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Government plans to reduce planning restrictions to open up more land for housing could have dire consequences for rural areas, according to Rodney Local Board members.
They say changes proposed in the coalition’s recent Going for Housing Growth package, as part of its Resource Management Act reforms, could lead to poor urban design and the erosion of character and beauty in rural areas.
The government says its aim is to improve housing affordability by significantly freeing up land for urban development and removing “unnecessary” planning barriers.
In a memo to the local board, Auckland Council planning and strategy staff said the proposals were a mix of substantive policy changes and ‘quick fixes’ to ease perceived development restrictions in the interim, while resource management reform proceeds.
“The changes are complex and potentially wide-reaching,” they warned.
One of the proposals would be to prevent councils from imposing rural-urban boundaries to limit development to town centres and prevent sprawl, as they do now.
Board members said this would undermine the protection and retention of rural areas and expose councils to having to provide costly infrastructure and services in vast, greenfield areas.
“Big blocks of rural land outside of the rural urban boundary are available at relatively lower cost for developers,” they said.
“This will result in further urban sprawl, with infrastructure deficits such as no regular public transport, no community facilities such as libraries and on site wastewater systems, and ultimately lead to increased congestion across rural areas of Auckland.”
Members said it wasn’t the rural urban boundary preventing house growth, but the cost of infrastructure and the constraints around that, and this was the issue government needed to address to increase housing supply.
The government also wants to force councils to be more “responsive” to out-of-sequence development proposals, such as private plan changes, as a means of increasing housing capacity.
Board members agreed with Auckland Council’s submission that this could lead to unfettered development and said clear tests were needed around infrastructure and public transport provision.
“Growth must be sequenced, not a free for all! This policy will encourage urban sprawl,” they said.
“There are already infrastructure deficits within our greenfield developments with limited public transport services (if any), overcrowded secondary schools that are at capacity, parks with no playgrounds, and no funding for libraries, community centres or playing fields.
“If we adopt this policy, then it will exacerbate these infrastructure deficits and increase the burden on ratepayers.”
They said that currently, public transport provision was only ever an afterthought, leading to traffic congestion spreading further out into rural Auckland.
Both council staff and board members were also concerned over the government’s intention to develop a narrower planning system “based on the enjoyment of property rights, having a higher threshold before addressing effects, and dealing only with externalities”.
This would mean, council said, that “any positive and negative effects borne by those undertaking an activity” would not be regulated.
“This approach would not address some of the most pressing resource management issues, such as restoring degraded environments,” council said, adding that it would also exclude planning concepts such as nuisance.
“Such exclusions are likely to prevent well-functioning urban environments.”
Board members agreed, saying it had serious implications for rural areas as well.
“This could lead to poor urban design outcomes and erosion of rural character and natural beauty in rural areas.”
The government also wants councils to develop a 50-year regional spatial plan to replace the Future Development Strategy, something which board members questioned.
“We have only just adopted the Future Development Strategy with sequenced growth and identified infrastructure prerequisites,” they said. “The proposed Regional Spatial Plan will essentially provide similar information to the Future Development Strategy, so it does feel like we are ‘reinventing the wheel’.”
The board feedback was drawn up by chair Brent Bailey and Louise Johnston on August 5 under its emergency decision-making process, to ensure it could be included with council feedback before submissions closed on August 17.
