Changes may increase home builds

The next round of Dunedin City Council rates notices will include information about proposed planning changes that will pave the way for 2500 homes to be built across the city.

The council has been working on changes to the city’s second generation district plan (2GP) to provide for more housing.

With the city’s growing population, more capacity is needed.

Council city development manager Anna Johnson said the key changes would be outlined in information being included with the next round of rates notices. These would be delivered from this week.

Dunedin residents have previously been asked for their ideas on how and where the city should grow.

That feedback helped to develop proposed changes to the 2GP, which come under the heading "variation 2: additional housing capacity".

The proposed changes include rule changes for most of suburban Dunedin that will:

• remove the restrictions on who can live in family flats.
• allow smaller site sizes and provide for duplexes.
• create more flexibility for development through changes such as making it easier to average out site sizes in subdivisions.
• improve how the plan manages the development of areas rezoned for new houses (greenfield sites) to encourage good urban design and well-managed infrastructure.
• make better provision for social housing.

There will also be zoning changes for some sites, resulting in:

• new greenfield sites for development in areas that were zoned rural or rural residential.
• more areas of medium-density zoning (where the density of housing can be increased).

Subject to council approval on January 29, further details, such as where the new development sites are, will be made public when variation 2 is released on February 3.

From that date, people will be able to visit www.dunedin.govt.nz/2GP to see what has been proposed and when any changes would apply.

"These changes are city-wide, so we want to give residents a heads-up about what’s coming," Dr Johnson said.

"People will be able to see what the changes mean for their property when details are made public next month."

Most property owners whose sites are proposed to be rezoned, and those who own property nearby (within 50m), will receive a separate letter informing them of the change.

Formal submissions on what’s proposed can be made from February 3 to March 4.