A scaled-back housing target for Auckland has exposed the political nerves beneath the city’s intensification debate, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
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A number that became a lightning rod
Two million homes have been formally cut back to 1.6 million – an equally abstract figure, but one that the government hopes will demonstrate that it’s listening to its constituents’ concerns. Confirming the lower Auckland capacity figure, housing minister Chris Bishop insisted the original number was “never a build target” but a theoretical maximum if every site were fully developed. In practical terms, he said, the changes mean less blanket intensification in some suburbs and more growth around the CBD, City Rail Link stations and major transport corridors.
Speaking to the Herald’s Bernard Orsman (paywalled), prime minister Christopher Luxon said the change meant intensification in the suburbs would “go away” and instead grow around hubs, as in Sydney and other overseas cities. Auckland mayor Wayne Brown was characteristically blunt, describing the two million figure as something that “never really mattered much” – “like how many clouds are going past” – adding that if the shift “calms down some worried elderly residents in Epsom then it’s done its job”.
Labour, by contrast, labelled it a “humiliating backdown”. Said Auckland spokesperson Carmel Sepuloni: “Everyone can see what’s really going on here: David Seymour is pulling the strings to pull housing projects from the suburbs, Christopher Luxon is doing as he’s told, and Chris Bishop is caving.”
The election maths behind the planning tweak
For many observers, the politics has been impossible to ignore. Herald columnist Matthew Hooton (paywalled) said the U-turn was a win for National, “since it denies Act, New Zealand First and Labour a potent issue on which to raid the blue vote”. The anxiety is not just about electorate seats – Seymour comfortably holds Epsom – but the party vote. In 2023, National secured roughly four times as many party votes as Act in Epsom, yet Simon Wilson notes in his paywalled Listener column that there is clear potential for those voters to shift their party allegiance if intensification becomes a suburban flashpoint. That is not a risk National wants to take in an election year.
Yet the assumption underpinning much of the suburban backlash to apartments is more fragile than it appears. Research from property firm CBRE finds that the age group with the greatest demand is already those aged 60–74 – and the number of apartments they need will only grow as the population ages.
Crucially, demand clusters in desirable suburbs close to train stations and town centres – these are often older locals seeking to downsize without leaving the neighbourhoods they value. These cashed-up buyers enjoy apartment living as much as anyone; they are, as Wilson notes, simply “not very noisy about it”.
A pyrrhic victory for Parnell
Hayden Donnell, writing in The Spinoff this morning, argues the government backdown may prove a hollow victory for some of the plan’s most vocal objectors. Yes, the “big bad scary number” has decreased, but the architecture of the plan remains largely intact. “The places with the best infrastructure would still be the first priority for housing. Unfortunately for some of the loudest voices protesting Plan Change 120, that’s exactly where they live.”
That logic mirrors both the council’s planning rationale and the market signals identified by CBRE. The suburbs replete with the most train stations, rapid bus routes and water infrastructure – leafy places like Epsom, Mt Eden, Kingsland and Parnell – are precisely where intensification is meant to cluster. They are also the areas where demand for well-designed apartments from downsizing, older owner-occupiers is strongest. As Donnell suggests, cutting the number only changes the optics. “What matters more is where development is allowed, and as things stand, it’s still set to be allowed in their backyard.”
Seven-storey development raises hackles in Wellington
In Wellington, an independent commissioner has approved the seven-storey, 32-unit Mayfair apartment block in Mt Victoria, despite strong local opposition. Deborah Morris reports in The Post (paywalled) that neighbours have raised concerns about up to 25,000 truck movements over two years along a narrow private road and about the removal of more than 5000 cubic metres of earth from a sloping site near the town belt. As filmmaker Dame Gaylene Preston told a hearing: “That’s a lot of mountain dug out at its base right at this moment in history when the climate crisis has impacted land movement all over the country.” She described the project as “an accident waiting to happen”.
Commissioner Alistair Aburn acknowledged the substantial earthworks but accepted engineering advice that risks around stability, erosion and dust could be managed. Opponents are now weighing an Environment Court appeal.
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