Yesterday the council and government announced the next batch of Special Housing Areas. These are the areas that are able to use a fast tracked consenting processes and for which the Unitary Plan rules (with a few conditions) come in to effect immediately. The intention is that by the faster consents will lead to developers building more dwellings and therefore helping address housing affordability however it also seems like some developers are just pushing for their land to be an SHA so they can sell it for an easier profit. All up there are 17 new SHAs bringing the total to 80 across the region. The Council say the new SHAs represent capacity for 8,000 new dwellings and that all SHAs combined have a potential of 41,500 dwellings. Below is a map of the new SHAs.
The first thing I noticed is that a decent proportion seem to be brownfield sites which is good however on closer inspection the greenfield sites while fewer in number still represent the majority of dwellings proposed. For example the massive Redhills SHA in the Northwest represents about 3500 dwellings which is almost half of all the new dwellings these SHAs cover. The council’s site has the details and maps of each of the specific SHAs but here’s a quick summary
- Akoranga Drive, Northcote – 107 dwellings however it appears this is a retirement village.
- Barrack Road, Mt Wellington – 40 dwellings – These are within walking distance of the Panmure Station which is good.
- Bellfield Road, Papakura – 350 dwellings, this is the former Papakura Golf Course
- Bunnythorpe Road, Papakura – 10 dwellings
- Coates Avenue, Orakei – 14 dwellings
- East Coast Road, Pine Hill – 39 apartments
- Enfield Street, Mt Eden – 64 apartments over two buildings however interestingly these seem to fall outside the SHA rules by being 5 storeys.
- Corner Great North Road and Walsall Street, Avondale – 36 dwellings
- Harbourside Drive, Hingaia – 200 to 300 new dwellings
- Mokoia Road, Birkenhead – 31 apartments
- Morrin Street, Ellerslie – 138 units in a retirement village
- Racecourse Parade, Avondale – 15 dwellings, this land is owned by the council under Auckland Council Properties Limited who will be looking for a developer to come up with ideas for the site.
- Redhills (Fred Taylor Drive) – Stage 1, Whenuapai – 3,500 dwellings over 10 years.
- St Lukes Road, Mt Albert – 107 apartments
- Takapuna Strategic SHA – this is a Strategic SHA where the rules apply to a large area in the hope that it will encourage land owners to develop. It is thought it could deliver 350 dwellings.
- Tamaki Regeneration Area – 1,200 to 1,500 dwellings
- West Hoe Heights, Orewa – 400 to 800 dwellings
Of the SHAs above three in particular are very large greenfield developments that are likely to be the same type of sprawl we’ve seen so many times already. For the calculations below I’ve assumed about 20% of the land will be used for road access or public space.
Bellfield Road, Papakura – at almost 27ha the 350 dwellings would mean section sizes in excess of 600m². It’s currently zoned as Future Urban.
Redhills (Fred Taylor Drive) – Stage 1, Whenuapai – this is just the first 200ha of a 600ha development and the 3,500 dwellings equate to sections of approx 450m² each. It’s currently zoned Future Urban
West Hoe Heights, Orewa – even larger at over 37ha, the 400-800 new dwellings would be on sites somewhere between 375m² and 750m². It’s currently zoned single house which means sections of a minimum of 500m².
Lastly as here’s a map showing all of the announced SHAs
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I am willing to bet a fair whack of money that we see more than 350 out of Taka, that is a huge area with a lot of THAB zoning.
What a joke!! Most of Takapuna was infilled years ago – now in all separate ownership. The original “Block” houses in Anzac St were in single ownership & would have allowed 8 stories but now belong to 4 different people.
The Bellfield Rd, Papakura SHA is largely Graham Tagg Park or “Papakura Golfcourse”, a 9 hole golf course which was developed by the council around 1980-1983. It was sold as a business in 1994 with an encumbrance such that it could only ever be a public golf course. I remember it 10 years ago being pretty busy on weekends with a lot of younger people playing. New owners bought it and tried to turn it into a retirement village around 2010. Council and locals rejected the plans. The owners closed the course and let it fall into disrepair.
I’m surprised to see it up for development again, expect push back from locals if the golf course is not restored. Possibly it’s only the surrounding land than is destined for houses, meaning the sections will be much smaller than 600m2.
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/aboutcouncil/localboards/papakuralocalboard/meetings/papakuralbagattach28D20130123.pdf
What a joke. One of these proposals, on Walsall Street, is a to knock down 2 houses in a residential area and build 26 apartments.
Are these Special Housing Areas now being used to remove requirements for a consenting process?
Well done to the person who got the Council to agree on signing off on 2 adjacent houses as a SHA !
Is this even legal LOL ?
The SHA basically let you do what will be legal once the unitary plan is enacted.
That’s an excellent SHA, shows precisely what can be done quickly and how effective it can be. Turning two homes into twenty six, all within a couple minutes walk of a town centre, train station and good buses. Perfect.
It won’t do anything to change land prices, or house prices, but it will mean people don’t need a lot of land or an expensive house to live in good areas. It’s really just adding in the missing parts of the market.
Resource consent still needed. You need one for pretty much everything under the Unitary Plan. SHAs just bring the zoning in earlier.
The combined site is greater than 1200m2, from a quick reading of the requirements it appears to be legit.
Jesus, the land values in Auckland could collapse if this build gets done and is a commercial success !
All you need is <1200m2 anywhere in the city and get it designated a SHA, boom, 26 apartments.
When this model is rolled out in say Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Mt Eden demand will be huge, this is going to sort the housing shortage in no time :0)
Is there any requirement that the SHA’s must reach a certain architectural standard rather than resemble the film set apartment blocks that have disfigured Auckland for the last 15 years? Labour’s plan has that requirement.
I think the point of the exercise is to reduce the compliance costs. Considering how much people pay for 30s Villas, 40s states houses and current spray concrete disigns I don’t think the average punter really cares much about architectural standards.
You can build tastefully without increasing the compliance costs. Social housing for example in many cases has been built very cheaply. Granted, it won’t be a masterpiece, but it’ll be better than the outrageously tacky stuff that’s gone up in the last 15 years.
I don’t understand why the SHAs only receive positive coverage when those in greenfield areas, in particular, make no sense at all. They are basically zoning areas before there is any capital that the Council can use to support such development. There is a lot of talk that these developers will pay 100% of the costs but that is naive in the extreme IMO.