About the Plan Change 26
Tauranga City Council is proposing to make changes to the Tauranga City Plan to allow the building of different types of dwellings more easily. Different typologies will provide a range of housing choices and create great spaces to live in and great neighbourhoods. This includes broad provisions for duplexes and terraced housing development, as well as more targeted provisions for apartment building focused on the Te Papa peninsula.
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Property Council’s position
Property Council is generally supportive of the intent of the Plan Change and acknowledges the role that housing intensification plays in achieving a compact city and a sustainable urban form. Our concern, however, is that strict urban design rules may limit innovation, cause development lag and sometimes have the opposite effect than intended. Therefore, we recommend the Council take a balanced approach to ensure innovation can occur to reach good design outcomes.
The Council is also proposing to introduce the Residential Outcomes Framework for higher density developments supported by an urban design guide. While we are supportive of the proposal, further work should be done on the framework. Therefore, we recommend:
- including additional criteria to the framework to ensure better assessment process and delivery of a wider range of benefits for all. These criteria include creativity, collaboration and capacity of network infrastructure, and
- setting up an urban design advisory panel to ensure industry buy-in and input from all decision-makers is considered, and timely informed decisions are made.