More calling inner city home: census

WELLINGTONIANS are embracing inner-city living, with nearly 13,000 now calling the CBD home.

Census figures published yesterday show that, while the population in many of the southern and western suburbs has stagnated, the inner city is thriving.

Between the waterfront and the Basin Reserve, the population has jumped by 62 per cent since 2006, with an extra 1704 people.

Overall, including the Lambton Quay stretch of the city to Wellington railway station, 12,954 people now live in the inner city, compared with 9294 at the last census seven years ago.

Many northern suburbs also experienced strong growth, with central Johnsonville growing by 10.3 per cent. Carterton was the fastestgrowing district in the North Island, its population increasing 16 per cent between the last two censuses.

And while Wellington isn’t growing as fast as Auckland, which gained enough new residents to fill Tauranga, the capital is holding its own, increasing its population by a steady 6.5 per cent. That means an extra 11,490 people are living in the capital.

Craig Stewart is managing director of Stratum Management, which has been behind several recent inner-city apartment developments in the city, including Piermont on Tory St.

He said the sort of people wanting to live in the CBD had broadened, and developers were now building for families, first-home buyers, young professionals and renters. ‘‘As people are getting busier, owning a property in the suburbs, with all that maintenance, is becoming less attractive. The city, with its cafe lifestyle, is becoming the people’s backyard.’’

Wellington City Council strategy manager Brian Hannah said the movement of people into the city and the northern suburbs was part of the council’s deliberate growth plan. ‘‘We have got a plan to direct new dwelling into the north and apartments in the city.’’

Population growth in hilly suburbs such as Kelburn and Wadestown, which have both shrunk since 2006, was limited because the housing was older and there was little spare room. ‘‘And some of those are character areas, which we want to protect.’’

A more centralised population was good news for the region, with a bigger resident population better supporting a vibrant inner city and generating savings from a more concentrated infrastructure.

Professor Philip Morrison, of Victoria University, who specialises in urban migration, said Wellington and New Zealand were following a global trend of greater urban concentration.

But more people in the CBD also meant higher property prices and this, in turn, pushed people with lesser means to the outskirts and created a corresponding population growth in peripheral areas.

This could perhaps partly explain strong growth in some parts of Porirua, northern Wellington and Wairarapa, he said. ‘‘It’s in the middle, and on the outskirts.’’

Elsewhere in the lower North Island, most urban centres continued to grow, although at a slower rate than previously, in line with a national decline in the pace of growth that has been linked to a drop in migrants.

More than half of the population growth since 2006 was in Auckland, where the population jumped by 110,592.