Auckland Council’s legal team is asking the Independent Hearings Panel for a delay to a hearing on how to rezone the once-planned light rail corridor.
A wide swathe of the isthmus between the city centre and Māngere had previously been kept separate from broad intensification changes set out by the previous government until track and station locations were confirmed.
But now with the light rail project scrubbed and councils expected to be given the choice on whether to follow the new residential standards, it’s unclear where that leaves suburbs like Mount Roskill and Onehunga.
Last month, councillors Richard Hills and Angela Dalton sent a letter to Minister of Housing Chris Bishop and Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds requesting a further one-year extension of time for the council to notify its decisions on the intensification changes known as Plan Change 78.
“Given the uncertainties around whether the MDRS provisions will remain mandatory, it seems imprudent to progress a variation to the IPI (independent planning instrument) at this stage,” they wrote.
Uncertainty over the zoning future of the light rail corridor has left groups like Auckland Council and resident associations unsure of how much time and money they should be spending on preparing for upcoming hearings.
Council costs are estimated at around $500,000 a month for various hearings.
Hills and Dalton said a delay to the hearings would allow the Independent Hearings Panel to “pause the hearing process while the Government amends legislation or provides new direction as has been signalled and for council to consider the implications of these changes”.
However, a month on, council counsel say there’s been no response from Wellington.
In its stead, they have gone directly to the panel seeking a deferral of the hearing, which would begin with council giving evidence on April 15.
As the schedule stands, submitters would then be invited to provide their evidence two weeks later.
Balmoral Residents Association chair John Burns said without confirmation of what either the council or the Government plans to do, his group has been working in the dark.
“The problem from our point of view is we have absolutely no idea what council are proposing for Balmoral,” he said. “They haven’t done any consultation or communicated anything, so we can’t prepare.”
Following last year’s severe weather events, which saw many areas in the light rail corridor badly hit by flooding, Auckland Council was granted a one-year extension from the Government for investigation into housing in at-risk flooding zones.
David Parker, environment minister at the time, acknowledged the council was facing a number of challenges following the flooding and landslides caused by the Auckland Anniversary weekend floods and Cyclone Gabrielle.
“I understand why, in these circumstances, a further year is needed,” he wrote to the council’s planning committee.
“I expect this scope to include a review of the council’s approach to intensification in non-floodable areas and the development of blue green corridors in flood-prone areas.”
But nearly a year on, Burns said his association hadn’t been informed of what changes to zoning the area could expect. He wants to see the hearing postponed until after this is made clear.
“We’re asking for the light rail hearing to be put off until council has produced whatever its going to produce,” he said. “The rezoning was apparently all premised on light rail but now that’s not happening – what will?”
And with a matter of weeks to go before the scheduled hearing, Burns worries his association is running out of time to prepare, whether that be finding a lawyer or expert witnesses.
Submitters are expected to give evidence just two weeks after the council, and two weeks after that to provide feedback on the evidence of other potential submitters such as Kāinga Ora.
“That is insufficient time for Balmoral Resident Association’s witnesses to read, understand, and respond to what is expected to be voluminous evidence from council, Kāinga Ora and other submitters whose evidence they wish to contest,” the association wrote in a memorandum this week to the hearing panel.
As significant confusion persists over the future of the light rail corridor, further uncertainties cloud housing opportunities across the rest of the city as well.
Sally Hughes, chair of the Character Coalition, said a lack of clear direction from the Government had left the 60 or so groups her coalition represented preparing for hearings that might not need to happen.
The National Party rode to victory at the end of last year with a suite of campaign promises including a pledge that local councils will be able to decide whether or not they’d like to opt out of medium density residential standards, so long as they zone for 30 years’ worth of housing demand at the same time.
But despite a record number of bills put through in urgency, that legislation has yet to be passed.
Hughes welcomed the verbal confirmation to keep that promise, made by Minister of Housing Chris Bishop at the end of last month in a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce.
However, she was concerned that any lag would allow the process to keep on rolling out with little purpose.
“There’s been a lot of preparation that needs to happen … but the Government might then change the rules, and then Plan Change 78 would be gone, getting lawyers and planners and expert witnesses lined up to get ready for these hearings that might not actually happen,” she said.
“The other side of it is that council has to do that as well, so it’s costing not only the ratepayers who are doing it themselves, but also as the council does it as well.”
She said attempts to engage with the Government had gone largely unnoticed.
Hughes estimated the costs of preparation for the coalition so far amounted to more than $500,000.
In a letter to Independent Hearing Panel chair Matthew Casey, Hughes criticised the process of the hearings continuing without council having revealed any new plans for the light rail corridor area.
“We believe that to proceed with the hearings now would be quite unreasonable and unfair to submitters and ask that, in these circumstances, the panel further defers the hearings until these matters are clarified.”
