Auckland councillor says more houses are needed than the 1.4m legally required

2:55 pm today

Richard Hills said the council had to upzone or build more houses around walkable catchments, town centres, metropolitan centres, and Western Line train stations.

Photo: Alexia Russell

An Auckland councillor is advocating for the city to go beyond its legal obligations for housing intensification.

The government has directed Auckland to have a minimum capacity of 1.4 million homes in the next decade, although it was not expected that many would be built.

At a Policy and Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday, councillors were set to decide whether they wanted high-rise apartments further out from the city centre than the government required.

Policy and Planning Committee chairman Richard Hills said the council had to upzone or build more houses around walkable catchments, town centres, metropolitan centres, and Western Line train stations, which ran from Swanson to Waitematā Station.

But council staff were also recommending upzoning around frequent bus routes close to the city centre, and to allow 10-15 storey apartments near other train stations.

Hills said at Tuesday's committee, councillors would be ironing out the details of a preferred housing intensification option.

"Local boards and mana whenua will be able to give feedback on that preferred option and then we'll (councillors) come back next month for the committee to make another decision to either approve some changes or send out a draft proposal to the community."

Hills said if the council did not upzone more widely, they might have to later if Resource Management Act legislation changes.

"The high-level plans for those RMA changes, there are suggestions we'll have to do bus routes anyway, we'll have to do upzoning around much of the areas that could be in this process now, so we probably need to go a little bit further.

"(Just doing what we're legally required to do) people might see that as a positive, but I think if we're spending almost $20 million on this process, it's right to have a bit more scope for discussion, a bit more understanding around what bus routes and other things could look like because the independent panel could definitely change things through the process."

The council was not expected to deliver its final proposal to the government until June 2027, after consultation and an independent review panel.

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