Going for Housing Growth: Providing for urban development in the new resource management system

Current status and case for change

Policy 8 of the NPS-UD requires local authorities to be responsive to plan change requests that would add significantly to development capacity and contribute to well-functioning urban environments, even if the development capacity is unanticipated or out of sequence. To do this councils must have ‘particular regard’ to the development capacity provided by private plan change requests that would:

• contribute to a well-functioning urban environment
• are well-connected along transport corridors
• add significantly to development capacity according to criteria set by regional councils.

There has been variable implementation of the responsiveness policy in the NPS-UD and, overall, it’s unclear how effective the policy has been in encouraging councils to give particular regard to private plan change requests. This is likely to be at least in part due to the significant discretion currently afforded to councils to determine what constitutes ‘significant’ development capacity and what constitutes a well-functioning urban environment.  

Summary of proposals

The Going for Housing Growth programme is designed so that more responsive land supply leads to more opportunities for development and brings down the price of land. Much of this can be achieved through councils planning well for growth, informed by spatial planning requirements and housing growth targets as discussed above. However, there could still be a role for private plan changes as a ‘release valve’ or check on the capacity that councils are planning for and enabling.

We’re considering whether we might need to provide strengthened requirements for councils to be responsive to unanticipated or out-of-sequence development proposals, with less discretion for councils about what constitutes ‘significant’ development capacity and greater clarity. For example, one option might be to define ‘significant’ as proposals of a particular scale; either capacity for 50 dwellings or buildings or 0.1 percent of the district’s existing housing stock or business land – whichever is higher. The responsiveness requirements would be subject to any provisions in legislation about when such proposals could and could not be considered, as well as subject to other constraints on where development can occur.

We’re also considering how the responsiveness policy should interact with the principle that ‘growth pays for growth’. This might include, for example, a need for any private plan change to include infrastructure triggers that prevent development from occurring until necessary infrastructure is in place in order to warrant particular regard under the responsiveness policy. Alternatively, there may be other ways for a developer to demonstrate they will pay for the necessary infrastructure in line with Pillar 2 of Going for Housing Growth.