Over the past two years, Mr Tremain said, there had been more people from outside the region moving here, which he partly attributed to the growth of jobs in Hawke's Bay, and the ease of travel between Hawke's Bay and major centres.
"Everyone wants an economy that's growing, where are we meant to go with the urban spread to cater for new people coming in," he said.
While there could be high density residential options for the retirement sector, Mr Tremain said as a provincial region, "no one's going to build high rises and people aren't going to live in high rises".
"People want to live on sections where families can actually enjoy what the Hawke's Bay lifestyle offers, we're not a big metropolitan city so people aren't coming here to live in big apartments and high rises," he said.
"We have to move the urban area out which goes onto the Heretaunga Plains unless there's some other alternative options that we're not aware of".
He said councils were looking at rezoning sites close to current residential zones, but no matter what the council did, speeding up the re-zoning process would still take time.
"Is the market still going to be there, I don't know," he said. "But I think the popularity of Hawke's Bay and the fact people are moving here is going to continue over the next 10, 20, 30 years."
On the other side of the argument is Hawke's Bay Regional councillor Peter Beaven, who has been vocal about his opposition to using the Hetetaunga Plains.
"I'm not anti development, I'm not anti-people coming to Hawke's Bay," he said. "This is about going to the right places that will not impair our future generations from being able to produce things and have jobs, this is about putting houses in the right places."
"Hastings has, unfortunately, been built in the middle of some of the most fertile and productive lands in the world, and it's just not nonsense to keep subdividing it."
The former Pipfruit New Zealand chief executive said the areas being targeted for development around the edges of Hastings were also "irreplaceable" fertile lands.
"In my lifetime I've seen more than 2000ha of that land taken already, it just has to stop," he said.
"There's lots of land on the fringes that we could use for housing and not make a huge dent in future activity, because every time we take a hectare of that good productive land around the edges of Hastings we lose three jobs."
With time of the essence, Mr Beaven said he felt the Hpuds process needed to speed up, as the 35 year timeframe of the strategy meant thousands of hectares of productive land could be lost.
He also wanted to see councils come to an agreement that certain classes of soils were "sacrosanct", ensuring these areas were designated as unavailable for residential activity.
When asked if this could be done, Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule said it would be difficult to determine a hierarchy of the best soils, as it was their versatility which made them valuable.
He added such a designation could not easily be done through Hpuds, but could happen through a planning document.
