Auckland’s watered down housing rules watered down again
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
The Government is forcing a further watering down of Auckland’s controversial housing intensification rules.
Under Plan Change 120, Auckland Council was required to enable a minimum of up to 2 million more homes in the city.
After backlash from some councillors, constituents and ACT, Housing Minister Chris Bishop backed down to reduce that number to 1.6m.
But on Tuesday he confirmed that number would be slashed further to 1.4m homes.
Read more:
'This is damning': Auckland councillor releases PC120 feedback report
‘Learned a lesson’: Chris Bishop cuts Auckland housing target by 400,000 homes
However, Bishop said he expected that 1.6m homes would still be enabled once other policies were taken into account - including up-zoning around the stations on the City Rail Link route, and through the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which forces council to zone for apartments around train stations, busways and town centres.
In his press release, Bishop said it was his expectation that the “revised number finally brings consensus on this important issue”.
“Aucklanders deserve certainty on this city-shaping plan change.”
The change comes just six weeks after Bishop announced his plan to reduce the 2 million figure to 1.6m . It is understood to have further frustrated councillors.
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown said it was “awkward for staff, it’s awkward for the commissioners, it’s awkward for the process”.
The supercity has been stuck in planning limbo for five years, with the council now having spent $13m on the process and dedicating 55 fulltime staff. They’re working through a record 10,500 submissions from the public.
This is now the fifth change to Auckland’s planning rules made since the medium density residential rules (MDRS), which allowed for three houses, up to three storeys high to be built anywhere, were enacted in 2021.
“The Government has set about trying to speed up the Resource Management Act and everything they’ve done here is slowing down the move to intensification,” Brown said.
The MDRS rules were brought in “thoughtlessly quickly and now they're unpicking them thoughtlessly slowly”.
He criticised Wellington central government politicians interfering in local Auckland politicians’ decision-making.
“A lot of people who are in parliament with a fraction of the votes I got, are fiddling around interfering in the city - it's not like their city hasn't got any problems. I've suggested they should take a day off and go on the coast and pick up some toilet paper and think about what they're doing down there and let us get on with making this a wonderful city.”
He hoped the number of houses required to be enabled didn’t change again.
“It’s not supposed to be an auction in order to keep [David] Seymour in a suburb he doesn’t live in.”
ACT leader and Epsom MP David Seymour and Brown have history over this issue.
Seymour has been particularly critical of the PC120 and wanted to see how and where Auckland Council would upzone before Cabinet approved the new rules.
Brown refused to provide maps.
On Tuesday afternoon, Seymour said he originally agreed to the 1.6m figure because he believed that “several hundred thousand homes” would be in greenfield developments - but Auckland Council refused to do that because it wanted most development to be within 10km of Queen St in the CBD.
He said the council provided this insight instead of the maps.
“That's their right and their choice as a council. But it's also forced a change in the target number that the government has set.”
Seymour said the downgraded 1.4m figure brought Auckland’s intensification requirements closer to the unitary plan it committed to in 2016.
“Stipulating a large number of houses for Auckland takes away the ability of Aucklanders to control their own destiny.”
He said it was “absolutely my intention” that today’s update was the end of the changes.
For the most part, Brown has welcomed the PC120 changes saying it gives the city flexibility to down-zone for natural hazards and up-zone around infrastructure. It would allow Auckland to grow into a global city “not, embarrassingly, the world’s biggest suburb”.
Richard Hills, chairman of Auckland Councils policy, planning and development committee, said the 1.4m figure was “a moot point” as legal requirements under the NPS UD already get the city to around 1.6m.
“So who knows what this last minute change means other than political messaging from parts of the Cabinet.”
Hills was also supportive of the added flexibility which would allow more options for housing close to public transport, centres, jobs, amenities and the city centre while reducing the risk of homes in hazardous areas.
“You can see in a fuel crisis how important it is to have options for people to live close to jobs and public transport.”
Bishop has promised the process will now move quickly, with legislation introduced to Parliament on Tuesday.
That legislation will also address a transitional issue affecting approximately 400 developers and property owners following the withdrawal of an earlier plan change in 2025.
Bishop said he also planned to investigate planning provisions that may be holding back Auckland’s city centre, with a view to making regulations under the RMA if the statutory criteria are met.