A plan for Auckland - what you need to know

Auckland's Unitary Plan had been revised by an independent hearings panel; and, in broad terms, it has recommended that the city become denser.

This increase in density is in line with the council's original thinking, but the panel has also made changes to the council's original planning wish-list.

Read the new version of the plan in full here.

Key points from the panel's recommendations:

• If the plan passes, Auckland will become more dense, with 60 percent of the city zoned for housing of two or three storeys.
• Conversely, the area zoned for single homes has shrunk by 22 percent compared to the plan drawn up in 2013.
• The panel recommends that the housing needed for the next 24 years be zoned immediately; that means 422,000 new homes can be built.
• The council's general policy of accommodating up to 70 percent of future housing growth within the urban area, and up to 40 percent outside of it, remains part of the plan.
• Auckland's existing urban area is expected to accommodate 270,000 additional homes.
• In the city's rural fringe, 115,000 dwellings have been zoned, although these are unlikely to be built for seven years or more.
• Partial protection of neighbourhoods with homes built before 1944 has been removed.
• An idea regulating the sustainability of new dwellings has also been removed.
• The revised plan also removes requirements for a proportion of new development to be affordable.
• A schedule of areas declared of significance or value to Māori has also been removed.
• The panel found that the current shortage of dwellings was 40,000, and that 13,000 new dwellings would be needed every year.

The following two images show extra housing capacity, as enabled by the 2013 version, compared with the new recommendations released today:

What's next?

The Auckland Council has 20 working days to consider the recommendations, and has to notify the public on its decisions by 19 August.

Councillors will begin their consideration of the recommendations on 10 August.