The new Hamilton suburb of Peacocke aims to balance the natural environment with higher density housing. Image / Hamilton City Council
The new Hamilton suburb of Peacocke aims to balance the natural environment with higher density housing. Image / Hamilton City Council
Hamilton City Council has been granted an extension by the Minister for the Environment to deliver Plan Change 12; the city’s response to Government’s direction to provide more housing, and higher-density housing across the city.
The extra time to develop the new housing rules is to allow the city to consider how new flooding information will impact Hamilton.
The city council now has until December 20, 2024, to finalise the changes, instead of an earlier March 31 deadline.
Since 2020, the council has had work underway to update flood mapping across the city and make it accessible online for everyone. The next step is to consider further changes to planning rules to help create more climate-resilient communities and better manage flooding hazards.
The housing intensification proposal - known as Plan Change 12 - would allow three homes of up to three storeys on most properties across the city and up to five storeys within 400m of a suburban centre like Chartwell or Dinsdale.
The new Peacocke wastewater transfer station will help ease some of the capacity challenges in the south-west, the city council says. Photo / Supplied
Housing blocks up to six storeys would be allowed within 800m of the central city, including parts of Whitiora, Te Rapa and Hamilton East.
The flooding impact work - known as Plan Change 14 - will look to remove outdated flood hazard maps from the District Plan and introduce improved rules to manage flood hazards based on the most up-to-date information available on the city’s Floodviewer. Initial engagement with the community is expected to take place later this year before formal notification of any rule changes in 2024.
The acting chair of the HCC Strategic Growth and District Plan Committee, councillor Sarah Thomson, said it was important the council had time to consider the impacts of new flooding information, and the development of new rules to respond before more intensive housing is enabled.
“The environment has always been at the heart of Hamilton’s approach to this plan change, and it makes sense we consider both the impacts of intensification and natural hazards together before any final decisions are made.”
“Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. Already this year, we’ve seen widespread flooding in Auckland and the East Coast. Parts of Hamilton have also been affected by surface flooding,” she said.
“Now we have nearly 90 per cent of the city mapped, we’re in a really good place to make sure we’re building in a way that helps protect our people, property, and environment, especially our Waikato River.”
Hearings for Plan Change 12 which were due to start in September had already been postponed and will now take place in 2024, the council says.
Submitters will be notified directly with new dates and any other information required because of the changes.
In March the city council began advising developers it might not be able to immediately approve new resource consents and three waters connections in some areas where the demand is impacting the networks and our environment.
High-risk areas, due to wastewater capacity constraints, have been identified in the southwest of the city, including Bader, Melville, Deanwell, Glenview and Fitzroy. Other areas the council is keeping a closer eye on include parts of Hamilton East, Claudelands, Fairfield, Hillcrest and around the university, and isolated pockets of the city including small areas of St Andrews, Rototuna and Nawton.
Auckland and Tauranga City Councils have both previously been granted 12-month extensions while they complete their own flood hazard work.
