Six-storey apartments could be coming to a bus stop or train station near you

Thursday, 10 December 2020

Wellington is trying to prepare for a projected population explosion, in a city desperately short of housing.

OPINION: It is highly likely that the new Labour Government will repeal the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and replace it with new legislation.

One of the reasons for that change is to have fewer restrictions on development in urban areas in order to provide more housing.

However, the RMA already has several tools to help achieve this outcome.

One wide-ranging initiative introduced in mid-2020 was the new national policy direction in the form of a National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 (NPS).

Matthew Gribben: The 2020 National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 specifies where intensification should occur, a significant departure from the earlier national direction.

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The NPS has the potential to provide, and even require, significant ‘’zoning’’ in our largest cities, with limited ability for local councils and residents to oppose it.

How can one central government policy achieve such an outcome?

The RMA requires each district and region to prepare its own planning documents which prescribe the location, scale and density of residential development. But in 2013, the Supreme Court established the primacy of national direction.

The increased building heights and density required by the NPS will potentially result in far greater up-zoning than has occurred before.

This means a government can issue national policy that must be implemented in cities and regions across the country. It is now a very powerful policy making tool for central government.

The NPS replaces an earlier 2016 version which emphasised the need for councils in high-growth areas to provide more housing, but generally left it up to local councils to decide where that growth was provided.

The new NPS continues the objective of providing increased housing but goes further by specifying where intensification should occur. This is a significant departure from the earlier national direction.

The NPS now gives clear and specific direction for urban development in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. In those cities the local planning documents must enable buildings of at least six storeys within metropolitan and city centres and within a walkable catchment of the edge of those centres and from existing and planned rapid transit stops.

In practice, this means that planning documents must have a set of rules about matters such as building height, density and setbacks from boundaries that make it easy to obtain resource consent for buildings of up to six storeys in those places.

Local councils have the power to create exemptions to this blanket up-zoning, but only in specific circumstances.

While increased density in and around centres and public transport routes is a well-established planning principle that has found recent expression in the current Draft Wellington Spatial Plan, the increased building heights and density required by the NPS will potentially result in far greater up-zoning than has occurred before.

It is unclear if a high-frequency bus service on a main arterial fits the description of a rapid transit service. If it is found to, a simple painted bus lane on a high-frequency bus route, like parts of Adelaide Rd in Wellington, could trigger the directive for higher density housing within 400m or even 800m of a humble bus shelter.

It imposes a uniform approach across all five cities and, due to the primacy of national policy, there is limited scope for local councils to adopt a more bespoke approach.

Two key concepts are likely to influence how much of each city will be subject to these requirements: walkable catchments and rapid transit stops.

Walkable catchments are not defined within the NPS and so the concept seems ripe for contention between experts.

In September, the Ministry for the Environment provided guidance that a walkable catchment could vary from 400m to 800m to over 1km, depending on the city, the type of centre, or the type of rapid transit. The ministry guidance for larger cities is that the catchment should be at least 800m from rapid transit stops.

The NPS includes a definition of a rapid transit service but not specific networks. Ministry guidance has confirmed the heavy rail network in Wellington is a rapid transit service and therefore, six-storey buildings should be enabled within 800m of every rail station.

Less clear is whether high frequency bus services will be caught. Former transport minister Phil Twyford has been reported as saying, ‘’a high frequency bus service on a main arterial fits the definition’’.

If this interpretation is adopted, then a simple painted bus lane on a high frequency bus route, like parts of Adelaide Rd in Wellington, could trigger the directive requirements of the NPS for higher density housing within 400m or even 800m of a humble bus shelter.

The NPS anticipates potential opposition from established property owners who may look to protect their existing amenity values, views and character. It expressly states that changing amenity values are to be expected and that changes in amenity values are not, of themselves, an adverse effect.

This has the potential to remove one of the key planning and legal barriers to higher-density development in suburban areas.

Overall, the NPS creates significant opportunities for increased development within and near major centres and frequent and reliable public transport, but potentially at the cost of the amenity enjoyed by existing property owners.

Mathew Gribben is a senior associate at Buddle Findlay, specialising in environmental and resource management law.