A big win for housing
Credit: Joel MacManus
After 7 years of work by the planning team, three terms of Council, and the hard work of community groups we passed an ambitious District Plan.
The District Plan is the single biggest tool the Council has to control where housing gets built, what it looks like, and how much of it gets built. The process of creating this plan started back in 2017 with the Spatial Plan consultation.
When the Spatial Plan went out for consultation it sought to solve one of Wellington’s biggest challenges — lot’s of people want to live here but we didn’t have enough housing for everyone. The Spatial Plan used a community first consultation strategy, where members of the community were able to have a say about where they wanted housing to be built, before the District Plan process begun.
I first became involved in the Spatial Plan with a group called A City for People in 2021. We campaigned for a Spatial Plan that put people and the environment first. That meant a city where people could live closer to public transport, parks, and shops, and a city where we thought not just about people who were already living in Wellington, but people who want to live here but can’t find a home right now.
Because of the work we did as advocates the Wellington City Council passed an ambitious Spatial Plan in 2021 that lead to the District Plan we got to vote on today.
“Everyone deserves access to a safe, dry, and affordable home. I’m proud to be a small part of making that a reality for everyone”
Lead by Rebecca Matthews we were able to pass a District Plan that’s truely fit for the future. Some of the highlights of the new District Plan include:
Increased walking catchments to enable a walkable city where you don’t have to rely on a car,
Designating the Johnsonville railway line as ‘rapid transit’ so people have access to homes near public transport,
Reduced character areas so we’re preserving only the best parts of our city and enabling thousands more homes,
Rules so that developments across the city use water sensitive urban design to mitigate flooding.
During this process we’ve also started working on our next plan changes. We heard from the community and so we’re also starting work on some future changes that will:
Embed Te Ao Māori into our planning rules by recognising sites of significance and simplifying the planning process for Papakāinga,
Enable more housing in Kilbirnie in partnership with the community,
Embed our natural streams and catchments to reduce flooding and protect the mana of our waterways
“The District Plan will enable thousands more homes that Pōneke desperately needs. Together, we’ve taken real action to ensure everyone has access to a warm, dry, affordable home”
