Submission on 'Our City Tomorrow: Draft Spatial Plan'

Spatial Plan - 'Our city tomorrow' is a welcome guide

Overall, ‘Our city tomorrow’ is a welcome guide to Wellington’s development over the next 30 years. It makes the kind of decisions the Chamber has been calling for to cater for growth and provide specific direction on where future investments will be required in things like transport infrastructure, water provision, and civic amenities to support new housing. The document successfully sets the entire city’s development within a long-term framework that grapples with the issues of a growing population and bustling central business district.

The draft spatial plan has a welcomely explicit focus on affordable housing. While housing affordability in New Zealand is the subject of numerous reports and studies, we can agree there is insufficient housing stock. Constrained supply has led to rising prices, leading to Wellington families either diverting too much of their income towards housing or not having the choice to buy the house they would like. Therefore, any spatial plan must allow for the building of Our City Tomorrow Submission from the thousands of new homes to accommodate present and future citizens. ‘Our city tomorrow’ does this successfully in our view.

Housing supply is more than just a dwelling. It is about providing a warm, dry, secure home that is built to modern standards and is better for the environment. Also, as the plan seeks to encourage, it should look good within its surroundings for decades to come.

The Chamber has sounded the alarm on housing affordability previously. Addressing it requires urgency from all parties. Wellington is already behind on the number of houses it needs, let alone catering for growth into the future.

Therefore, the Chamber supports removing controls on pre-1930s housing redevelopments. The space within our central suburbs and along key transport corridors must allow as many people as possible the choice of living close to Wellington’s fantastic amenities. Providing for more significant development does not mean abandoning Wellington’s past, and the proposed heritage protections in this plan strike the right balance.

Ultimately, a city’s task is to house its people affordably and safely. Standing in the way of redeveloping our old, pre-1930s housing stock, often single dwellings on a large site, into modern medium-density developments will adversely impact those least able to afford it...

Download to read the full submission.