In a gruelling week-long session, the Auckland Council has abandoned a great deal of the urban intensification that caused so much concern across the city when its draft "Unitary Plan" was published this year. Council members, with local board leaders in close attendance, voted to limit the density of development permitted in the "mixed housing" zones that comprise 40 per cent of residential Auckland.
In doing so they ignored an appeal from Mayor Len Brown not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater". But the "baby" was hard to identify in this slew of urban planning. The planners' aim, strongly supported by the mayor, is to engineer a more compact city rather than permit more urban sprawl. That purpose was well known before the draft Unitary Plan appeared but most people supposed the more dense development would be limited to residential areas near commercial centres and public transport.
The plan when it appeared was much less selective. Almost entire suburbs had been zoned for intensification. "Mixed housing" meant multi-unit developments of up to three storeys could be built anywhere without warning or rights of neighbours to object. Visions of apartment blocks rising on the section next door caused consternation at public meetings attended by council and board members and briefed by planning staff.
Long before the council met to finalise the draft plan last week, the mayor had conceded that it would have to be revised and more graduated densities would have to be designed. But the plan that was put to council members last week had not been sufficiently refined to allay the concerns they had heard.
The planners reportedly fought hard for their principle of no density limits in the suburbs, proposing to rename the principle "flexible density", as if that made it more palatable. But even a compromise proposed by Mr Brown (no limit for sections larger than 2500 sq m) was eventually withdrawn in the face of opposition from a majority of members and boards.
