In Auckland, the council has been running an experiment, and at the heart of it is a bold decision to remove restrictions around zoning — but the New Zealand election could change things.
I have long called for something similar to this. Abolish low-density residential zones entirely. What Brisbane City Council calls “LMR3” (or “low-medium density up to three storeys”) should be the absolute minimum zone. That zone allows the building of low-density detached houses if you want it, but it also allows three-storey small apartments and my favourite type of housing: row/town houses.
Up to 3 storeys is great because it hugely increases the actual lived density, without being subject to the sort of criticism of “towering over my house” that 5–7 storey medium density apartments often get. I mean, NIMBYs might try that anyway, but it just doesn’t carry any water when you’re comparing it with what is already a two-storey Queenslander.
So the very first step should be to replace all LDR with LMR3. After that we can start trying to up the density even more near train stations etc., if need be.
Regarding the article itself, it’s fantastic to see an example of this being done and working in a country that has very recently had the exact same norms as us. As an urbanist we so often point to places like the Netherlands and Northern Europe, or even in this respect to cities like Vienna and London (real London, not fake London). But Aukland is much harder for an Australian to dismiss as being “a weird European city where people just do things different from us”.
Recently, National flagged it would give New Zealand councils the power to opt out of the MDRS if it took office on October 14. And several of them will, given the chance.
Disappointing, but Aukland houses about a third of New Zealand’s population—even more centralisation than we have, where the top three cities just barely make up half. And it sounds like Aukland was already on board with this even prior to the national government implementing it. So hopefully for NZ the national government changing its stance won’t hurt too badly.
I’d be very interested to see a Kiwi’s perspective on this. Anyone know of a Kiwi lemmy community where it’s been discussed?
I have long called for something similar to this. Abolish low-density residential zones entirely. What Brisbane City Council calls “LMR3” (or “low-medium density up to three storeys”) should be the absolute minimum zone. That zone allows the building of low-density detached houses if you want it, but it also allows three-storey small apartments and my favourite type of housing: row/town houses.
Up to 3 storeys is great because it hugely increases the actual lived density, without being subject to the sort of criticism of “towering over my house” that 5–7 storey medium density apartments often get. I mean, NIMBYs might try that anyway, but it just doesn’t carry any water when you’re comparing it with what is already a two-storey Queenslander.
So the very first step should be to replace all LDR with LMR3. After that we can start trying to up the density even more near train stations etc., if need be.
Regarding the article itself, it’s fantastic to see an example of this being done and working in a country that has very recently had the exact same norms as us. As an urbanist we so often point to places like the Netherlands and Northern Europe, or even in this respect to cities like Vienna and London (real London, not fake London). But Aukland is much harder for an Australian to dismiss as being “a weird European city where people just do things different from us”.
Disappointing, but Aukland houses about a third of New Zealand’s population—even more centralisation than we have, where the top three cities just barely make up half. And it sounds like Aukland was already on board with this even prior to the national government implementing it. So hopefully for NZ the national government changing its stance won’t hurt too badly.
I’d be very interested to see a Kiwi’s perspective on this. Anyone know of a Kiwi lemmy community where it’s been discussed?