Eastern suburbs hit hard by intensification

By Auckland Councillor for Orakei Cameron Brewer – 20 December 2015:

Auckland Council has released its revisions to the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) the draft of which was signed off on 30 September 2013.

The eastern suburbs have been hit hard by the rezoning, which is upsetting many locals following huge public meetings and outrage early in 2013 when they thought they’d been listened to.

Back then the Mayor and councillors agreed to water down the intensification plans after significant public outcry. I worked closely with the Orakei Local Board and community groups to secure some provisions in the PAUP which would protect the special character of our surrounding neighbourhoods.

Now much of that watering down has been strengthened up again in secret and without any public mandate.

Glendowie in particular has been hit hard by Auckland Council’s intensification measures. Roughly 70 percent of the suburb has been rezoned from Single House to Mixed Housing Suburban and up to 15 percent is now classed as Mixed Housing Urban where before there was zero.

This proposed intensification comes at the same time residents are worried that Auckland Transport is set to take away bus services for the eastern suburbs.

While the push to stop high-rise apartments being built along Kohimarama beach front may have been successful, up to 50 percent of Kohimarama has undergone some form of intensification with large swathes of Mixed Housing Suburban being upzoned as urban which strips these areas of any meaningful density controls.

Large areas to the south of and surrounding Remuera’s village have been upzoned to allow for more Terraced Housing & Apartment Buildings (THAB) while alarmingly almost a quarter of the Single House zones on Remuera’s northern side have been reclassified as Mixed Housing Suburban.

St Heliers has also seen several areas intensified with housing around Glover Park being rezoned as Mixed Housing Suburban and Terraced Housing & Apartment Buildings continuing down St Heliers Bay Road to St Heliers School/ Riddell Road.

The suburb of Orakei has also been upzoned considerably.

It’s not just height, it’s density. In the widespread Mixed Housing Suburban zone, all a developer now needs to secure is a quarter of an acre. By combining the likes of two neighbouring sections to get more than 1,000sqm he can then put in a low-rise apartment complex with no density restrictions whatsoever right next to you in your quiet leafy suburb.

That’s a serious backtrack to what the public was promised in 2013. I was pleased to sign Councillor Dick Quax’s Notice Of Motion recently to push the issues back to the public to allow for people’s views on these changes to be heard.

Sadly Mayor Len Brown threw out that Notice Of Motion at the last council meeting of the year. For the nine of us councillors who supported the failed Notice Of Motion these changes are dramatic and completely undemocratic.

At least the public can now see exactly what’s going on and can really lean on the councillors ahead of us passing the final Unitary Plan next year – unfortunately that is the best and next chance to secure any significant change.

Like it was in 2013, this will be a huge local body election issue in 2016, and there’ll be many political causalities if Auckland’s concerned voices are not heard.

ENDS

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