Aucklanders want intensification, not urban sprawl

Aucklanders want more investment in infrastructure to support growth, according to feedback on Auckland Council’s draft Future Development Strategy.

The strategy looks at how the city should grow over the next 30 years.

Planning, Environment and Parks Committee chair Councillor Richard Hills says public feedback shows that 66 per cent of individual responses support focusing growth in existing urban areas.

“People have said they support more homes close to amenities, transport, jobs, shops and schools,” Hills says. “They want more efficient public transport, reduced emissions and infrastructure that supports housing with amenities and facilities like parks, education and healthcare delivered at the same time to improve people’s quality of life.”

Council planner Jacques Victor says the strategy puts a stronger focus on responding to climate change, particularly flooding hazards and protecting people and property, and a greater recognition of council’s financial challenges, and when it can invest in infrastructure and services, especially in greenfield areas.

“The draft strategy strikes a balance between both growing outwards at the edges of the city and having new homes closer to centres in existing urban areas,” he says. “It stages the outwards growth in a way that provides the enabling infrastructure needed to support communities so that, for example, we don’t end up with new housing developments which don’t have services or facilities like public transport.”

The proposal to prioritise investment in more nature-based infrastructure that responds to the impacts of climate change, such as rain gardens, swales and detention basins, received 74 per cent support from 5270 individuals, with 14 per cent not supporting it.

For a summary of the feedback report go to: akhaveyoursay.nz/futureauckland