Residents often became attached to a suburb and might choose to move to housing of a more suitable size if they could stay near friends or local services such as a doctor’s practice, Otago Regional Council (ORC) policy and science general manager Anita Dawe said.
The ORC yesterday discussed how broad the scope should be for a Dunedin future development strategy, including housing capacity.
Councillors agreed on planning for a medium-growth scenario, but with additional areas of focus that would enable proactive planning for social and community housing and supporting the resilience of South Dunedin and outlying townships and settlements.
The councils are required to work together to prepare the future development strategy and the city council has been leading the work.
It is expected development rules and zoning approaches will not need to be adjusted to unlock more housing capacity, partly because population growth is now forecast to be quite slow.
City council research and monitoring team leader Nathan Stocker said the average number of people living in a Dunedin house was 2.6.
Regional councillor Bryan Scott was worried this might not be efficient and there could be a significant number of homes that were empty or had a low level of occupancy.
Ms Dawe said a variety of types of housing could make it easier for people to downsize or release mismatches.
City council city development manager Dr Anna Johnson said in a statement that Dunedin was expected to have more than enough development capacity to meet the population’s housing needs for the next 30 years.
Recent changes to planning rules enabled denser development in many parts of the city, and rezoning of several greenfield sites would enable further immediate or future residential development.
"This compares favourably with our actual expected need over this time, which is closer to 6600 homes.
"This will ensure there is plenty of choice for developers to respond to consumer preferences and different housing needs, including attached housing such as duplexes and apartments."
Dr Johnson said trends in the development market were encouraging.
There had been significant growth in the number of new homes being granted consent in the past two years.
The two councils are required to demonstrate that there will be sufficient development capacity for both housing and businesses.
They also have to show infrastructure will be provided to support growth.
The Queenstown Lakes district has also collaborated with the Otago Regional Council to prepare a future development strategy.
