Housing in Mt Victoria, looking across Te Aro, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Housing in Mt Victoria, looking across Te Aro, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
ANALYSIS:
The final battle over the blueprint for future housing development in Wellington City boils down to 39 hectares of land and whether it should be protected for its character value.
On Thursday, city councillors will sign off on the spatial plan. This is a document outlining how the city will accommodate a growing population of between 50,000 and 80,000 more people over the next 30 years.
The plan seeks to strike a balance between old and new by valuing areas of special character while also unlocking new opportunities for urban life to flourish.
The biggest debate has been over where higher density housing is built.
Some people want it in the inner suburbs to have more affordable housing close to the city, but others fear this could "destroy" character.
At the moment there are parts of the city identified as character areas, like in Thorndon and Mt Victoria. These areas account for about seven per cent of the city's overall housing.
They have a blanket heritage protection where a resource consent is required to demolish any buildings built before 1930.
The draft spatial plan changed this by proposing character "sub-areas" instead.
Basically, protection was proposed to become smaller and more targeted to enable denser development within the broader character area.
It shrunk the areas with blanket demolition protection by 71 per cent, therefore freeing up 219ha for development.
Mt Victoria, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
This was part of the draft proposal that went out for consultation late last year.
A group called A City for People was launched in support of this draft spatial plan.
The group said it struck the right balance between protecting the history of Wellington while also allowing the demolition of poor quality homes to make way for denser affordable housing.
Meanwhile, a group called Keep Wellington's Character was also launched claiming the draft spatial plan went too far and would destroy heritage suburbs.
They wanted to keep the status quo.
Nearly 3000 submissions were made on the draft spatial plan from various individuals and groups.
Unsurprisingly, the differing views on balancing growth with protecting Wellington's character dominated discussion.
Council officers considered this feedback and made changes to the draft plan to form a recommended final draft plan, which is what will go before councillors at a committee meeting on Thursday.
One of the key changes they made was to the character sub-areas. They renamed them as "character precincts" and expanded them by 39 hectares.
But this still shrunk the overall areas, with current blanket protection by 58 per cent.
In other words, character protection was still more than halved, with 180ha freed up for development.
The final draft spatial plan also proposes to remove height limits for new housing developments in the central city including Te Aro and Adelaide Rd. Photo / Mark Mitchelll
The questions councillors have to consider is whether 180ha is enough or whether it should be 219ha as originally proposed in the first draft plan.
The issue is a political one. If councillors vote for the final version, they could be accused of giving into NIMBYs and not doing everything they possibly can to address the growing housing crisis.
At a briefing for councillors yesterday, Wellington City Council chief planning officer Liam Hodgetts was asked about the risk if the original character proposal was voted through on Thursday.
"There are no risks as such," Hodgetts said.
Any risks related to when these decisions got to the district plan stage, when appeals could be made against the removal of pre-1930s demolition protection, he said.
"But to be fair, councillors, this thing's going to be appealed anyway on a number of matters and we'll be in court for probably a number of years, whether it's hazard-related or heritage-related material."
The issue has become so polarised it's easy to get the impression that if these pre-1930s builds lose their protection, they will be instantly demolished and replaced with high rises.
That's not the case. It will not be a free-for-all.
The biggest debate has been over where higher density housing is built. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Yes, gradually some will be sold and potentially bought by developers who have plans for higher density.
But development will still be guided by the checks and balances of getting a resource consent for new builds.
The decision councillors make on character areas is one part of a big picture.
The final draft spatial plan also proposes to remove height limits for new housing developments in the central city including Te Aro and Adelaide Rd.
A minimum building height of six storeys will also be introduced in these areas.
Intensification of the inner suburbs includes enabling four- to six-storey buildings with the opportunity to go higher along a future mass rapid transit route.
In line with the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, the requirement for on-site parking in new developments will be removed.
In the outer suburbs, new buildings of at least six storeys will be enabled within a walkable catchment of mass rapid transport and metropolitan centres.
In Johnsonville and Kilbirnie, for example, buildings up to eight storeys high are proposed in the suburban centre.
The spatial plan will create the guidelines to inform a review of the rulebook, which is the district plan.
The decision will shape Wellington's future for generations to come, and that's why it's decided by councillors and not council officers.
The end result could look quite different from the proposed final draft by the time the politicians have deliberated and voted on Thursday.
