My Account
Work will start before the end of this year on a Warkworth Structure Plan – the first step in considering how and when future urban zoned land should be made available for urban development.
Auckland Council has bowed to development pressure and community concern over growth directions, and has agreed to make a start on the plan about 12 months earlier than originally proposed.
The structure plan will cover all of the future urban area immediately around Warkworth, totalling 1000ha. However, the subsequent Plan Change, which will make the land development-ready, will cover only Warkworth north due to infrastructure constraints.
Work on structure planning for Algies Bay and Wellsford will start after 2020.
Manager planning/north Warren McLennan says the structure plan should be finished around the end of next year with land to be development-ready by 2022.
“Initially, specialist studies will be prepared covering various issues such as stormwater, open space, transport and roading, wastewater servicing, landscape, archaeology, flood hazards and ecology,” he says.
A key part of the preparation of a structure plan is to ensure that future neighbourhoods integrate with the environment and that bulk infrastructure is provided in an efficient and affordable manner.
Once the structure plan is finalised, the next step will be to ensure that infrastructure funding is in place and Plan Changes to the Auckland Unitary Plan are prepared to change the current future urban zones to urban zones allowing development.
Consultation with the community and landowners is a key component of the process.
Typically, a structure plan looks at issues such as land use, transport, infrastructure, natural environment and heritage, and open space and heritage. It also looks at the staging of development.
One reason for speeding up the preparation of structure planning throughout Auckland could be Council’s concern that landowners/developers are preparing their own ‘structure plans’ and lodging private Plan Change requests or non-complying resource consent applications. Council believes these proposals have the potential to undermine the goals set out in the Auckland Plan, the objectives and policies of the Auckland Unitary Plan, and the intent of the Future Urban Land Supply Strategy.
