Hamish Firth from Mt Hobson Group shares his thoughts around the new changes made by the government.
Unitary plan on steroids
Yeah, very exciting. I think the government’s probably become frustrated with, the councils speed at which the acting to provide more density. They’ve taken the bull by the horns. You know, bi-partisan approach between the two major political parties, to effectively allow for three level dwellings as a permitted activity in the main cities.
50% site coverage, but does that mean that we can do this everywhere?
“Interestingly, obviously in Auckland with the unitary plan, we’re aware of the mixed housing urban, and a mixed housing suburban zones, which allow two and three level buildings, but we’ve also got that single house zone. And maybe this, the devil will be in the detail. I understand the bill is going to be presented to parliament in December, but I suspect this will override or require councils to change their plans with immediate effect. And it may well take into account some of the single house zones, which have enough capacity for sewerage and aren’t too steep.”
So prices being paid for Urban zone, Suburban zone or single house might flatten somewhat relative to each other?
Yeah, But the the principle act of the accommodation at three levels will be a permitted activity. So you’ll probably still need a resource consent for peripheral issues. But council can’t stop it or hold it up on that density, that intensity of use and that height level.
So they could still say, are there’s just not enough sewerage? Sorry, you’ve got to do a smaller.
We may actually reach operational constraint issues with regards to capacity, of the likes of sewerage. That will only be temporary because at the end of the day, sewerage relies on a gravity fed, gravity feed to a plant, a treatment plant. So, as long as the treatment plants got capacity, and you can provide enough gravity feed, you should be able to provide for the infrastructure.
