Auckland 'protected view' rules to be reviewed

Housing NZ says Auckland needs to fix a shortage of social and affordable housing and 'the appropriateness of individual viewshafts' needs to be considered. Photo / Thinkstock

Protected views of volcanoes are threatening Auckland's goals of affordable housing and a compact city, major property owners say.

In a submission to the Unitary Plan hearings, Housing New Zealand claims an extra 24,000 dwellings could be built if "viewshaft" restrictions - where building heights are limited to retain views of the signature cones - were lifted.

Views from nearly 90 vantage points around the city are protected by viewshaft designations under the district plan. But developers are using the Unitary Plan hearings to push for sweeping rule changes and the Auckland Council has already accepted some viewshafts will go.

Housing NZ says the city needs to fix a shortage of social and affordable housing and "the appropriateness of individual viewshafts" needs to be considered.

With shopping mall developer Westfield and The Warehouse Group, it is promoting a hierarchy where "regionally significant" views of maunga would be spared "significant modification" but views of local significance would be harder to retain.

Expert witnesses for several submitters have called for a comprehensive review of the viewshaft rules.

They claim these encourage sprawl and threaten the level of intensification needed to achieve a compact city.

Housing Minister Nick Smith says the fate of the viewshafts rests with the Unitary Plan hearings panel. But he says the Government made it "very clear" in earlier submissions that the proposed plan provided insufficient housing capacity to meet population projections.

"Auckland needs to make better provisions for growth, whether it is up or out, and the worst outcome for housing affordability is that neither is provided for adequately."