It’s time for another round of consultation on Auckland’s housing policy.
After intervention by central government, an amended version of Plan Change 120 (aka PC120) is now up for public feedback. It’s open until 5pm on Thursday 24 September 2026, so hop to it!
An Independent Hearings Panel will be considering the feedback, so it’s really important to submit in support of the good things about this.
The amended option settled on by Auckland Council is a relatively decent compromise, but of course it could always be better and go further in the right direction. For background, here’s the feedback we gave to central Local Boards.
Also, the Spinoff has partnered with Auckland Council for this really good explainer by Russell Brown.
Important Point:: even if you have already submitted on PC120, you can and should submit again on the amended version of PC120
So, what’s good about PC120 (and the amendments), and what should we support?
Remember: “planning capacity” is about creating potential and options. It doesn’t immediately result in instant new housing, it just identifies the locations where this can and should happen.
These are the key things to support about the amended PC120:
- It provides planning capacity for more housing around the places where it makes sense: the City Centre, the busiest bus routes, train stations, and town centres
- It provides planning capacity for more housing around places where there is better infrastructure capacity, whether transport or water
- It provides planning capacity for more housing around places where people want to live: centrally located areas and those with good transport connections
- It addresses areas where there is high risk of flooding, and steers development away from those locations.
What else needs to stay in the plan?
The walkable catchments around the City Centre and Frequent Transport Network need to stay in the plan, and should cover a decent area. With more walkable neighbourhoods and greater use of bikes and micromobility, the accessible radius of a major transport route is generally wider than you’d think. Absolutely something to mention in your feedback!
Additionally, it’s useful to talk about how you might walk to and from bus stops, train stations, local centres, or main centres. Do you live further out than the 800m catchments, or 1.2km for the City Centre, but still choose to walk? Mention that!
What could be improved about the plan?
While the amended PC120 approved by Auckland Council had some good elements, it ultimately was a compromise, and you may wish it went further to enable more potential for housing.
Many areas could be zoned for higher stories than the proposed plans. There is no reason many rail stations could not be zoned for over 10-15 stories, and this is something you can ask for.
Or, if there are areas which have good infrastructure and high demand but are zoned much lower than they could be, you can also ask for this. Notably, the proposed Northwest Busway corridor should also likely be included in PC120 for up zoning – so that could be something you’d like to mention. But take a look at your local centres and metro centres, as well as transport routes, and consider if more housing capacity could be enabled.
The amended PC120 still contains many “Special Character Area” (SCA) overlays on central neighbourhoods, as well as some areas in the Isthmus. It would make so much sense to enable more dwellings in these areas, which have excellent access to amenities. It has meant that there are areas in suburbs next to the City Centre, such as Parnell, St Mary’s Bay, Grey Lynn, and Ponsonby, that will not be up zoned to enable more housing, despite being in ideal locations for more people to live.
Note: “special character” is different from “heritage”, which is a real, measurable quality and applies to specific buildings and houses. “Special character”, by contrast, throws a vibes-based blanket over streets that may look and feel a certain way, but on closer inspection are nothing special.
You can absolutely ask for the SCAs to be reconsidered – as a whole, or mention specific ones that you know about, and describe why these streets or areas would be better off with more housing options.
What else can you mention?
Aspirations. Talk about your hopes and dreams – for the city as a whole, and in your local area. Immediate aspirations like how you’d like to live, shop and get around. And future aspirations… whether it’s about ageing in place, or ensuring the younger generation can afford to live near family, work, and familiar things.
Access. Do you already live on a frequent bus route or near a train station? Or, are you keen to, and need housing options that make that possible? Talk about why, and explain what concentrating housing in those areas would look and feel like, and what it would mean for your options.
Affordability. Talk about the impact of any restrictions on housing (such as Special Character Areas), especially if they are getting in the way of good quality intensification in places that make sense. What does it mean when only the very wealthy can live within a short walk of our most concentrated zones for employment and education?
Local knowledge. You know your local areas well, so you can speak about how (and where) more housing can be enabled, so more of us can actually afford to live in our amazing city!
One last point
It’s easy to feel motivated to speak up against something, to stop bad stuff happening.
But it’s equally important to speak up for the things we like – maybe even more so!
That’s because, we often assume the good and smart stuff is a given, so we don’t feel the need to say anything about it. As a result, a few noisy anti-voices can sway the outcome, even when the silent majority is actually in favour.
So the key to progressive policy wins is making that majority voice heard, loud and clear.
Make sure to have your say on the PC120 amendments by 5pm on Thursday 24th September 2026, to help ensure a more affordable, accessible and attractive Auckland!
More information about how to have your say
Auckland Council’s website says:
Before you start
- Anyone can make a submission. If you are already a PC 120 submitter and you want different or additional decisions, make a new submission.
- Do not resubmit your first submission. Duplicate decisions requested may not be summarised.
- Clearly specify the decisions you want made. The council will only summarise the decisions on the plan change that you request. If you want map details or proposed wording kept, amended or deleted, specify which map details / wording and anything you request instead. Read guidance on making an effective submission.
- If you need help there is an independent Friend of the Submitter service available. For more information visit the PC 120 website.
- The council may use artificial intelligence (AI) to assist with reviewing and summarising submissions. Any use of AI will follow the Council Privacy Policy and our obligations under the Privacy Act 2020. Refer to the Frequently Asked Questions on the PC120 web page for more information.
- You can upload up to three supporting documents, to a total of 10MB. Documents must be in PDF format. (More information is available at Step 2 of this form about bigger / multiple documents).
- Your name, contact details and submission will be publicly available in Auckland Council reports and on the council’s website. Please do not include anything in your submission that you do not want to be published on our website. Read our privacy policy for more information.
- For your submission to be valid, you need to include:
- your full name
- an address for service (email preferred)
- a contact phone number
- all mandatory information required on this submission form (even if you do not use the form).
You can find the map viewer for PC120 here.
And a bunch more background documents here.
If you need some help, or have questions, there’s also a Friends of Submitters service who can:
- help explain the process
- advise you on lodging your submission
- explain how to express your views
- tell you what to do after lodging your submission.
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I put in a submission questioning the Kingsland SCA (where I live). It makes no sense given being adjacent to the train station and a main bus route. Also the housing is a real mix.
We purchased (18 years ago) in Kingsland exactly becauce to the proximity to PT. The CRL makes it even more attractive!
I have lived around those streets previously, it makes no sense. Many of the houses are in poor condition or heavily modified from their original architecture. There is no special character to retain. The only point I will grant on that side of New North Road is the topology seems like it could be difficult for larger buildings. Looking at the Council map and seeing the huge carve out of special character buildings so close to the city really is infuriating.
To be fair – the ‘difficult for larger buildings’ problem kinda solves itself as it’d just be too expensive to develop. Therefore will only be developed if there is extremely high demand.
It feels like we don’t have any really good research on what it is that Aucklanders value. Many people value heritage to a certain level, but also value the benefits that new housing and density can bring. There’s also an issue of how much heritage is wanted, and where. I’m thinking of economic indifference curves, but there’s other kinds of social science research that could help. Otherwise we’re flying blind. Is there good research on this?
Council will use AI to summarise feedback, so write in a way that AI can pick up on the points that you make.
No provision for the necessary parks, schools or other social infrastructure.
An absolute dereliction in planning duties and a sop for train freaks.
For those concerned with affordability, New Zealand can simpily restrict the vast numbers of bludging international students, ‘skilled’ (haha) visas and dependents that have flooded the country since before the Key era.
If you think railways take up a lot of space wait til you hear about motorways and airports
International students pay their full ticket and thus fund domestic students
‘No planning for the necessary parks schools or social infrastructure’?
The planners have proposed this upzoning where there are already parks, schools and social infrastructure. You literally can’t do better planning than that!
That’s really not true.
The upzoning is directly related to walkable catchments of train stations and centres.
It has nothing to do with parks, schools and social infrastructure. The lack of alignment with these things is a valid point.
Having said that – I don’t really think the social infrastructure is a big issue, in terms of the upzoned catchments in and of themselves. Social infrastructure IS a BIG issue in the wider sense ie. the lack of capacity in our big hospitals.
Some of the catchments are well served by parks, others poorly.
However – with a better train system, if you live in a catchment with a lack of parks, maybe you can walk to the train station, and take a short train trip to a location where there are parks? A better train system opens up those sorts of possibilities.
This really is a load of nonsense, and it really doesn’t help your overall advocacy, especially when PC120 enables a huge amount of development capacity:
“Note: “special character” is different from “heritage”, which is a real, measurable quality and applies to specific buildings and houses. “Special character”, by contrast, throws a vibes-based blanket over streets that may look and feel a certain way, but on closer inspection are nothing special. ”
This is your opinion and you are entitled to it. But there’s nothing objectively true about it. And there is a strong methodological basis to establish special character.
And btw – getting rid of special character in the sort of areas you are thinking of will certainly enable more housing in those locations, but it most certainly won’t be anything other than highly priced housing.
The “strong methodological basis” is just NIMBY planners marking their own suburbs as special character, and rich people prevented their neighbours from building anything they don’t like/doesn’t meet their style guide, essentially weaponising the council against progress.
That said, I don’t really mind it existing apart from in the near CBD/near rail corridors/PT corridors, as like, the special character zones in the north/south/east (somehow the west has no character?) are small enough and not really taking the piss – the isthmus ones are though. And tbf – most of the business special character zones are fine even in the isthmus.
https://data-aucklandcouncil.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/special-character-areas-overlay-residential-and-business/explore?location=-36.865221%2C174.788620%2C12.00 you can see the vast swathes of prime real estate marked blue, choking the surrounds of the CBD with development dead zones and preventing renewal.
Council shouldn’t be regulating unless necessary, and the zones are certainly not necessary, nor do they achieve anything except stifle development in those areas. Planners/commissioners of a certain age/stage have long learnt how to use the system to their advantage, and do it quite well with special character zones, viewshafts, and I’m sure there will be new ways as each exploit gets reduced.
The “strong methodological basis” is just NIMBY planners marking their own suburbs as special character.
Lol
So, by the same token, are evidence-based methodologies around planning for public transport simply the aspirations of woke transport nerds who would like to live in hip, central suburbs? `
‘Evidence-based’ is such a highly abused term. Especially as the evidence is often disputed, or not absolute. It’s very abused on this forum.
I’m disagreeing with your statement that it has a “strong methodological basis”, it’s a totally vibes based process that they try to create justifications for afterwards (at least for isthmus residential zones). I linked the map of special character zones.
Just because someone calls something evidence based etc. it doesn’t mean it is. Re your woke transport nerds – possibly it might be aspirations, possibly it might be legit, you’ve got to look at each specific instance/the logic behind it etc. – as sometimes there is strong evidence, sometimes there is evidence, sometimes people believe there is evidence, and sometimes people say there is evidence but there is nothing.
I agree “evidence-based” is a highly abused term, my entire comment is saying how the special character zones aren’t evidence based, they just say they are. And yes, it’s not unique instance of the term being abused, on this forum, or elsewhere.
having just said that….
The non-zoning / non-planning barriers to meaningful redevelopment in those inner suburbs are very significant. So there probably wouldn’t be too much to worry about anyway, if one values special character, and the rules were removed.
However – is the political cost (in terms of risking the whole wider upzoning process) of that concept worth it, given the likely limited outcomes in terms of realised significant levels of new, medium or high density housing development?
good ole Sun Tzu said that you should only go to war if you are certain you will defeat your opponent…
So reasonable and tolerable compromise should be the objective.
And to throw a cliche out there – lose the battle, but win the war
I actually agree with this comment entirely. And that’s why politicians haven’t fought their NIMBY counterparts nor planners fought their senior leaders, as it’s not a battle worth it – there are other far more impactful battles to fight.
That said, as someone who is not fighting the war/battle, I think it’s perfectly fine to call it out, even if it is understandable.