Author: Stuart Ryan
Published: 27 July 2022
Pages: 23

Introduction

On 21 December 2021, the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021 (Amendment Act) came into force. The Amendment Act is intended to rapidly increase housing supply within relevant residential zones of New Zealand’s largest urban areas by introducing new medium density residential standards and speeding up the implementation of the intensification policies of the existing National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD).

The intensification requirements are unprecedented in New Zealand planning law, which has traditionally allowed local communities to set their own rules for height controls and other bulk and location standards. In most residential zones for Tier 1 areas (for greater Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch), the single-house zone will now, in effect, be replaced by new planning standards providing for 11-metre high or three-storey residential buildings and requiring buildings of at least six storeys within a walkable catchment of rapid transit stops, and from the edge of metropolitan centre zones and city centre zones.

The Amendment Act requires Tier 1 local authorities and specified Tier 2 local authorities to prepare changes to their district and city plans using a new streamlined planning process and notify these changes by 20 August 2022.

Content outline

• Unprecedented intensification for urban local authorities
• The Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021
• National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 (NPS-UD)
• Medium density residential standards
• Qualifying matters
• Issues
• Resource management reform