Okay and the issue was?
Patrick Reynolds from Auckland Transport Blog dug up a picture of a similar 10 metre – 3 storey house built in San Francisco that could apply to our Mixed Housing Zones back here in Auckland.
This folks is what a 10 metre high, three storey house (although it could be deemed a Terrace House) with 3-4 bedrooms (so medium to large) and proper urban design controls looks like:
Credit: Patrick Reynolds
Serious Auckland what is the issue with this in some of our Mixed Housing Zones across the city.
Coupled with parks, community spaces, transit provisions and neighbourhood centres this kind of development would be an excellent example of my Fringe Zone work I am drawing up for my Unitary Plan submission. This example would be near perfect as both a transition from a Metro or Town Centre’s Terrace Housing and Apartment Zones back down to the Single Housing Zone, or pepper potted along a Mixed Housing Zone area when not near a centre. To add further diversity there would be nothing stopping putting two of those houses together to get one of those super large houses at 5-8 bedrooms to cater for our collective families in Auckland (that the UP sorely is missing as in my “MISSING SOMETHING WITH THE UNITARY PLAN” post).
In saying that though according to the Unitary Plan this kind of developed is classed as a ‘non-notified restricted discretionary activity.’ Meaning in short this kind of development in the picture would be an exception rather than the rule with Mixed Housing Zones. In plain English this kind of development is not a permitted activity under the Unitary Plan – that is you just can’t simply do it if you feel like it. Restricted Discretionary means a central Council Planner will decide whether such a development in the picture above happens. It also means you will have to jump through the Resource Consent and Urban Design hoops the Council will put in position via the UP.
I have the “paper work” in regards to Mixed Housing Zone and the three storey houses in my “DEBUNKING ORSMAN” post that went up this morning for your reading. Any queries and I’ll try to answer them, if I can’t I shall find someone who can.
Grrr this is why I go along and debunk people like Orsman because he fails to investigate properly what would actually occur and what something might look like if carried out. Done properly I can see no issue with quality designed 10 metre – 3 storey houses pepper potted in Mixed Housing Zones like those in San Fran. If anything the San Fran lot pictures would most likely add more character and amenity to some very character devoid areas in Auckland currently. Also if done right this is where the Unitary Plan has its positive spin offs…
BEN ROSS : AUCKLAND
BR:AKL: Bring Well Managed Progress
The Unitary Plan: Bringing Change
Auckland: 2013 – OUR CITY, OUR CALL
Talking Southern Auckland 
I’m confused. The image of the houses you’ve shown look like 3-storey single houses to me, so would come under the Single House zone in the Unitary Plan surely? Of course they could be subdivided internally, but you’ve said they’re 3-4 bedrooms, which, given we used to live in something exactly like these in Brighton (UK), had living space on bottom floor and bedrooms upstairs, would be Single House under the UP. To be truly Mixed Housing, these properties would have to cover 2-3+ of the plots you’ve shown here, and split into numerous properties surely? You do mention joining them up, but then you talk about them being 5-8 bedroom houses, which again, is in Single House territory isn’t it? I have to admit to being confused! Totally agree with you though, if this is what much of the intensification looked like, bring it on!
Ben, I couldn’t help but smile at your choice of picture. Those houses are the world famous, and very popular tourist attraction of the “painted ladies” of San Francisco. They hardly ever change hands and would be one of the most desirable pieces of real estate in the city. Chances of property of that standard being built in Auckland under the DUP are in dreamland territory. I wish! I really support the work you are doing on Special Character Zones, and wish you well with that. However, the Bernard Orsman article had one essential piece of information that you have not commented on. Auckland Council officers have clearly told the mayor, the councilors and the whole city (maybe even you?), that the Mixed Housing maximum height (their words) was 8m and 2 stories. That is simply not the case. Misleading elected representatives and the public at large is utterly unacceptable. How can we provide feedback if we have been fed the wrong information? Leaving the rules to planners’ discretion, non notified, is just not on. It is what happens now. That is the big issue that has come from the Orsman article.
And one I have come round to acknowledge as well as I (and others go for a dig) especially with Mixed House Zoning (which I also sit in).
I thought those houses might have caused a bit of stir there for the fact they are world famous as you mentioned.
Those houses would raise an extremely high bar for something to aspire to with Auckland and its development. But even I concede chances of us ever getting to that bar are as remote as a High Country Station….
As for Orsman – he does drive me nuts he really does and that is me being honest (not enough honesty in this planning game). But you are right with the
to the point even I would of been fed the wrong information. Heavens I even have the document from Dr Roger Blakeley stating 8 metres in the MHZ that was sent around and I managed to get a copy of. This I will concede to Orsman as a job well done (for once) as I got me sending off emails for please explains.
But, as I said before the English has been lose by Council and sometimes opponents with the Unitary Plan. That annoys me. But what does annoy me even further and I might have not made my feelings clear thus far in the posts is the Restricted Discretionary rules around the 3 storeys in the MHZ. Simply put I don’t like that Restricted Discretionary Rule in place as it gives too much away to a single central planner. The non notified restricted discretionary rule also flies directly in the face of my dual planning methodologies – the Centralised Master Community Plan and the Semi-Liberal Plan District to which the Special Character Zones come off.
So hat off to Orsman for this one and mega annoyance at Council at the moment.
I have asked for speaking rights next month at the Auckland Plan Committee on the Restricted Discretionary Rule and my three alternatives to replace it. Blood is boiling here….
And it’s pretty typical of a lot of inner-residential Wellington, too: desirable suburbs such as Thorndon & Mt Victoria have a lot of 2-3 storey close housing (not quite attached, but close). They look similar, too, which is not surprising since a lot of late 19th-Century NZ housing was based on Californian pattern books.
It’s not necessary for new housing on that model to strictly emulate that architectural style, though, and it’s rare that an urban designer would advocate that. The Altair townhouses in Newtown are a good example of ones that create a street edge with the depth and visual complexity typical of older houses, but in a resolutely contemporary idiom.