A committee has given to the Council a very long report on Auckland’s Unitary Plan. The committee held hearings, listening to various groups giving their ideas for how Auckland can grow in a sensible way.
The committee has made many recommendations and next the Auckland City Council must vote on these recommendations later this month. Here are some of the recommendations.
The urban boundary should be pushed more into rural areas, to free up 30% more land for building houses. 422,000 houses will be needed in the next 30 years. There should be fewer single houses built in the future and more apartments and terrace houses. Apartments could be 5 storeys high, but in some areas, they could be 6 or 7 storeys. Developers do not always have to provide on-site parking. This increased density should be in town centres and near good transport like railways. A map shows which areas will have increased density.
A spokesman for Generation Zero says that this is a good plan because it will provide smaller houses for young people and these should be cheaper. The Labour Party, however, says that houses will still be too expensive for first-home buyers.
Listen to February 25 2016 for more on Auckland’s housing problems.
Vocabulary
• Unitary Plan – one plan for all Auckland
• recommendations – strong advice
• boundary – border or a line showing the limit
• urban – city
• rural – countryside
• terrace houses – joined together in a row
• developers – they have the money for building many houses
• density – measurement of number of houses in an area
• spokesman – he speaks for a whole group of young people