Unitary Plan Hearings Panel Directs Council to rerun and peer review Auckland Council Development Capacity 2015 Model AGAIN!

 

The issue of how much existing urban Auckland can take in extra housing (Brownfield development and/or intensification) is becoming vexed to the point of rather ridiculous.

While I am preparing for Council’s Rebuttal Evidence that is due on October 6 (the Hearings are a week after that) on the Residential Zones I noticed this Directive from Judge Kirkpatrick of the Hearing Panel to Council (and two others) on the Auckland Council Development Capacity Model (ACDC15) for those Residential Zones.

 

Here is the Directive: 

 

Basically Judge Kirkpatrick has asked the entire ACDC15 model to be run again AND to be peer-reviewed with the help of Patrick Fontein and Adam Thompson setting alternative but independent parameters (from Council) for the model rerun.

This all needs to be done by October 14 when the Hearings on the Residential Zones starts.

 

Rather ouch to Council as their re-run of the ACDC15 model in which they were pinning on would show the market feasible would increase from the initial 11% to over 60%. But it seems the Panel is not convinced thus the directive issued above that is going to have implications on the proposed controls for the Residential Zones and later on Topic 081 which is the rezoning exercise.

I am going to take a hunch that what the proposed development controls are for the Residential Zones in the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (density controls removed and height limits increased) are fine (unlike the Centres Zones) but where the respective zones are placed will be causing the major issues.

 

It might be a case of once the Residential Zones hearing is complete next month that initial runs on moving the zones around might need to be done to see how the development feasibility ends up. Of course legally this would open up the Rezoning exercise of Topic 081 for public submissions again to allow natural justice to occur. Just maybe this needs to be done and the Hearings extended six months beyond the nominal time frame of July 2016 to ensure everything to do with the Residential Zones and their spatial placement is correct.

 

Will see how Council reacts to the Panel Directive this week.

 

Further Links to the ACDC15 Saga

Unitary Plan Falls Very Short of Enabling Those 400,000 Homes Needed by 2041

Are We Bottling Our Intensification Targets in the Unitary Plan

Council Reruns Development Capacity Model. Finds more areas viable for Housing