A  quarter of Mount Victoria’s distinct character area will lose its protection and be open to six-storey development, if recommendations by independent commissioners considering the District Plan are accepted. It’s a far cry from an earlier version put forward by a slim majority of councillors, which would have seen nearly two-thirds of character protection lost. 

As it stands, most of Mt Victoria will be zoned for medium-density development under the city’s new district plan.

Medium density zoning allows for detached, semi-detached and terraced housing, low-rise apartments, and adopts the medium density residential standards which permit three residential units of up to three storeys on a site. Some areas – for example lower Elizabeth Street, Home and Hania Streets, Roxburgh Street and part of Hawker Street (see map for details) - have been designated a ‘high density residential zone.’

These are areas that are expected to change over time to a more intensive urban built form. As well as allowing 3x3 development these areas also ‘enable’ multi-units of up to six storeys through a resource consent process, subject to standards and design guidance.

More of Mt Victoria would have been zoned as high density if it were not for character exemptions.

As the suburb falls within a ‘walkable catchment’ of the central city, councils are required under the National Policy Statement on Urban Development to enable six-storey development. Exemptions are permitted for ‘qualifying matters’, such as heritage. The Wellington City Council proposed that ‘character’ should also be a qualifying matter, which commissioners agreed with.

The extent of character precincts has been heavily debated throughout iterations of the plan, and at one stage 63% of existing protections were proposed to be removed in Mt Victoria, as a result of a council vote.

However, this was strongly opposed by residents, and even the council’s own planning staff disagreed, recommending a different version in their report to the commissioners.

Now the pendulum has swung back the other way with a proposed 73% of protection to be retained in Mt Victoria, rather than just 37% in the proposed District Plan. Overall in Wellington, commissioners recommend that 67% of character protection should remain, compared to 28% in the proposed District Plan.

How did we get to this point? And what happens next? 

The tortuous process of setting the city’s planning rules has been going on for several years, involving a spatial plan, a draft District Plan, a proposed District Plan, and many hundreds of submissions from residents.

The most recent chapter has seen the hearings take place before a panel of independent commissioners. This important stage saw the big guns wheeled out: lawyers, planners, architects, developers and other experts speaking on behalf of themselves or clients such as Kainga Ora, NZTA and Housing and Urban Development.

Alongside were individuals, residents’ associations and other smaller lobby groups, doing their best to make sense of the arcane world of urban planning.

After months of hearings and deliberations taking up most of 2023, Commissioners presented their conclusions to council for acceptance last month.

These related to provisions that must be ‘fast tracked’ for resolution, following a new process set by the previous Labour government.

Fast-tracked provisions cannot be appealed to the Environment Court. Nor can councillors change the recommendations but they can propose alternatives, and the Minister for the Environment makes the final decision on which will be accepted.

When the process for fast-tracking was put in place, no doubt the then-Environment Minister David Parker imagined himself making those calls, however timelines have slipped and the government has changed; now it is National’s Penny Simmonds who would make that call if required.

The Council will meet on Thursday 14 March 2024 to decide whether to accept the IHP’s recommendations or propose alternatives.