Auckland Council wants to make room for two million homes by allowing taller apartment blocks and more housing to be built across the city. As the density debate continues, the Herald zooms in on the suburb of Kingsland as one example where change could come bigger and faster.
Designer Paul Slater used the proposed zoning regulations to create this flyover view of how high-rise living could potentially develop in the popular city-fringe suburb, while property reporter Ben Leahy asks an urban planner and heritage campaigner about what makes for good design.
Enter the Herald’s visual time machine of how Auckland’s skyline could look 20 years from now. These unique graphics show the sort of development that could be possible under the council’s proposed planning rules compared to how the central suburb of Kingsland looks now.
Auckland Council – under pressure from central government – has identified 44 walkable catchment areas near city centres, train stations and transport hubs where 10 and 15-storey buildings would be permitted.
Development could bring great benefits, providing much-needed housing for a growing population and help keep a lid on house prices.
But if unchecked or unregulated, opponents fear it could create ghetto neighbourhoods and put a drain on the city’s infrastructure.
Kingsland could potentially change more than most other catchments, losing 70% to 80% of its special character areas and parts of the suburb going from low-rise to high-rise.
But planning rules are yet to be finalised and their final form could play a big role in what would actually be built.
The costs and ability of developers to buy the right parcels of land, together with how they adapt to existing planning rules like maintaining views of maunga and boundary set back regulations - makes predicting a future cityscape complicated.
The Herald visual is therefore an indicative representation only, designed to provoke conversation.
To do that, the Herald spoke to urban planners Bruce Weir, head of Weir & Associates, and Cam Wallace, partner at Barker & Associates, as well as heritage protector Sally Hughes from Heritage Coalition, asking what makes for good development.
What makes Kingsland a ‘winner’ as a development hotspot
Weir said Kingsland had all the ingredients to become a successful “urban village”.
“The location’s right, the amenity’s right, it’s got all the bones.”
People already loved living in the area, it was close to the city, had special character, was filled with parks and close to major green spaces, such as the golf course, Western Springs lake and Maungawhau-Mt Eden.
Transport was improving with the City Rail Link opening soon and Eden Park stadium was “a massive asset, not only for events but as a green space and community hub”, Weir said.
He believed Eden Park could become the centre of an internationally renowned precinct.
Apartment blocks built nearby would provide the necessary population to support a future precinct’s cafes, restaurants and shops, and justify public transport improvements to bring in match-day visitors.
Weir said building big shouldn’t be at the expense of green spaces. Well-designed apartment blocks should deliver more public space and facilities to create vibrant communities.
But Hughes, chair of the Character Coalition, feared badly designed density could overwhelm local communities and infrastructure, and destroy heritage.
Kingsland was special with a “charming ambience”, she said.
Its main street featured character buildings with cafes and restaurants. The “avenues” boasted streets with “intact rows of beautiful Victorian and Edwardian homes”.
While the proposed planning changes protected two historic residential areas, a number of streets would lose protection, she said.
She described this as “tragic” and believed the proposed changes could allow “unrestrained” and poorly planned development, potentially destroying the fabric and character of the suburb.
Hughes said she feared low-quality three- and four-storey developments as much as poorly done big projects, for their ability to overload local infrastructure.
To make winners, you’ve got to pick winners
The key to successful density was identifying good locations where people wanted to live and spending more public money on targeted infrastructure in those areas, Weir said.
“You can only do density when you’ve got a really high level of amenity, so that requires investment from the council ... heavy, heavy capital expenditure by the council,” Weir said.
But ratepayers didn’t want to be hit with out-of-control infrastructure costs as a result of intensive development.
That’s why the investment needed to be targeted, he said.
“You don’t need to do it everywhere, you just have to pick winners.”
This included water infrastructure and roads, but also “big wide footpaths [and] beautifully landscaped, high-quality urban public spaces”.
Developers could play a part by adding green spaces and facilities into new buildings, such as tennis or basketball courts.
The nuts and bolts: How to make it work for developers
Intensity won’t happen overnight.
Big projects were a marathon not a sprint for developers, so Weir believed Auckland Council should make it easier to build in targeted areas.
For example, the Albany town centre took 35 years to take shape after early planning.
The huge upfront costs for developers meant they might have to wait a decade to make a profit.
To help foster urban development, Weir said the council should streamline the planning process and incentivise those developers meeting innovation targets.
One example was water and wastewater supply.
Weir believed big apartment blocks should be built with wastewater holding and treatment plants – similar to solar panels collecting energy and feeding excess power back into the electricity grid.
In this way, apartment blocks could reduce water use while also holding onto wastewater at times when the city water pipes were busy.
They could then release water into the system at quiet periods, improving network resilience.
Wallace, from consultants Barker and Associates, agreed, saying the planning changes were conversation starters for high-rise development.
But while the proposed rules technically made 15-storey apartment buildings possible, practical barriers rendered them highly unlikely in a suburb like Kingsland, he believed.
That’s because developers faced many complex and varied obstacles.
A 15-storey block needed an enormous footprint of land to rise up, and securing that many adjoining land parcels was a significant challenge.
Then developers faced rules preserving view shafts towards the maungas, combined with boundary set back rules.
Set back rules require that as a building gets taller, its core structure needs to be built further away from its boundaries for reasons such as allowing sunlight to reach nearby streets.
With many streets located close to each other in Kingsland, Wallace said it would be even harder to find big enough sites for 15-storey blocks, with 6 or 7-storey buildings much more likely.
Big new apartment districts were often built in former industrial areas overseas because there was more space and fewer rules, he said.
Another way they might be achieved was how Kāinga Ora used large landholdings it already owned and then bought only a few surrounding properties to complement the project.
Elsewhere in Auckland, developers like Ockham Residential might look to buy a former car yard or large, single-owner block to develop.
Auckland Council: public input wanted
Auckland Council said it wanted the public to participate in helping to shape planning, with the proposed changes expected to be opened for submissions from November 3 to December 19.
Council planners also said the Herald’s graphic was a starting point to get people talking.
But final planning rules hadn’t yet been confirmed, and their final shape could greatly influence the end results of what was built.
Council also thought developers were unlikely to build tall buildings of equal height so close together.
That’s because developers often marketed unobstructed views as key selling points, fetching higher prices.
Parts of the map marked in orange and pink were all zoned for up to 15-storeys, but it was likely buildings of different heights would pop up in a non-uniform way.
That’s because developers with different budgets and able to secure different pockets of land would work to what best suited each project, the planning team said.
Explore the changes proposed in the draft plan for all of Auckland