Nicola Kelland - Unitary Plan

Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the last few months, you will have seen a fair bit of media buzz about the Auckland City Council’s proposed Unitary Plan, with its first draft being open for public submission over May this year. It seems that the public has been somewhat divided in its support for the proposal and how the perceived changes will affect Auckland.

So what’s all the fuss about and what is this “Unitary Plan”?

In short, the plan is a new set of regional and district rules that combine to create one single plan for the future development of the Auckland Region.  As we all know, Auckland is currently experiencing a rate of population growth that is not going to be supported by the current residential housing market. Long story short, we need to figure out a way to accommodate 1 million more residents in the greater Auckland Region by 2040, which is what the proposed plan is working towards achieving.

There is one simple fact that remains, in regard to the regions development and especially close to important economic areas, available land for new residential builds is limited or non existent. What this means is that the only way to support the projected population growth is to build upwards, through the development of many more multi unit dwellings and apartment blocks. Many suburbs will also see changes allowing people to build small “flat” type dwellings on their property.

Usually a property, which allows a higher density development, is worth more than a property that can only have one dwelling. So many owners in areas that are proposed for high density are thinking that their properties are going to be worth more under this scheme. That could well be correct, but what also may happen due to the aged old price indicator of supply versus demand, is that there will be many more properties available for high density development, hence a possible drop in pricing in comparison to a similar property available today, and those in the future scheme will not see the price benefit that high density zoning provides. If you have a property with multi unit zoning, it might be a good time to think about selling now.