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

Requiring councils to use high growth projections for determining how much infrastructure is needed to support development capacity could require councils and water services providers to invest in more infrastructure than is ultimately taken up. This could have funding and financing implications for councils and water services providers. We therefore propose that councils can use the most likely growth scenario for infrastructure planning and meeting the infrastructure component of development capacity.

Councils currently use a range of approaches to assessing the amount of capacity that’s infrastructure-ready, some of which are more robust than others. To address this, we propose to set new minimum requirements for infrastructure capacity assessments to ensure that capacity assessments are informed by robust information. However, the differing levels of data and modelling capabilities between councils is likely to make it difficult for requirements to be too prescriptive. One approach could be to include a high-level requirement for assessments to be based on modelling if possible, or to otherwise use a robust, transparent evidence-based approach.

In housing capacity assessments undertaken under the NPS-UD, there is wide variation in the scope of infrastructure assessments. Some consider the whole networks (including local pipes and roads), whereas others only look at trunk mains, plant equipment or both. Some councils also consider serviceability of individual developments but without considering the cumulative ability to service growth.

We’re planning to make infrastructure assessment requirements clearer, including setting the level of detail that should be required for infrastructure assessments and requiring assessments to account for cumulative growth.