Aucklanders are more divided on whether they want greater housing intensification in their neighbourhoods, when compared to Wellingtonians who took a more favourable view, according to a Q+A Kantar Public Poll.
The poll showed an almost dead-even split, with 42% of Auckland voters supporting more homes while 44% opposed it. Meanwhile, 14% either didn't know or refused to answer.
A Q+A Kantar Public Poll that asked the same question in Wellington found broader support for intensification, with 64% of voters supporting more townhouses or apartments, 22% opposed, and the same number who didn't know or refused to answer.
Poll participants were asked: "Housing intensification involves building a greater number of homes on the same amount of land, for example, by building apartments or townhouses. Do you support or oppose greater housing intensification in your neighbourhood to help make housing more affordable?"
Building denser housing has been a divisive issue as new bipartisan housing legislation permits developers to build more townhouses in existing urban areas.
Dubbed by some as the "townhouse bill", the legislation would raise maximum height restrictions to three storeys across urban areas. New Government rules also allow developers to build up to six storeys around major public transport interchanges or "rapid transit" stations and generally increase height restrictions around town centres.
Tāmaki Makaurau's mayoral candidates were asked about Auckland Council's exemptions to intensification within central suburbs during Q+A's mayoral debate that aired on Sunday.
Frontrunner and businessman Wayne Brown said "interfering with character areas is wrong" and that there was a "golden opportunity" to convert offices in the city centre to apartments.
"I object to Wellington interfering again, and suddenly changing something Aucklanders have worked quite hard on," he said. "It's not well thought through, and it does have things that are wrong with it."
The NZ Herald has reported that the Government is considering a challenge to the council's "special character areas" on the basis that they are inconsistent with the directive to allow for more homes in existing urban areas.
The council's provisions would exempt thousands of "special character" sites close to the city centre from upzoning – including Kingsland, Mt Eden, Devonport, and Ponsonby. Brown said the special character in some suburbs was "part of what is nice about certain areas".
"Forty per cent of the offices in the CBD are empty due to Covid, and they will stay empty. Council planners need to be told very quickly to come up with some user-friendly rules so that the owners of those buildings can quickly convert those into accommodation."
In contrast, Manukau Ward councillor Efeso Collins said he generally supported intensification, as the city's population grew, and that there also needed to be a focus on "empty homes".
He said the poll result shows "that we're pretty much at a crossroads with getting people to agree. What we've got to do is have a much clearer conversation."
Collins said the council should meet with property-owners of "empty homes" to discuss how they could be used: "We know that there are 24,000 people in our city who are homeless. The Salvation Army tells us we're about 30,000 houses short, and I know that we've got about 40,000 ghost houses in Auckland."
Craig Lord said he didn't believe "high-rise buildings" in special character areas would "do much to improve the housing problems that Auckland has". The new housing directives do not require that suburbs be built to maximum height limits.
"At the end of the day, Auckland doesn't have much character – there's not a lot here, and if we start bowling, some of these beautiful villas that we've got, what will we have left?" he said. "There are already around 900,000 spots available in the Unitary Plan."
Agreed to five years ago, Auckland Council's then-divisive Unitary Plan enabled denser housing in existing built-up areas and town centres – while swathes of the city were still kept under suburban zoning. Some have credited the change in zoning for increasing the supply of homes and improving overall housing affordability.
Read the results and methodology here.
Between September 16 and 20, 1000 eligible Auckland Council voters were polled online, using online panels.
The maximum sampling error is approximately ±3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For candidate support, percentages have been rounded up or down to whole numbers. Undecided voters, non-voters and those who refused to answer are excluded from the data on candidate support. The data have been weighted to align with Stats NZ population counts for age, gender, ethnic identification and education in Auckland Council. The online sample is collected using an online panel.
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