Controversy remains for housing density plan despite recommended changes

Nelson’s proposed new housing density rules proved controversial amongst the community, and the council’s new suite of recommendations are no different.

Plan Change 29 would see the city’s planning rules changed to enable a much greater degree of housing density than is currently permitted.

But Nelson City Council has since released a raft of reports recommending several changes to its original proposal after reviewing around 900 submissions on the proposed plan change.

A particularly contentious proposal – a high-density zone that would have enabled six-storey buildings to be built without a resource consent – is recommended for removal from the plan.

But the recommendations would still allow high-density builds on large sites in areas that have high accessibility to the central city and Stoke through a specific resource consent process.

However, that’s not the only proposed change and the details contained within the hundreds of pages of reports have garnered a wide range of reactions from the community.

Local urban designer Timo Neubauer says the recommendations are a “step forward”. He opposes backyard development which hinders the introduction of perimeter block urban form – where houses can be built up to the front boundary while the back is left for greenspace.

As such, he says some recommended rule changes for rear boundaries that would make it more difficult to develop the back of a property were a “good thing”, however some concerns remain.

“I think it is still quite clunky, and it doesn’t respond very well to the pattern of sections that we’ve got.”

Timo believes it would be “better” to define a building envelope in relation to the front boundary, rather than having measurements that will vary greatly based on a site’s dimensions.

“Sometimes builders or developers basically follow the recession plane exactly, because that’s what they’re allowed to do, which ends up with really weird geometries for your buildings,” he says.

“You want a consistent streetscape where your buildings are, say, three storeys tall throughout, your roofline is at a particular height. That doesn’t happen if you’ve got these sort of daylight indicators.”

Timo remains hopeful that the incoming neighbourhood plans will provide a great opportunity to tweak the rules for specific areas.

But Tim Bayley, creator of the Stop Plan 29 Facebook page, says that despite “some tweaking around the edges”, the recommendations still don’t address residents’ concerns.

He maintains that the liberalised density rules are “grossly unfair” and will “put us all in the dark” by adversely affecting neighbours who have operated within the historic planning rules.

“It’s not just six-storey, it’s two-storey and three-storey buildings as well,” Tim says.

“Any council that allows that kind of development… without any input from neighbours – I’m sorry, I don’t want to live in a town that does that.”

He highlights that six-storey buildings can still be built under the recommendations and could still appear across the city because developers can buy and amalgamate lots, and so restricting their construction to sites of a particular size is largely irrelevant.

Tim was also critical of the council’s updated flood modelling, saying it doesn’t account for flooding he has recorded, particularly along the Brook stream.

“The fact that it floods out everywhere else on Nile [St], all way down Tasman [St], somehow doesn’t seem to mean a thing.”

Tāhunanui Business and Citizens Association chair Jacinda Stevenson says a “major” issue for the suburb remains in the plan.

That issue is a rule that would require new or altered buildings adjacent to a state highway to be acoustically- insulated due to the noise of the traffic.

The original plan change would have applied that rule to all buildings within 100 metres of the road, however updated noise modelling supplied by Waka Kotahi has resulted in a recommendation that the rule apply to a narrower strip of properties.

But Jacinda says the rule is “ridiculous” and should be removed in its entirety because it could further discourage development in Tāhunanui which is bisected by State Highway 6.

“My understanding of Plan Change 29 is to get more houses built, and yet here they are putting more restrictions and costs on residents.”