How to ease the city’s housing handbrake

Monday, 24 February 2025

Hamilton’s wastewater treatment plant on Pukete Rd - not all parts of the city can connect to it at present, meaning a barrier to housing developers.

Options to ease restrictions on development in parts of Hamilton due to significant wastewater capacity constraints are set to be presented to city councillors over coming months.

The ongoing restrictions are in place as the city also wrestles with the need for more housing to accommodate what’s been the country’s fastest growing urban population.

A report to the strategic growth and district plan committee highlighted how 1300 homes need to be built annually to deliver nearly 26,000 required homes over the next two decades.

But consenting dropped to 1231 in 2023 and 908 last year amid tougher economic times, said the report from councillor Anna Casey-Cox, the council’s lead on a housing affordability working group.

Councillor Anna Casey-Cox has strong concerns about Hamilton being able to provide enough future housing.

Those figures and projections of the target not being met over the next few years meant “meeting both current and future housing needs is becoming increasingly unlikely”, Casey-Cox said.

Meanwhile, the council’s website outlines the ongoing development constraints due to not enough water services capacity, with older areas of Hamilton affected most.

Highest risk areas include, the south-west (such as Bader, Melville, Deanwell, Glenview, Fitzroy); parts of Hamilton East, Claudelands and Fairfield; parts of Hillcrest and around the university; other isolated pockets of the city including small areas of St Andrews, Rototuna and Nawton.

They currently have limited or no capacity in the network for development without the completion of upgrades to provide extra capacity.

Committee members were told two key reports on wastewater were due. One in June would look at “levers that we can pull to understand and to fix some of these issues”, said infrastructure unit director Kevin Strongman.

Councillor Ewan Wilson wants clarity on how the capacity constraints occurred.

“There’s no silver bullet, there’s going to be lots of different levers that will need to be pulled,” Strongman said.

Considerable effort would be needed to get pipes and related infrastructure up to speed and the June report would look at a staged approach to providing “relief” in certain areas, as requested by developers.

Urban and spatial planning unit director Mark Davey says hindsight indicates more could have been done to avoid capacity problems.

Economic development committee chairperson Ewan Wilson asked if the situation involved “systemic underfunding in this critical known area over literally the last few decades”.

Councillor Geoff Taylor asked whether councillors might be involved in deciding on where restrictions apply.

Wilson questioned whether the council should have foreseen that allowing two-unit duplexes widely would contribute to capacity problems.

He wanted clarity on how the situation had developed, not just a focus on the future response.

Urban and spatial planning unit director Mark Davey agreed growth pressures had exacerbated wastewater problems but the new Plan Change 12 (PC12) had mitigated these somewhat.

In hindsight when more density was previously enabled in established residential areas “we should have done that with matched investment [in infrastructure] or we should have done that with better understanding of what our network capacity was”.

Committee chairperson Sarah Thomson thought the total cost of easing restrictions could be “huge”.

Committee deputy chairperson Geoff Taylor asked whether there might be a more risk-based approach to development restrictions rather than saying “this area’s a no-no” completely and also whether councillors might be involved in such decisions.

Strongman said staff were discussing those ideas.

Mayor Paula Southgate wanted the reports to cover choices for spending on infrastructure.

Mayor Paula Southgate said Hamilton had grown faster than expected.

“We all know this is going to cost money but we can’t be straight up with the public unless we see those.”

Davey acknowledged the current long term plan did not cater for all the improvements that might be required.

Committee chairperson Sarah Thomson said it would cost a huge amount to fully open up brownfield areas for development.

Strategy, growth and planning general manager Blair Bowcott said the reports would focus on priority areas: “We won’t be able to invest everywhere to please everyone. There will always be areas where there isn’t capacity.”

Wilson argued the council had become distracted and failed to provide critical infrastructure previously.

“We have spent copious resources doing other things and have failed to invest in the critical infrastructure that we’re now having to run back and sort out.“

Southgate accepted some of what Wilson said, saying “The world is changing, we have grown faster than we anticipated … we have to be agile and flexible.”

Taylor said developers who’d bought properties in affected areas were frustrated.

“They’re rightly pointing out that we appear to be able to do some frilly stuff but not the core functions.”

Thomson said: “We need to get a much tighter grip on this situation as elected members.”

She was also concerned about how councillors couldn’t always provide current information to developers.

“Developers are saying that they [feel] stonewalled and I think it’s harming our reputation…because they’re asking, fairly, how do you not have this information at hand.

“We urgently need transparency and certainty for developers.”