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Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has alluded to Sports Minister Chris Bishop’s attendance at an anti-doping symposium in Switzerland in a stoush over housing intensification.
Brown is frustrated with Bishop, who is also Minister of Housing, for delaying a request for a one-year extension to notify changes on new intensification rules, saying it is leading to unnecessary and costly hearings.
“I understand Minister Bishop is attending an anti-doping hearing conference in Switzerland. He could start by putting a stop to his dopey mandate that Auckland carry on with hearings [for] rules he helped author which allow for three times three-storey houses on just about every section in Auckland,” the mayor told the Herald.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wants Chris Bishop to stop his dopey mandate that Auckland carry on with hearings. Photo / Michael Craig
Before last year’s election, Bishop said councils could opt out of housing density legislation drawn up in a rare bipartisan agreement between Labour and National to address the country’s housing shortage.
The Medium Density Residential Standards (MDSR) legislation and an earlier National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) allowed for “three by three” houses on most sections without resource consent and greater density around transport corridors.
The council responded with Plan Change 78 for feedback and hearings to change its planning blueprint, called the Unitary Plan.
Brown wrote to Bishop two weeks ago reminding him about an earlier request for a one-year extension, saying hearings on Plan Change 78 were under way.
The extension, he said, would ensure Plan Change 78 would “live-zone” sufficient land to deal with 30 years of housing growth and take account of work done since last year’s floods to down-zone areas at risk from flooding.
“I support your goal of enabling more housing... [but] forcing us to continue with the current prescriptive process would be completely at odds with that,” the mayor said.
Wayne Brown says the Government’s rules are stopping councils from pursuing a plan change that could downsize land subject to flood hazards. Photo / Dean Purcell
Today, Brown said: “The Government has promised to make the rules voluntary, but the minister’s delay means he is making Aucklanders and the Government spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each week on the hearings process.
“That is stupid and we need to stop doing stupid stuff,” Brown said.
In a statement, Bishop said he had received the mayor’s request for an extension for the requirement for Auckland to notify its plan change and will respond soon.
Brown also hit out at reported comments by Commerce Minister Andrew Bayly that the Government is making sure that councils don’t do “stupid stuff” and allow houses to be built on coastal areas and floodplains.
In this case, said Brown, “it is me and the council that is trying to stop the Government from doing stupid stuff”.
“Minister Bishop might want to remind his colleague that it is the Government’s rules that are stopping councils from pursuing a plan change that could downsize land subject to flood hazards,” said Brown.
The mayor said the main offender for building inappropriately is the Government’s property company Kāinga Ora, which built houses at ground level in Māngere floodpaths, “so it’s dopey to just say ‘councils, don’t allow houses on floodplains’”.
Housing Chris Bishop said he will respond to Wayne Brown's request for an extension on Plan Change 78 soon. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Bishop said officers are analysing the submissions on the National Policy Statement (GPS) on natural hazards started by the previous Government and the new Government will be advancing this work.
The Coalition For More Homes is opposed to the council being granted an extension, saying it has already had one extension. If a second delay is approved, “we are unlikely to see any effects on housing supply to zoning changes from the NPS-UD until 2027 at the earliest”, it said in a statement.
It has called on Bishop and Environment Minister Penny Simmonds not to approve a delay and direct progress on NPS-UD matters “to enable more homes in the right place, sooner”.
The Character Coalition, representing 60 resident and heritage groups, said the current hearings on Plan Change 78 are costing member groups and government departments like Kāinga Ora and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development Te Tūāpapa Kura Kāinga more than $500,00 in a process the council is likely to scrap.
“The Government needs to make the MDRS optional now, so that Auckland Council can postpone its Plan Change 78 hearings,” the Character Coalition said in a statement.
Bernard Orsman is an Auckland-based reporter who has been covering local government and transport since 1998. He joined the Herald in 1990 and worked in the parliamentary press gallery for six years.
