Plan Change 39 – Residential Building Coverage

Decision released on plan change to allow greater building coverage

On 28 November, Council approved notification of the decision on Plan Change 39, as recommended by an independent hearing panel. Plan Change 39 – Residential Building Coverage proposes to increase building coverage in most of the district’s residential environments from 30 percent to 35 percent.

Before the change can become operative, the decision can be appealed by those who originally submitted on the plan change, as outlined below.

Read media release

Appeal process

Any person who has made a submission on Plan Change 39 – Residential Building Coverage, may appeal Council’s decision on their submission to the Environment Court.

In accordance with Clause 14 of the First Schedule of the Resource Management Act 1991, appeals must be in the prescribed form and lodged with the Environment Court by 5pm on 7 February 2024.

Decision

Background

The current residential building coverage for most residential environments is 30%. Plan change 39 seeks to increase this standard to 35% for the Residential and Nukuhau General Residential Environments. Building Coverage is the amount of space that your house can take up on your section.

This increase is responding to the way people are choosing to live, such as larger families looking to live together out of necessity or cultural reasons. This is resulting in landowners seeking larger buildings subsequently requiring resource consent to exceed building coverage. Resource consent is generally granted for applications exceeding the maximum site coverage, therefore this process is creating unnecessary additional costs and adding time to the development process.