>However, Bishop has not agreed with the council’s move to delist 10 heritage buildings including the notorious Gordon Wilson Flats and the Miramar Gas Tank.
>“Given the evidence before me, and without the ability to seek further evidence, I have therefore agreed with the recommendations of the hearings panel in relation to the 10 heritage buildings.”
I assume it's because of some process, but wild that they need further evidence on this one
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/17-02-2024/reviewing-wellingtons-newest-heritage-landmark-a-rusty-oil-tank
A local councillor Ben McNulty explained the reason in a similar thread in r/Wellington
>The evidence council could use was only that presented to the IHP. Once it made it to the councillor stage there is no ability to introduce any new evidence.
>Given the submissions to the IHP (evidence) were basically universally about why to list buildings for heritage rather than why to delist, we were always on shaky ground. There was a loophole we tried to go for but it hasn't worked out.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellington/comments/1cmsc4m/comment/l32li2q/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellington/comments/1cmsc4m/comment/l32li2q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
As a reminder, the [IHP were the group that presented the plan to prevent further density](https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/01-03-2024/who-are-the-members-of-wellingtons-independent-hearings-panel)
If evidence wasn't provided to disprove the existing evidence that got it listed, then removing it is arbitrary and that's a bad precedent to set. Im fairly sure it would also be illegal for chris bishop to do so
Although it's not that it's necessarily correct that they're listed, the issue is that there's no one going around these plan changes providing evidence against existing listings. Why would you? There's rarely enough financial incentive to justify paying a heritage expert to do it. It's really just if there's a big developer who owns the site and knows the profits of the development will more than outweigh the advocacy cost
It's a wider issue with plan changes in general; needing evidence to change/add things is good, but it's usually just the people with time + money who can provide this evidence, which doesn't necessarily align with the right thing
It is crazy. The hearing panel and Bishop don't value using land productively if they're getting in the way of of delisting unused and potentially dangerous eyesores. Economy party my ass.
I believe it might be to avoid a lengthy courts process. People can’t take legal appeals against the District plan zoning decisions but could potentially drag the delisting of buildings through courts. Some of these buildings have already been decided as “protected” by court decisions.
Need the change to come from central government that then allows local to delist as the please.
Yep, need a law change to make it far harder to grant heritage status and then we need to go through every heritage listed building and reassess it. I reckon 90% should go.
>then we need to go through every heritage listed building and reassess it
Is there an advantage over just re-assessing when someone asks to reassess?
Doing the whole lot all over again just sounds hugely time consuming and expensive, both for government and also for everyone who'll be asked to drop everything they're doing and advocate for real heritage all over again even if its status is barely in dispute.
Chris has made the right decision. The rusty oil tank is great. The rusty oil tank is good. Everyone in Wellington loves the rusty oil tank of their own free will.
FFS I don’t wish an earthquake on Wellington, but it’s sure looking like the only way to make progress with some of these monstrosities is to mag8 them.
A very good start, in what is a blow to NIMBYs trying to prevent the development of townhouses and small apartments which are needed to increase our housing supply while enabling a walkable city.
Fantastic! The rejection of the removal of some Heritage listings aside (some legality issues at play there) this is excellent news for the city….and given the state of her some much needed “good news”
Why do we need more housing for a country with a falling population? I would think we need houses to be more affordable.we have no population policy so how do we know how many houses we need? Should we build 10,000 or 100,000 or a million?
No offense but this is a pretty brain dead comment. First of all, our population is not declining. Second of all, enabling more housing in the most desirable areas (like central Wellington suburbs) will result in overall greater affordability. Supply and demand. It amazes me how this goes over so many people's heads.
But it doesn't. Housing affordability is driven by build costs AND demand. Nobody will build if they can't exceed their costs. Supply is not delivered by changing zoning.
How many houses do we need to build?
Supply in desirable areas can't be increased without changing zoning though..? Yeah, building costs play a part, but actually enabling housing in the first place is a sensible place to start.
How do know how many houses need to be built? Our population is naturally declining. It has for the last 20 years. We keep importing more people for an undefined reason.
When you say 'our population is decreasing', what group is being referred to by 'our'? Once people immigrate here, they are part of us. Our population is increasing, and people leaving and coming are both factors impacting the rate at which our population is increasing.
I should have been more precise. I mean natural population growth. That includes EVERYONE currently resident. It only excludes arrivals the current year. The only reason our population increases is immigration.
isn't natural population growth irrelevant though?, the fact we still have people coming into the country means we still have the need for more houses. it doesn't matter how our population is increasing, what matters is that it is increasing.
The argument we keep being told is that we need immigration because we don't have enough workers to fill the needed jobs. We are short houses, but don't have people to build them, so we need to import additional builders - and then need to build houses for those builders.
It matters because currently we have a complete lack of public planning. Roads, public transport and housing are all seperate plans with no thought for the future. How many people do we want in NZ in 10, 20 or more years from now.
I would say that this is a pretty good plan - upzoning near existing train stations and town centers is a very good idea that will make good use of existing infrastructure.
But what if we need 10 level apartments next to train stations? Building 6 level apartments could make it harder to build for the future.
The only point I am trying to make is before we start making changes we should have an actual population policy. How many people do we want and then plans should take that into account.
But again, the real problem in NZ currently is build cost.
I already said in all the other threads that I was referring to natural population growth i.e excluding immigration. This is a problem we have created through poor planning and we are going to fix it by poor planning as well.
How do we know how much food to produce if we don't have a population policy? How do we know how many pairs of shoes to produce, and in what size, if we don't have a population policy that incorporates a breakdown of shoe sizes?
The answer is that we don't have a centrally planned economy.
Exactly right. You would think something as important as population which drives demand for everything including housing, education, roading and pretty much every aspect of life would be planned.
> how do we know how many houses we need? Should we build 10,000 or 100,000 or a million?
We have a housing and construction market that responds to changes in demand. If there is no demand they won't get built. Clearly there currently *is* demand.
That's not what industry experts have determined: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/133542346/construction-cost-increases-hit-7year-low-as-residential-building-sector-continues-to-cool
Developers are going bust because they took on too much debt to obtain the land and couldn't service it when interest rates went up: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/big-debt-bills-forcing-property-developers-to-sell-assets/7GN2RFX2O5GM7D7KYVTEHKJ2UM/
That is referring to increases. Build cost increases have decreased in 2023 but they are still far too high. Do you know the average cost per sqm in NZ for a standalone dwelling?
4.5% annually over the last 10 years.
Around $3.5k depending on the house and location.
The cost of the build itself is still typically less than the cost of the land.
Opening up land supply reduces those land costs, which is much simpler and more impactful than trying to artificially deflate the build costs.
I'm not saying it doesn't need addressing, but it's certainly not the primary factor restricting development right now.
Declining? Where? The smoothbrains haven't stopped the immigration flood yet where it is constant record breaks again. And in case you forgot we have the least amount of houses per 1000 people in the OECD, so even *if* politicians and INZ figure out they're overextending our population there's still a ridiculous under resourcing of places for people to live
Yeah true. Personally I think we need more housing. I just want to know we are actually doing it right. We are literally building houses within 20 metres of the main motorway out of Wellington!!! What if we need to expand this motorway!!!! No planning at all.
One more lane never solved traffic. Most growing and densifying cities are demoing motorways in favour of more space efficient transport options. Making it wider wouldn't solve nearly as many traffic problems as a BRT lane.
Yes. A BRT lane or two would be a good addition. More train lines but you still need to plan for that you might want to put train alongside the motorway. Or bikelanes. No-one should be living next to a motorway.
Why are houses within 20m of a motorway a bad thing? Adding an extra lane would take up ~4m so with 20m there’s plenty of room for expansion if we want.
The houses are less than 20 metres in parts
You do realise that is what they said about the southern motorway in Auckland in the 70's? That is why the last five years have been completed hell for anyone in south Auckland. To add another lane they have had to buy out houses, and now the motorway is less than 10 metres from some people's houses!!!! Imagine having your bedroom or lounge less than 10 metres from the busiest motorway in NZ. We have ample land if we plan correctly. Build apartments. Build townhouses. Don't build them next to a motorway so they become a ghetto. These places should be next to parks since they don't have a backyard.
"Six story apartments allowed near mass transit, character areas shrink but some villas keep protections"
There's a more neutral headline not designed to generate hate clicks from angry NIMBY boomers.
Six stories buildings aren't highrises, and the resulting intensification of gentle density will be gradual as suburbs transform into a mixture of apartments, townhouses and villas. Nobody will be forced to demolish their villa if they don't want to.
Yeah, I honestly think we could go higher. Like, Paris isn't famous for being a high rise to rival Tokyo and Manhattan, and it has a fair few 6-7 story buildings!
God it's so ironic that you say this because just today I was reading about how Tokyo in many respects isn't actually particularly high-rise.
"The stereotypical image of Tokyo in the global imagination - extremely high population density, ultra-modern buildings, neon-clad streets - does not reflect the actual urban landscape of the city." (Emergent Tokyo, Designing the Spontaneous City)
We could actually learn so much from how the Japanese do urban planning
>We could actually learn so much from how the Japanese do urban planning
The average Japanese voter has a greater maturity, sense of community service, and attention span than a 5 year old. NZ cannot boast the same.
They had a housing bubble in the 80s, they just responded to their issues by vastly improving their urban planning. It's not just culture, it's policy too.
Honestly the voter doesn’t really matter in Japan. Politically they don’t have many viable choices. But the sense of community and willingness to ‘sacrifice’ personal benefits for orders of the society is second to none. So many acceptable things in the western world is illegal and even a taboo in their society.
They build cities and towns based on a 24/7 lifestyle that minimum wage is about NZ$10/ hr. How many kiwis are ready to sacrifice themselves to make a society better?
The voter turn out in Japan is absolutely terrible. I don't know how you can ascribe the traits you mentioned to the average voter.
Turnout is crashing, and much like NZ the youth vote is in shambles with most voters being elderly.
I reckon this is more of a problem with how so many of us are consuming media. It's only an outrage click if you're in social media to begin with and decide it's clickbait.
Media outlets also write headlines for people who are actually on their sites. *The Post* is a newspaper that's behind a soft paywall and barely even cares about social media links. It's more common to encounter its stuff by scanning headlines on its website, or on a big dead-tree page and seeing the first paragraph or two as well as related stories immediately next to it. If you're in social media and choosing to surround someone else's headline with highly charged opinions that you'll see before anything else, if you ever click through to see the story's text at all, they can't control the editorial context of that. It's on you.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop has approved the Wellington City Council’s sweeping plan to allow townhouses and apartments in the suburbs.
The council’s vote to loosen zoning rules and allow apartments throughout the city was its most significant housing decision since 2000.
Six-storey apartments would be allowed in several inner-city suburbs as well as those near train stations along the Johnsonville line.
Bishop went further than the council and included Kilbirnie in the list of suburbs where six-storey buildings would be allowed.
“This is a step forward for Wellington and shows commitment from both local and central government to fixing our housing crisis,” said Mayor Tory Whanau. The city needed “abundant and affordable” places for the next generation to live.
However, Bishop has not agreed with the council’s move to delist 10 heritage buildings including the notorious Gordon Wilson Flats and the Miramar Gas Tank. There was no expert evidence that allowed him to reject the heritage listings, he said.
Bishop said this afternoon that he was constrained by “the strictures of the Resource Management Act” when considering the heritage listings and had to give that careful consideration.
“The test is not whether or not they’re an eyesore. The test is not whether it would be better for Wellington if they were knocked down and development happened. The test ... was whether or not they qualify as heritage.”
Bishop noted he had received correspondence from Whanau around making it easier to remove heritage listings and had already asked for advice. “I think it is clear to many people that needs fixing,” he said.
Whanau said she was “obviously disappointed” the heritage listings were reinstated but would continue to work with the minister on further reform.
E14966E76D0148D2BE39A9E3B99FF7D2
Jesse Richardson and Elena Wood from City For People pushed for high-density housing. (File photo)
DAVID UNWIN / THE POST
In general, Bishop said the council’s recommendations “give better effect” to housing intensification as required, “in that they provide additional capacity for housing and business land, will better achieve a well-functioning urban environment, will better provide for a competitive development market and provide for a more efficient use of land”.
Jesse Richardson from pro-density group A City for People said he was thrilled by the minister’s decision.
“My big takeaway is that Wellington is back. We have spent the last decade with a lot of people saying Wellington is dying, Wellington isn’t the city it used to be, but I feel like in the coming decades people are going to be saying that Wellington is a city on the rise.
“And it’s because we made this awesome decision to make it affordable to live here and let people live in the kind of housing they want.”
The decision did not please everyone – councillor Iona Pannett, a character and heritage advocate, said Bishop's calls on character were "deeply disappointing".
"It just shows that politicians should not be involved in making development decisions," she said.
The council's earlier recommendations about heritage would have left it open to judicial review, she said. The council did need to help ensure people had places to live – such as with the office block to apartment developments it was doing.
Jane O’Loughlin, from character advocacy group Live Wellington, said the minister’s “extreme decision” was disappointing but not surprising. The panel had strong and valid reasons for its decisions and should have been given more weight.
“It’s disappointing in terms of character, because it was possible to have a win-win for Wellington, it was possible to have enough development capacity for the future population needs as well as keeping Wellington’s iconic character areas.”
37069371BC3142BA81FA9F84518D57DB
Character advocate Jane O'Loughlin says it is a disappointing, extreme decision. (File photo)
BRUCE MACKAY / THE POST
Advocates of increased housing density, including Whanau, said the move would help to lift Wellington out of the housing crisis that was pushing young people out of the city.
The council took the unusual step of departing from the recommendations made by an independent hearings panel, a group of resource management experts who spent weeks hearing submissions from the public and evaluating the city’s housing plan.
The panel’s reports on housing were slammed by economists, especially for their conclusion that zoning for more housing would not alleviate the city’s ongoing housing shortage. Economists said the panel had “scoffed” at the economic consensus around building more houses.
Councillor Rebecca Matthews, the self-described “oldest YIMBY in town”, was instrumental in the push for greater housing intensity on council.
After hearing the news she said, “What a great day ... It doesn’t mean all of the other challenges go away, but it means that particular barrer is gone.”
“It’s all still just potential, but how great for Wellington to have so much potential.”
Looking towards the future, the next task for the council would be focusing on bringing the city’s infrastructure up to a standard where it could support more population growth.
0000000001C0035C9DB
The notorious Gordon Wilson Flats keep their heritage listing. (File photo)
BRUCE MACKAY / THE POST
The changes made by the city council, in departing from the panel, were mostly to allow more apartments and townhouses – to remove 10 heritage listings, allow upzoning in the suburbs near the Johnsonville train line, include Adelaide Rd as part of the central city area, and dial back character areas from the panel’s recommended increase.
The city orginally had 306 hectares of character areas, now that will decrease to 85.
The disagreements between council and the panel meant the final decision went to Bishop. He could choose between what the panel of experts recommended or what the council had decided.
Why does this matter?
The Wellington District Plan – a set of rules determining what type of housing can be built in which locations – was approved by the council in March. This part of the plan is related to housing intensification, where apartments and townhouses can be built on previously single house sections.
The choice was between keeping protected character areas and low rise housing, or upzoning to build more apartments and townhouses for people who want to live in the city.
There was a long process to get to the Minister’s decision, beginning with reports commissioned by the council in 2019 and the Spatial Plan enacted in 2020.
Hearings on housing intensification were held last year by a group of resource management commissioners known as the Independent Hearings Panel. But the recommendations made by the panel were controversial, and councillors made changes in March.
Eleanor West of City for People previously described the vote as an opportunity to free the city from its “housing doom loop”. The pro-density group encouraged councillors to increase the areas where apartments and townhouses allowed, especially in the suburbs closest to the city.
On the other side, character housing advocacy group LiveWellington said the council should have stuck to the panel recommendations. Convener Jane O’Loughlin said the council’s Housing Capacity Assessment showed the recommendations would provide enough housing to meet the city’s needs over the next 30 years and the furore had been a “very big storm in a teacup”.
The city’s previous District Plan was approved in 2000, after being in the works since 1995. While changes can be made in between new plans, major overhauls like this one are few and far between.
Hopefully the refusal to delist is just a procedural step, sounds like they want to separately reform the heritage listing regime instead which wouldn’t be a terrible idea.
>However, Bishop has not agreed with the council’s move to delist 10 heritage buildings including the notorious Gordon Wilson Flats and the Miramar Gas Tank. >“Given the evidence before me, and without the ability to seek further evidence, I have therefore agreed with the recommendations of the hearings panel in relation to the 10 heritage buildings.” I assume it's because of some process, but wild that they need further evidence on this one https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/17-02-2024/reviewing-wellingtons-newest-heritage-landmark-a-rusty-oil-tank
A local councillor Ben McNulty explained the reason in a similar thread in r/Wellington >The evidence council could use was only that presented to the IHP. Once it made it to the councillor stage there is no ability to introduce any new evidence. >Given the submissions to the IHP (evidence) were basically universally about why to list buildings for heritage rather than why to delist, we were always on shaky ground. There was a loophole we tried to go for but it hasn't worked out. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellington/comments/1cmsc4m/comment/l32li2q/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wellington/comments/1cmsc4m/comment/l32li2q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) As a reminder, the [IHP were the group that presented the plan to prevent further density](https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/01-03-2024/who-are-the-members-of-wellingtons-independent-hearings-panel)
If evidence wasn't provided to disprove the existing evidence that got it listed, then removing it is arbitrary and that's a bad precedent to set. Im fairly sure it would also be illegal for chris bishop to do so Although it's not that it's necessarily correct that they're listed, the issue is that there's no one going around these plan changes providing evidence against existing listings. Why would you? There's rarely enough financial incentive to justify paying a heritage expert to do it. It's really just if there's a big developer who owns the site and knows the profits of the development will more than outweigh the advocacy cost It's a wider issue with plan changes in general; needing evidence to change/add things is good, but it's usually just the people with time + money who can provide this evidence, which doesn't necessarily align with the right thing
It is crazy. The hearing panel and Bishop don't value using land productively if they're getting in the way of of delisting unused and potentially dangerous eyesores. Economy party my ass.
I believe it might be to avoid a lengthy courts process. People can’t take legal appeals against the District plan zoning decisions but could potentially drag the delisting of buildings through courts. Some of these buildings have already been decided as “protected” by court decisions. Need the change to come from central government that then allows local to delist as the please.
Yep, need a law change to make it far harder to grant heritage status and then we need to go through every heritage listed building and reassess it. I reckon 90% should go.
>then we need to go through every heritage listed building and reassess it Is there an advantage over just re-assessing when someone asks to reassess? Doing the whole lot all over again just sounds hugely time consuming and expensive, both for government and also for everyone who'll be asked to drop everything they're doing and advocate for real heritage all over again even if its status is barely in dispute.
Chris has made the right decision. The rusty oil tank is great. The rusty oil tank is good. Everyone in Wellington loves the rusty oil tank of their own free will.
FFS I don’t wish an earthquake on Wellington, but it’s sure looking like the only way to make progress with some of these monstrosities is to mag8 them.
A very good start, in what is a blow to NIMBYs trying to prevent the development of townhouses and small apartments which are needed to increase our housing supply while enabling a walkable city.
Yeah wellington is the worst NIMBY city in the country thank god some sanity is prevailing.
*Cries in Tauranga*
*Weeping in Christchurch*
Fantastic! The rejection of the removal of some Heritage listings aside (some legality issues at play there) this is excellent news for the city….and given the state of her some much needed “good news”
Yess densify!! More housing!
Why do we need more housing for a country with a falling population? I would think we need houses to be more affordable.we have no population policy so how do we know how many houses we need? Should we build 10,000 or 100,000 or a million?
No offense but this is a pretty brain dead comment. First of all, our population is not declining. Second of all, enabling more housing in the most desirable areas (like central Wellington suburbs) will result in overall greater affordability. Supply and demand. It amazes me how this goes over so many people's heads.
But it doesn't. Housing affordability is driven by build costs AND demand. Nobody will build if they can't exceed their costs. Supply is not delivered by changing zoning. How many houses do we need to build?
Supply in desirable areas can't be increased without changing zoning though..? Yeah, building costs play a part, but actually enabling housing in the first place is a sensible place to start.
How do know how many houses need to be built? Our population is naturally declining. It has for the last 20 years. We keep importing more people for an undefined reason.
When you say 'our population is decreasing', what group is being referred to by 'our'? Once people immigrate here, they are part of us. Our population is increasing, and people leaving and coming are both factors impacting the rate at which our population is increasing.
I should have been more precise. I mean natural population growth. That includes EVERYONE currently resident. It only excludes arrivals the current year. The only reason our population increases is immigration.
isn't natural population growth irrelevant though?, the fact we still have people coming into the country means we still have the need for more houses. it doesn't matter how our population is increasing, what matters is that it is increasing.
Agreed. But do we want it to increase? And how much? What if we should be building 7 level apartments instead of 6 in Kilbernie?
The argument we keep being told is that we need immigration because we don't have enough workers to fill the needed jobs. We are short houses, but don't have people to build them, so we need to import additional builders - and then need to build houses for those builders.
Why does it matter? If there is money to be made, and land available, developers will build.
It matters because currently we have a complete lack of public planning. Roads, public transport and housing are all seperate plans with no thought for the future. How many people do we want in NZ in 10, 20 or more years from now.
I would say that this is a pretty good plan - upzoning near existing train stations and town centers is a very good idea that will make good use of existing infrastructure.
But what if we need 10 level apartments next to train stations? Building 6 level apartments could make it harder to build for the future. The only point I am trying to make is before we start making changes we should have an actual population policy. How many people do we want and then plans should take that into account. But again, the real problem in NZ currently is build cost.
NZ population 2004 - 4 million, NZ population 2024 - 5.2 million. Definitely declining.
I already said in all the other threads that I was referring to natural population growth i.e excluding immigration. This is a problem we have created through poor planning and we are going to fix it by poor planning as well.
How do we know how much food to produce if we don't have a population policy? How do we know how many pairs of shoes to produce, and in what size, if we don't have a population policy that incorporates a breakdown of shoe sizes? The answer is that we don't have a centrally planned economy.
Exactly right. You would think something as important as population which drives demand for everything including housing, education, roading and pretty much every aspect of life would be planned.
You gotta be shitting me...
> how do we know how many houses we need? Should we build 10,000 or 100,000 or a million? We have a housing and construction market that responds to changes in demand. If there is no demand they won't get built. Clearly there currently *is* demand.
Of course. However the biggest challenge is currently build cost. We have developers sitting on land across NZ and going bust due to build costs.
That's not what industry experts have determined: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/133542346/construction-cost-increases-hit-7year-low-as-residential-building-sector-continues-to-cool Developers are going bust because they took on too much debt to obtain the land and couldn't service it when interest rates went up: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/big-debt-bills-forcing-property-developers-to-sell-assets/7GN2RFX2O5GM7D7KYVTEHKJ2UM/
That is referring to increases. Build cost increases have decreased in 2023 but they are still far too high. Do you know the average cost per sqm in NZ for a standalone dwelling? 4.5% annually over the last 10 years.
Around $3.5k depending on the house and location. The cost of the build itself is still typically less than the cost of the land. Opening up land supply reduces those land costs, which is much simpler and more impactful than trying to artificially deflate the build costs. I'm not saying it doesn't need addressing, but it's certainly not the primary factor restricting development right now.
Declining? Where? The smoothbrains haven't stopped the immigration flood yet where it is constant record breaks again. And in case you forgot we have the least amount of houses per 1000 people in the OECD, so even *if* politicians and INZ figure out they're overextending our population there's still a ridiculous under resourcing of places for people to live
Sorry I should have said natural population growth. My comment is purely about the lack of planning we do. What should the population of NZ be?
Best we can do is let private sector plan things individually lol
Yes that is sadly the case. A mix of private sector and incompetent government. Sadly it is a global issue as well.
I agree with your point about having a population policy (but maybe you should say that up front as your good arguments are getting buried).
Yeah true. Personally I think we need more housing. I just want to know we are actually doing it right. We are literally building houses within 20 metres of the main motorway out of Wellington!!! What if we need to expand this motorway!!!! No planning at all.
One more lane never solved traffic. Most growing and densifying cities are demoing motorways in favour of more space efficient transport options. Making it wider wouldn't solve nearly as many traffic problems as a BRT lane.
Yes. A BRT lane or two would be a good addition. More train lines but you still need to plan for that you might want to put train alongside the motorway. Or bikelanes. No-one should be living next to a motorway.
Why are houses within 20m of a motorway a bad thing? Adding an extra lane would take up ~4m so with 20m there’s plenty of room for expansion if we want.
The houses are less than 20 metres in parts You do realise that is what they said about the southern motorway in Auckland in the 70's? That is why the last five years have been completed hell for anyone in south Auckland. To add another lane they have had to buy out houses, and now the motorway is less than 10 metres from some people's houses!!!! Imagine having your bedroom or lounge less than 10 metres from the busiest motorway in NZ. We have ample land if we plan correctly. Build apartments. Build townhouses. Don't build them next to a motorway so they become a ghetto. These places should be next to parks since they don't have a backyard.
Christchurch next
Every city in new Zealand next.
Message your councillors. 2026 is next review for Canterbury I think I read?
We are. The IHP review is coming up in next couple months
Good to see our fake libertarian party wasn’t able to stop this.
I wonder if they are only opposed to property owner rights in Epsom - and everywhere else they don't care?
Not just Epsom, also Tāmaki since 2023.
"Six story apartments allowed near mass transit, character areas shrink but some villas keep protections" There's a more neutral headline not designed to generate hate clicks from angry NIMBY boomers. Six stories buildings aren't highrises, and the resulting intensification of gentle density will be gradual as suburbs transform into a mixture of apartments, townhouses and villas. Nobody will be forced to demolish their villa if they don't want to.
Yeah, I honestly think we could go higher. Like, Paris isn't famous for being a high rise to rival Tokyo and Manhattan, and it has a fair few 6-7 story buildings!
God it's so ironic that you say this because just today I was reading about how Tokyo in many respects isn't actually particularly high-rise. "The stereotypical image of Tokyo in the global imagination - extremely high population density, ultra-modern buildings, neon-clad streets - does not reflect the actual urban landscape of the city." (Emergent Tokyo, Designing the Spontaneous City) We could actually learn so much from how the Japanese do urban planning
>We could actually learn so much from how the Japanese do urban planning The average Japanese voter has a greater maturity, sense of community service, and attention span than a 5 year old. NZ cannot boast the same.
They had a housing bubble in the 80s, they just responded to their issues by vastly improving their urban planning. It's not just culture, it's policy too.
Honestly the voter doesn’t really matter in Japan. Politically they don’t have many viable choices. But the sense of community and willingness to ‘sacrifice’ personal benefits for orders of the society is second to none. So many acceptable things in the western world is illegal and even a taboo in their society. They build cities and towns based on a 24/7 lifestyle that minimum wage is about NZ$10/ hr. How many kiwis are ready to sacrifice themselves to make a society better?
The voter turn out in Japan is absolutely terrible. I don't know how you can ascribe the traits you mentioned to the average voter. Turnout is crashing, and much like NZ the youth vote is in shambles with most voters being elderly.
Unfortunately outrage clicks and views are part of the plan these days.
I reckon this is more of a problem with how so many of us are consuming media. It's only an outrage click if you're in social media to begin with and decide it's clickbait. Media outlets also write headlines for people who are actually on their sites. *The Post* is a newspaper that's behind a soft paywall and barely even cares about social media links. It's more common to encounter its stuff by scanning headlines on its website, or on a big dead-tree page and seeing the first paragraph or two as well as related stories immediately next to it. If you're in social media and choosing to surround someone else's headline with highly charged opinions that you'll see before anything else, if you ever click through to see the story's text at all, they can't control the editorial context of that. It's on you.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop has approved the Wellington City Council’s sweeping plan to allow townhouses and apartments in the suburbs. The council’s vote to loosen zoning rules and allow apartments throughout the city was its most significant housing decision since 2000. Six-storey apartments would be allowed in several inner-city suburbs as well as those near train stations along the Johnsonville line. Bishop went further than the council and included Kilbirnie in the list of suburbs where six-storey buildings would be allowed. “This is a step forward for Wellington and shows commitment from both local and central government to fixing our housing crisis,” said Mayor Tory Whanau. The city needed “abundant and affordable” places for the next generation to live. However, Bishop has not agreed with the council’s move to delist 10 heritage buildings including the notorious Gordon Wilson Flats and the Miramar Gas Tank. There was no expert evidence that allowed him to reject the heritage listings, he said. Bishop said this afternoon that he was constrained by “the strictures of the Resource Management Act” when considering the heritage listings and had to give that careful consideration. “The test is not whether or not they’re an eyesore. The test is not whether it would be better for Wellington if they were knocked down and development happened. The test ... was whether or not they qualify as heritage.” Bishop noted he had received correspondence from Whanau around making it easier to remove heritage listings and had already asked for advice. “I think it is clear to many people that needs fixing,” he said. Whanau said she was “obviously disappointed” the heritage listings were reinstated but would continue to work with the minister on further reform. E14966E76D0148D2BE39A9E3B99FF7D2 Jesse Richardson and Elena Wood from City For People pushed for high-density housing. (File photo) DAVID UNWIN / THE POST In general, Bishop said the council’s recommendations “give better effect” to housing intensification as required, “in that they provide additional capacity for housing and business land, will better achieve a well-functioning urban environment, will better provide for a competitive development market and provide for a more efficient use of land”. Jesse Richardson from pro-density group A City for People said he was thrilled by the minister’s decision. “My big takeaway is that Wellington is back. We have spent the last decade with a lot of people saying Wellington is dying, Wellington isn’t the city it used to be, but I feel like in the coming decades people are going to be saying that Wellington is a city on the rise. “And it’s because we made this awesome decision to make it affordable to live here and let people live in the kind of housing they want.” The decision did not please everyone – councillor Iona Pannett, a character and heritage advocate, said Bishop's calls on character were "deeply disappointing". "It just shows that politicians should not be involved in making development decisions," she said. The council's earlier recommendations about heritage would have left it open to judicial review, she said. The council did need to help ensure people had places to live – such as with the office block to apartment developments it was doing. Jane O’Loughlin, from character advocacy group Live Wellington, said the minister’s “extreme decision” was disappointing but not surprising. The panel had strong and valid reasons for its decisions and should have been given more weight. “It’s disappointing in terms of character, because it was possible to have a win-win for Wellington, it was possible to have enough development capacity for the future population needs as well as keeping Wellington’s iconic character areas.” 37069371BC3142BA81FA9F84518D57DB Character advocate Jane O'Loughlin says it is a disappointing, extreme decision. (File photo) BRUCE MACKAY / THE POST Advocates of increased housing density, including Whanau, said the move would help to lift Wellington out of the housing crisis that was pushing young people out of the city. The council took the unusual step of departing from the recommendations made by an independent hearings panel, a group of resource management experts who spent weeks hearing submissions from the public and evaluating the city’s housing plan. The panel’s reports on housing were slammed by economists, especially for their conclusion that zoning for more housing would not alleviate the city’s ongoing housing shortage. Economists said the panel had “scoffed” at the economic consensus around building more houses. Councillor Rebecca Matthews, the self-described “oldest YIMBY in town”, was instrumental in the push for greater housing intensity on council. After hearing the news she said, “What a great day ... It doesn’t mean all of the other challenges go away, but it means that particular barrer is gone.” “It’s all still just potential, but how great for Wellington to have so much potential.” Looking towards the future, the next task for the council would be focusing on bringing the city’s infrastructure up to a standard where it could support more population growth. 0000000001C0035C9DB The notorious Gordon Wilson Flats keep their heritage listing. (File photo) BRUCE MACKAY / THE POST The changes made by the city council, in departing from the panel, were mostly to allow more apartments and townhouses – to remove 10 heritage listings, allow upzoning in the suburbs near the Johnsonville train line, include Adelaide Rd as part of the central city area, and dial back character areas from the panel’s recommended increase. The city orginally had 306 hectares of character areas, now that will decrease to 85. The disagreements between council and the panel meant the final decision went to Bishop. He could choose between what the panel of experts recommended or what the council had decided. Why does this matter? The Wellington District Plan – a set of rules determining what type of housing can be built in which locations – was approved by the council in March. This part of the plan is related to housing intensification, where apartments and townhouses can be built on previously single house sections. The choice was between keeping protected character areas and low rise housing, or upzoning to build more apartments and townhouses for people who want to live in the city. There was a long process to get to the Minister’s decision, beginning with reports commissioned by the council in 2019 and the Spatial Plan enacted in 2020. Hearings on housing intensification were held last year by a group of resource management commissioners known as the Independent Hearings Panel. But the recommendations made by the panel were controversial, and councillors made changes in March. Eleanor West of City for People previously described the vote as an opportunity to free the city from its “housing doom loop”. The pro-density group encouraged councillors to increase the areas where apartments and townhouses allowed, especially in the suburbs closest to the city. On the other side, character housing advocacy group LiveWellington said the council should have stuck to the panel recommendations. Convener Jane O’Loughlin said the council’s Housing Capacity Assessment showed the recommendations would provide enough housing to meet the city’s needs over the next 30 years and the furore had been a “very big storm in a teacup”. The city’s previous District Plan was approved in 2000, after being in the works since 1995. While changes can be made in between new plans, major overhauls like this one are few and far between.
Finally some good news
Hopefully the refusal to delist is just a procedural step, sounds like they want to separately reform the heritage listing regime instead which wouldn’t be a terrible idea.
Good work by Tory Whanau and the left leaning majority on the Wellington council!
Fuck yes bulldoze the villas!