Five years of fighting ends with a vote that will reshape Auckland
Tuesday, 21 July 2026
Auckland’s councillors fiercely debated whether to preserve character homes or promote housing affordability as they decided where to zone for up to 1.7 million dwellings.
The vote on Tuesday evening was the culmination of “five years of stress”, as planning chairperson Richard Hills put it, settling the final proposed shape of Plan Change 120.
The winner on the day was a “hybrid scenario” that would see intensification focussed within “walkable catchments” near transit stations and larger town centres.
Those walkable catchments within 10km of the city centre will be zoned for 10 to 15- storey apartments, while outside that radius will see six-storey buildings.
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Frequent transport lines, including major bus routes, will also be upzoned for six storeys within a 200m corridor.
A contentious proposal for blanket upzoning to Auckland’s residential suburbs has been removed.
However several councillors continued to campaign against the loss of character in their suburbs - with 5500 “special” homes to lose protection under the latest plan.
Waitemata councillor Mike Lee put up an amendment at Monday’s meeting, seeking to pause the plan change process until the Government reveals new requirements under its impending Planning Bill.
“No sooner than it it is completed, we would have to start working all over again … Let’s pause this right now and put people out of their agony,” he said.
Meantime, Lee said the oldest suburbs in Auckland, like St Mary’s Bay, were being “targeted for destruction”.
“The question has to be asked: Is this for public transport or are we doing this to open commercially attractive sites across the harbour in response to pressure from big property?”
But councillor Julie Fairey called Lee’s amendment “predatory delay”, saying it was “the deliberate slowing of necessary systemic change to prolong a profitable but unsustainable status quo”.
“I haven’t been lobbied by any developers but I have spoken to a lot of people who want more housing,” she said.
Albany councillor John Watson asked staff about an analysis that PC 120 could result in a 3% to 5% a year drop in house prices - or “an average of $35,000”.
Chief economist Gary Blick said it would not mean that house prices would drop, but that growth would be “lower than otherwise”.
That was in comparison to the last “quarter century” where house prices had gone up 6% to 7% a year.
Asked Watson: “How do you think the public is coping with this constant flux of change? … This is their properties at stake, their livelihoods and the future of the Auckland region.”
Councillor Christine Fletcher said there was a “valid reason” to consider protecting the 10% of homes in the Albert Eden area with special character status.
“These are people and they have needs and they do not feel they have been fairly treated,” she said.
Fletcher said earlier councils had a legacy of the city’s new wastewater tunnel, the Central Interceptor, and the City Rail Link - but this council’s legacy would be “this plan”.
“Act in haste, repent at leisure, I say.”
But Waitakere councillor Shane Henderson said he wouldn’t support more “watering down and U-turns”.
“I simply don’t see a reason to delay any further; I think Aucklanders want us to bloody well get on with it, especially the development community.”
He said it was “an unjustifiable rort” that character protections locked up the central city.
“And harbour views should not be exclusive to those wealthy enough and lucky enough to be born at the right time.”
Whau councillor Sarah Paterson-Hamlin said she was “proudly voting for yes in my backyard”.
“This is the biggest city in Aotearoa, not a museum.”
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown said PC120 was now “unbelievably sensible”.
He said the plan would “result in getting value in areas where we’ve sunk huge piles of cash, and it will look like a city not a huge suburb.”
Hills argued the plan was now an acceptable compromise and would be “less scary for the public who don’t like density.”
“No it won’t lower the prices of everyone’s home overnight but it will bring more opportunities for people to live here,” he said.
“It’s been five years… can we just move on?”
Ultimately, Lee’s amendment to pause failed failed 15 votes to seven. The “hybrid scenario” PC 120 passed 17 votes to five.
With the final proposed plan now settled, an independent panel hold public hearings later this year, with the plan anticipated to be operative by late 2027 - depending on whether it is appealed in court.