Hutt housing shake-up
An attempt to force Coronation Street-type housing on Lower Hutt, or a much needed move towards dealing with the city’s housing crisis.
Those were the two views as Hutt City councillors dealt with a recommendation by independent commissioners in support of a plan change that would radically change the way the city looks.
The council has been grappling for nearly a decade to find a way to boost the population and build more houses.
In 2012, it began a complex process to change its district plan to allow more infill housing, apartments and terraced housing.
Last night, councillors agreed to Plan Change 43 at an extraordinary council meeting attended by 50 people.
With homelessness and emergency grants at record levels, mayor Campbell Barry has said housing will be a priority over the next three years.
The plan change will introduce two new activity areas in and around nine suburban centres. A new Suburban Mixed Use Activity Area with three storey buildings accommodating shops and cafes on the ground floor, with apartments or offices above.
The second new residential area would be located next to the mixed use area. It would allow for residential buildings (townhouses, terraced houses, apartment buildings) up to three storeys. A number of speakers said it would result in the city looking like Coronation Street.
Richard Arlidge accused council officers of ‘‘reprehensible behaviour’’ in forcing the plan change on the public.
It would decrease amenity values and he predicted property owners would leave the city. It would lead to a ‘‘modern-day Coronation Street’’ and that is ‘‘not an environment we or our families wish to live in’’.
Dave Robinson said that he came to Lower Hutt in 1955 and had lived in a Coronation Streettype street in England.
He accused the council of supporting the ‘‘creeping disease of intensification’’ and called on councillors to oppose the plan change. The commissioners said that if Lower Hutt is to grow, the council had no choice but to change the District Plan.
‘‘The status quo is simply not acceptable and will not achieve the purpose of the Resource Management Act.’’
Richard Arlidge
The commissioners noted there was a divide in the city between young and old, with young people favouring changing the rules to free up housing.
‘‘The evidence we found overwhelmingly was that residential intensification must occur, especially to address social housing. Over the next 30 years, the population could increase by as much as 20,359, which would require between 6105 and 11,256 new homes.
Mayor Barry spoke in support of the plan change and said that the legal advice was clear.
The council could only oppose the plan change if there was a strong legal argument and that legal reason did not exist.
He supported it due to the need to deal with the housing crisis in the city.
There are people living in cars and in garages that need to be homed, he said.
He was also concerned that young people are being locked out of the housing market.
Councillor Naomi Shaw said politicians had a ‘‘moral obligation’’ to support the plan change and she was embarrassed to live in a city with such a high level of homelessness.
After a three-hour debate, the council voted 9-4 to support the plan change.
‘‘A modern day Coronation Street is not an environment we, or our families, wish to live in’’.