Sunlight access should not prevent housing intensification, experts say

Wednesday, 31 July 2024

The city council has openly opposed medium density rules in the past.

Experts have rejected the Christchurch City Council’s attempt to make sunlight access grounds for preventing housing intensification, suggesting the council compromised its own evidence to get around the rules.

The council has openly opposed medium density rules in part because of residents’ fears of losing sunlight access should three storey buildings pop up next door.

However, according to a highly anticipated report by a panel of independent experts, the council’s failure to evaluate the actual impact of these rules on sunlight access implied a predetermined outcome.

The report is part of the council’s Plan Change 14 process, which seeks to enable more residential and commercial development in Christchurch, as well as implement housing density rules.

Efforts to increase housing density in Christchurch are drawing the ire of local residents. (First published February 9, 2021).

An independent panel (which has been collecting evidence from council and submitters) found the council’s proposed alternative would have likely resulted in less sunlight being available to neighbours than existing rules. It was only when a building was above 12m (or four storeys) that the council’s recession plane analysis was accepted.

The city council will decide on September 4 which recommendations it accepts, and which aspects it will delay for a later vote (some aspects have a deadline of December 2025, but the parts relating to new heights must be done in September).

If the council rejects any recommendation, it would need to propose an evidence-based alternative to Housing Minister Chris Bishop, who would get the final say.

New heights

When it comes to new height limits, the panel found merit in allowing buildings to be taller, particularly in the city’s existing commercial centres.

The panel wants the CBD (the area within the four avenues) in particular to grow. It recommends 28m, or about eight storeys, and anything taller should be allowed on a controlled or restricted basis.

Residential areas within 800m of a large town centre’s central location could become zoned as high density. (Pictured: A digital mock up of medium density housing in Christchurch)

The larger town centres of Riccarton, Hornby and Papanui/Northlands could also grow. It rejected submitters’ requests to rezone these areas as metropolitan centres (which could have made the height limit taller, still), settling on a recommendation to lift the centres’ commercial area height limits to 32m, a boost of 10m.

For each of those large suburbs, the residential area within about 800m of a designated central location could be zoned as high density, but only to a height of 14m.

Requests for high density building elsewhere in Riccarton were rejected.

Buildings within suburbs designated as a town centre (Shirley/Palms, Eastgate/Linwood, Belfast/Northwood and North Halswell) may build up to 22m, with a high density residential zone within 600m of each suburb’s central location.

The panel recommends the same heights for Merivale, Bush Inn/Church Corner, Sydenham North and Ferrymead, which are classified as larger local centres, but the high density residential zone is within 400m of a central location.

The panel says the existing recession plane rules are suitable, and the council’s proposed sunlight access qualifying matter would have likely resulted in less sunlight available to neighbours.

Qualifying matters

A residential area marked for high or medium density growth may still have restricted growth if there is a good reason for it - known as a qualifying matter.

It includes areas at risk of coastal or tsunami hazards, or areas effected by certain utilities or industry (like Ravensdown, Lyttelton Port and Christchurch Airport).

Of the list of rejected qualifying matters, sunlight access is the most controversial.

The fear of residents losing sunlight access formed the basis of why Christchurch city councillors voted against implementing medium density standards in 2022, despite it becoming law in 2021.

The panel said the existing recession plane rules were suitable, and the council’s proposed sunlight access qualifying matter would have likely resulted in less sunlight available to neighbours.

Other qualifying matters the panel rejected were low public transport access, significant trees, and the Riccarton Bush interface area.

Qualifying matters related to heritage were not included in this report, as a separate plan change process would address it.