, are expensive, and encourage greenfield development which increases traffic and employment pressures further out of Auckland.
The Council is also looking to invest more in infrastructure, namely ‘nature-based’, decentralized local solutions, which can serve several functions. For example, green infrastructure that manages stormwater, but can also enhance Te Mauri o Te Wai – the life sustaining capacity of water, create habitat and deliver localised amenity. Further, the Council wants to incorporate Water sensitive design principles, which seek to limit stormwater flow rates and contaminant generation at source, by minimising impervious surfaces and earthworks, using inert materials and maintaining or restoring natural hydrological features.
Chair of the Planning, Environment and Parks Committee, Councillor Richard Hills, says:
“A lot has happened in Tāmaki Makaurau since the last development strategy almost five years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic, new government legislation directing more housing intensification in urban Auckland, the effects of climate change being felt more frequently – as seen by the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle – and we have made a commitment to halve our emissions by 2030. This changing context means we need to re-examine how we grow over the long term…”
Feedback for the consultation draft will be open from 6 June 2023, usually for around one month. Get in contact with any of the Solicitors at The Environmental Lawyers if you’re interested in making a submission on the Future Development Strategy, and making a contribution into the sustainable growth of Auckland. Read the Consultation draft here.