Posts

Unitary Plan is working

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If you ask us if the Auckland Unitary Plan is working or not, well our answer to this would be yes, it is working with a passion. We are getting 3 or 4 clients a week who would want to know what potential their property holds or how they can benefit from the Unitary Plan.  These are mainly in the suburbs and mostly on sites 600m2 – 1800m2.

A real live example that recently got approval and is moving to building consent was – 20 James Laurie St, Henderson. The site is zoned Mixed Housing Urban zone (MHU).  As you know this allows typically for up to three storeys in a variety of sizes and forms, including detached dwellings, terrace housing and low-rise apartments.

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Viva the Unitary Plan – Bugger off Phil Twyford

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You all know the Unitary Plan was transformation and it responded to a real need – a lack of available land and housing supply.  It did this not by the Hamilton method of development – that is sprawl as far as the eye can see but by strategically going up and deleting the density controls in the three main residential zones, thus creating more land or more houses/Ha.

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The City Centre GFA rules – What exactly is the point

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OPINION

While the team at MHG generally agrees that the Unitary Plan represents a significant improvement on the previous planning regimes in Auckland, there is one rule in particular that I can’t for the life of me understand why we kept. This being the gross floor area (GFA) controls in the City Centre.

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Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP) Guide

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The Auckland Unitary Plan is working! More houses than ever are being consented.  But this is only the beginning.  Check out our Unitary Plan Guide which shows that all over Auckland there is development potential.  This is intended as an “idiot’s guide” for accountants, lawyers, agents and to all those home owners who may become accidental developers. To read more please find the file attached. MHG’s Auckland Unitary Plan Guide

Our Rates, My Pain

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Over the last month or so you have read that Auckland Council has:

  1. Installed exspensive speed cameras and not commissioned them;
  2. Underestimated holiday pay to the tune of $20m;
  3. Charged $69,000 in building consent and water connection fees for 70m2 unit, then taken six months to issue the CCC and then;
  4. justified it all in a PR puff piece.

So really it’s just another month in the life of the long-suffering ratepayer. I have to admit job satisfaction has been low for the past few months. I am using this forum as a cathartic release. Read more

Interviewing the greats: Russell Bartlett QC

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Russell Bartlett QC is the second candidate in our “Interviewing the Greats” series. Russell specialises in Resource Management Law, representing clients in Council hearings and through the Judicial and Court system. He is very successful and rarely, if ever, loses a case.

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