The city’s rural-urban boundary provides an urban edge with 15,000ha – equivalent to twice the urban area of Hamilton – of rural land identified for future urban expansion, Auckland City Council urban growth and housing director Penny Pirrit said.
In addition, land in Auckland’s existing urban area has space for another 240,000 houses.
Supplying infrastructure for that degree of expansion is estimated to cost $20 billion over 30 years.
When the council was formed in 2010 one of its first roles was to plan for future residential and industrial growth.
It proposed creating a compact city by establishing an urban-rural boundary that protected elite and prime soil.
The regional policy statement includes rules to protect elite soil while the boundary gives planning certainty for the rural community and to developers about which direction the council wants the city to grow.
The council’s Unitary Plan requires activities on elite soil to be rural and it allows the amalgamation of small titles, between 1ha and 20ha, on these soils and to be rezoned as Countryside Living.
But that does not preclude those seeking a non-complying activity on elite soil to seek resource consent, which can be granted if the application meets the requirements of the Resource Management Act.
“We are working to protect productive soil but it is complicated and there is a lot of pressure for urban development.
“But we are also seeing the rural community looking at the prices paid for urban land and seeing that as an opportunity.”
Overseas studies say urban-rural boundaries drive up urban land prices but without boundaries developers can bank land and speculate on future residential subdivision, Pirrit said.
The council is researching whether an urban-rural boundary leads to land price differentiation.
Rampant urban growth in Auckland is also being restrained by the requirement for infrastructure to keep pace with development.
The council supports a Ministry for the Environment proposal to create a national policy statement for elite soil and is providing feedback and details of its experiences trying to protect such soil.
“I think this is really important for New Zealand to have,” she says.
That includes experiences with its Unitary Plan, such as the Environment Court overturning a proposal prohibiting subdivision on rural land to make it a non-complying or discretionary activity.
