The second report from The New Zealand Housing Survey is out today!

This public data release draws on the experiences of 5,232 New Zealanders, providing a robust national snapshot. Results can be explored by region, age, income, ethnicity, household type, tenure, and more. These detailed perspectives reveal not only what New Zealanders are saying, but also where pressure points lie — who is thriving, who is struggling, and which issues require urgent attention.

The data covers both homeowners AND non-homeowners (around 50% of respondents are already homeowners), which reflects not just housing needs but also actual decisions that New Zealanders are already actively making.

We all know action‑based data is critical for those deploying capital. For developers, iwi, councils, and government partners, these insights offer a clear, up‐to‐date evidence base for planning and making investment choices. So, what is really exciting is that this study is longitudinal. This means we will be able to track how stated preferences translate into real behaviours over time as participants become active in the system.

The report is structured around seven core themes, which also form the backbone of the interactive Power BI dashboards we have developed as the first step toward a wider Housing & Urban Insights Tool.

The seven core themes are:

• The National Housing Mood (public priorities)
• Housing Mobility & Agency (people’s sense of choice and control)
• Value Trade‐offs (drivers behind everyday housing decisions) 
• Housing Affordability (financial pressures and behavioural impacts)
• Housing Quality (warmth, dryness, security, and efficiency)
• The Tenure Divide (inequities between renting and owning)
• Retirement Demand (emerging trends in downsizing and ageing‐in‐place)

As we get more data, the dashboards will be continuously updated, and insights will be available for different geographic areas to provide a more local view of housing needs, supplementing the national level dataset. In the meantime, please reach out if you are interested in getting access to the data behind the insights provided in the report.

Here at TUA, our Urban Strategy practice brings research, policy, design, economics, and implementation into one integrated picture, ensuring projects hold together under pressure, not just on paper.

The success of this integrated approach was celebrated last week when Co-Directors Dr Natalie Allen and Greer O'Donnell picked up a Highly Commended award for the Whangārei Future Development Strategy at the NZPI Best Practice Awards (Strategic or Non-Statutory). This Strategy is a culmination of what can be achieved through spatial planning by considering past, present, and future realities - as well as the specific challenges and opportunities Whangārei faces.

Thank you to our collaborators on this one: InPlace Consulting, MRCagney and Northland Regional Council, and to our fantastic client Whangarei District Council.

Learn more about the project here:
https://www.theurbanadvisory.com/project/whangarei-future-development-strategy

New Zealand’s resource management system is undergoing the biggest rewrite in a generation. Two new Acts — the Planning Bill (land use, development, infrastructure) and the Natural Environment Bill (environmental outcomes and limits) — are before Parliament to replace the RMA, with enactment targeted around mid‑2026.

Under the proposed framework, 100+ plans consolidate into 17 regional combined plans, with fewer consents, more proportionate conditions, and a shift to a more digital, modern planning system. For councils, iwi, developers, and infrastructure partners, this means decisions need to be integrated up‑front — exactly the conditions under which precincts succeed by system design.

Why “system design” precincts fit the reform era

1) One shared model, one shared plan
The new system emphasises clarity about what can be done where, with regional combined plans providing a single anchor for spatial, land‑use, and environmental provisions. Precincts planned through a single, shared model — integrating land use, infrastructure sequencing, funding, and delivery governance—are better placed to move efficiently through the new framework.

2) Fewer consents; more up‑front integration
The reform intent is to reduce activity categories and consents and require necessary and proportionate conditions — shifting effort to front‑end system design and evidence. Precincts built on a shared evidence base (policy, economics, transport, emissions, market feasibility) will align earlier, cut duplication, and lower delivery risk.

3) Clear goals that mirror precinct thinking
The Planning Bill’s goals include enabling development, separating incompatible land uses, planning for current and future infrastructure demand, and safeguarding key values and heritage — goals that map directly to precinct‑scale integration.

4) Focus on material effects; remove low‑value debates
The reforms propose removing several effects from scope — e.g., visual amenity and retail distribution effects — and elevating nationally consistent direction. This increases the premium on evidence that matters (accessibility, emissions, infrastructure capacity, market feasibility) and de‑emphasises legacy arguments that stalled projects.

The environment is the financial future

Globally, buildings account for about a third of energy demand and over a third of energy‑ and process‑related CO₂ emissions — placing emissions and energy performance at the centre of long‑term affordability and resilience. Precinct‑scale integration of energy, emissions, land‑use, and transport is now an economic imperative, not just an environmental one.

Evidence‑Led Social Infrastructure & Amenity: What communities actually value

As plans consolidate and effects are streamlined, amenity and wellbeing evidence becomes more — not less — important. Here’s what the latest NZ data tells us:

• Aligning with Community Aspirations for Amenity
  New Zealanders strongly prioritise living close to local amenities and in places that foster neighbourhood connection — insights that should directly guide the placement and mix of community facilities in growth areas and precincts.
• Quantifying Amenity Preference
  Value Trade‑offs findings in the New Zealand Housing Survey (TUA) provide a measurable way to evidence the importance of proximity to amenities — supporting robust decisions on facility location, accessibility, and distribution within regional combined plans.
• Defining Demand for Facility Types
  New Zealand’s housing stock is densifying, with a significant rise in joined dwellings over the last decade — signalling increased demand for multi‑purpose community centres, shared indoor spaces, and flexible facilities to match multi‑unit living patterns.
• Informing Social Return on Investment (SROI)
  Housing affordability stress is closely linked to wellbeing and life satisfaction in recent Stats NZ reporting. High‑quality, accessible community facilities are a lever to mitigate social and economic pressure — strengthening the SROI case for investment and retention in priority locations. 
• Planning for Diverse & Changing Needs
  Selwyn’s planning evidence highlights limited historic diversity in housing and the need to provide alternative typologies as demographics shift — underlining the case for adaptable facilities and asset repurposing aligned with life‑stage needs.
• Grounding Strategic Decisions
  With national direction simplifying effects and consolidating plans, resident‑expressed priorities and amenity access should be the compass for social infrastructure decisions—moving beyond legacy supply patterns.

From strategy to delivery: what this looks like in practice

• Hutt City — Leveraging targeted infrastructure funding, we helped council establish a delivery‑focused urban development function to enable mixed‑use precincts and align public investment with infrastructure sequencing for RiverLink.
  Learn more here: https://www.theurbanadvisory.com/project/hutt-city-spatial-plan
  
  
• Whangārei Future Development Strategy — Integrated spatial planning that sets a clear, evidence‑based direction for growth.
  Learn more here: https://www.theurbanadvisory.com/project/whangarei-future-development-strategy
  
  
• Christchurch Central City Momentum Review — How we assess implementation, track delivery, and adjust course once a plan is live.
  Learn more here: https://www.theurbanadvisory.com/project/christchurch-central-city-momentum-review
  
  

Tools built for the reform era

As the Government signals a modern, digital planning system, we’ve built the Housing & Urban Insights Platform and formed a partnership with Urbanly to bring dynamic spatial modelling (land use, accessibility, emissions, market feasibility, infrastructure timing) into decision‑ready analysis — exactly the capability the new planning system anticipates.

What to do next

1. Adopt a single precinct model: Integrate land use, infrastructure, funding, governance, climate, and delivery pathways up‑front to align with regional combined plans.
2. Ground social infrastructure in evidence: Use NZ Housing Survey Value Trade‑offs and Stats NZ wellbeing data to place facilities where they most improve outcomes and SROI.
3. Design for denser living: Align facility typologies with the shift toward multi‑unit housing and higher residential densities.
4. Model emissions and energy at precinct scale: Integrate carbon and energy scenarios into business cases and delivery sequencing.

Ready to design your precinct for the new planning system?

Let’s turn evidence and strategy into delivery. Email us at info@theurbanadvisory.com

Here is The Urban Advisory’s submission on the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill.

Our response supports the intent to replace the RMA with a more consistent, data-driven system that reduces consenting friction while safeguarding environmental limits. However, we believe the success of this reform hinges on moving beyond "paper consistency" to true systems integration.

Key themes from our submission include:

- Cities-as-Systems, Not Silos: Moving away from fragmented planning by requiring plans to be integrated and "stress-tested" for resilience against market shocks and infrastructure outages.

- Digital Urban Intelligence: Mandating region-wide, "decision-ready" evidence bases using spatial models to support planning rules and transparent monitoring.

- Defining "Well-Functioning" Environments: Explicitly defining "well-functioning urban environments" to distinguish them from rural goals, ensuring high-density success through better public-private interface quality.

- Sequencing Before Development: Ensuring environmental limits and hazards are established before growth patterns are locked in, so development is genuinely constrained by physical realities.

- Protecting Public Realm Performance: Amending out-of-scope effects to allow for objective standards on street-level performance—like active frontages and safety—without re-introducing subjective aesthetic controls.

- Te Tiriti and Māori Interests: Providing certainty for Māori participation and data sovereignty, while enabling the development of identified Māori land through partnership models.

We’re committed to a high-performing planning system that de-risks decisions, lifts urban productivity, and protects te taiao.

Read our full submission here:

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The Urban Advisory (TUA) supports the intent to replace the RMA with a clearer, more consistent system that reduces consenting friction while safeguarding environmental limits and improving decision‑making with better use of data and technology.  However, we see an opportunity for the legislation to more clearly support integrated land‑use–transport systems, expanded market‑aligned delivery models for social and housing infrastructure, streamlined environmental performance monitoring that can be embedded without adding prohibitive cost, and long‑term housing affordability mechanisms.

We agree with the Committee’s framing that these Bills are foundational and should be treated as a single, interlocking regime (spatial planning + land‑use rules + environmental limits). We also support the interim briefing approach and the Committee’s publication of initial advice, given the compressed submission window; transparent early advice improves the quality of sector feedback.

At a system level, we recommend the following principles—grounded in our practice here at TUA of integrated urban strategy, evidence‑led modelling, and delivery stewardship—be explicitly enabled across national direction and plans:

1. Cities‑as‑systems, not silos. Embed the concept that urban, infrastructure, economic, environmental and policy settings operate as one system; require plans to be integrated‑tested for resilience under stress (e.g., infrastructure outages, market shocks, hazard events), not just consistency on paper. (Aligns with Planning Bill objectives on growth and infrastructure; Natural Environment Bill limits.)
2. Digital urban intelligence. Require region‑wide decision‑ready evidence bases using spatial models (e.g., housing capacity vs. infrastructure capacity; hazard scenarios; biodiversity networks) to support spatial planning and plan rules, with open data standards for reproducibility and monitoring. (Reflects the Bills’ intent to “make better use of data and technology.”)
3. Well‑functioning environments defined. Clarify “well‑functioning urban environments” and avoid conflating urban and rural so decision‑makers can consistently operationalise outcomes across typologies and densities.
4. Sequencing that holds under pressure. Calibrate spatial planning, environmental limits, and land‑use rules so that limits and hazards genuinely constrain where development can go; avoid sequencing that plans growth before limits are known. (Echoes concerns raised by environment sector guidance.) 
5. Te Tiriti and Māori interests in practice. Ensure the regime provides certainty for Māori participation, identification and protection of sites of significance, and enabling development of identified Māori land, with data sovereignty and co‑governance pathways reflected across instruments. (Consistent with stated goals in both Bills and sector expectations.)

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Part 2 — Shared provisions across both Bills

2.1 Purpose and Goals (both Bills)
We support concise purposes and goals but recommend expanding the operative outcomes to:

• Define “well‑functioning urban environments” (Planning Bill) and “well‑functioning environments” more broadly, drawing on sector language to reflect integrated systems and private/public interface quality. Urban Auckland highlights that urban and rural goals should be distinct; we concur and recommend a definitional clause for “well‑functioning urban environments” supported by national criteria.
• Require evidence‑ready, digital baselines for both Bills (shared data schemas; model transparency; versioning) to support monitoring, recalibration, and stewardship over time—explicitly anticipated in the Bills’ “better use of data and technology” objective.
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‍2.2 Spatial planning and one‑plan logic
We support a single regional plan integrating spatial, natural environment, and land‑use components, with national direction released on time to avoid gaps and rework—echoing local government concerns. The sequencing of instruments should be clarified to avoid planning growth that will later be constrained by limits.

‍2.3 Implementation capacity and funding
We endorse calls for implementation funding and capability uplift for councils and iwi partners (including digital tooling and data infrastructure), acknowledging the significant transition workload flagged by councils.

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Part 3 — Planning Bill–specific comments

3.1 Purpose (s 4)
The current purpose—“to establish a framework for planning and regulating the use, development and enjoyment of land”—is concise but managerial. We support Urban Auckland’s suggestion to strengthen the purpose to explicitly address improved urban outcomes and productivity, recognising Auckland’s national role and the link between urban form, infrastructure efficiency, and economic performance. ‍

‍TUA lens (Areas 1, 3, 7, 9):

Add a system outcome clause requiring plans to integrate housing, infrastructure, environment, and economics, and to test performance under stress. This will reduce the well‑known “looks good on paper” problem that undermines delivery.

‍3.2 Goals (s 11)
We support the goals to enable growth, plan for infrastructure, and provide for Māori interests, but recommend splitting urban and rural goals or adding distinct sub‑clauses and a definition of well‑functioning urban environments. Urban Auckland’s rationale—that high‑density success hinges on public/private interface quality and design—is sound and aligns with urban design practice.

‍TUA lens (Areas 1, 5, 10):

Under the “well‑functioning urban” goal, add expectations for fine‑grain urban design outcomes (active frontages, service yard location, blank wall minimisation) where these materially affect public realm performance, coupled with national design guidance to maintain objectivity. This addresses the performance gap without re‑introducing subjective “amenity” controls.

‍3.3 Effects “out of scope” (s 14(1))
We share Urban Auckland’s concern that excluding internal/external layout, visual amenity, near‑field privacy effects, and site landscaping removes tools needed to manage the public/private interface—critical at higher densities and in centres. We recommend narrowly‑tailored, objective performance standards for interface conditions that directly affect public space function, safety (CPTED), and accessibility, while avoiding broad subjective aesthetic controls.

‍TUA lens (Areas 2, 10):

Use spatial evidence (pedestrian flow, frontage activation, servicing conflicts) to support objective standards (e.g., max blank wall length on primary streets; entrance frequency; service access placement relative to pedestrian priority streets). This keeps the benefits of simplification while protecting street performance. ‍

‍3.4 Regional Spatial Plans – Purpose (s 67)
We support strengthened expectations for place‑specific, design‑led spatial planning that translates national policy to local delivery, and forges community agreement on future patterns—consistent with NZIA’s emphasis. Require integration testing: housing capacity ⇆ infrastructure capacity ⇆ hazard/limit constraints ⇆ transport mode shift ⇆ biodiversity networks.

‍TUA lens (Areas 2, 5, 6, 7):

Mandate a single, decision‑ready evidence base (e.g. through Strategic Spatial Modelling) for spatial plans, scenario‑tested for housing mix, affordability pathways, infrastructure staging, and hazard exposure, with delivery plans (capital stacks, value‑capture) for priority precincts.

‍3.5 Māori interests and partnerships
We support explicit provisions for Māori participation, sites of significance, and enabling development of identified Māori land. Add guidance enabling JV partnership models and data sovereignty protocols (Te Mana Raraunga aligned) in evidence bases and monitoring.

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Part 4 — Natural Environment Bill–specific comments

4.1 Purpose and limits framework
To operationalise a limits‑based framework to safeguard air, water, soil, ecosystems, and no net loss of indigenous biodiversity codify in the Bill that regional evidence bases must include biodiversity network mapping, ecosystem health baselines, and monitoring methods (with open data standards) to support adaptive management and transparent trade‑off decisions.

‍4.2 Hazards and climate adaptation
Strengthen requirements for proportionate, risk‑based planning to address sea‑level rise, flooding, and cascading hazards, prioritising nature‑based solutions and risk‑responsive zoning. 

Alignment with sector submissions (for the Committee’s context)

• Urban Auckland: We align on strengthening purpose (outcomes‑oriented), splitting urban/rural goals, support for spatial planning, and concerns with s 14(1) exclusions where they undermine public realm performance at higher densities. 
• Professional bodies: Multiple bodies call for integrated, place‑based evidence, clear definitions, and caution on removing landscape/visual tools without targeted objective standards. (UDF/NZILA commentary and submissions.)
• Local government: Endorsement of single‑plan approach but calls for stronger local voice, Te Tiriti protections, biodiversity safeguards, and attention to funding/compensation impacts; the implementation load and sequencing risks are also highlighted by councils.

Summary of Key Amendments Sought

• Planning Bill s 11 (Goals):
  Split urban and rural goals or include sub‑clauses; define “well‑functioning urban environments” with reference to public–private interface performance and design quality where it materially affects public space, supported by national guidance to ensure objectivity.
• Planning Bill s 14(1) (Out‑of‑scope effects):
  Amend to allow objective, performance‑based standards for building‑to‑street interface and servicing impacts on the public realm, while still excluding subjective aesthetic matters.
• Planning Bill s 67 (Regional Spatial Plans):
  Require a single, decision‑ready, shared evidence base with scenario testing for capacity, infrastructure, hazards, and biodiversity networks, alongside national data standards.
• Natural Environment Bill (Limits):
  Clarify that limits must be set before spatial development patterns are locked in; cap exceptions; and require transparent trade‑off reporting in spatial and land‑use plans.
• Both Bills (Māori interests):
  Add operational guidance for Māori participation, site identification, Māori land enablement, and data sovereignty expectations for evidence and monitoring systems.

Conclusion

TUA supports the passage of the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill with the targeted amendments outlined above. Their success depends on systems integration, digital intelligence, clear definitions, calibrated scope of effects, and delivery‑ready planning — enabling projects to gain consent faster, attract capital, get built, and perform within environmental limits. Strengthening these elements will de‑risk decisions, lift urban productivity, and protect te taiao, particularly in Tāmaki Makaurau, where national productivity and housing outcomes rely on a high‑performing planning system.

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Ngā mihi nui,

Dr Natalie Allen and Greer O'Donnell

Last week the Government announced the establishment of a new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT). Our response, about time!

TUA’s definition of Urban Strategy, coined 10 years ago, positions the discipline as the connector and steward: “linking the dots” across siloed actors, building the assets for decision-making, and putting in place the partnerships and agreements that turn vision into delivery. Integration of ministries should be a structural enabler of this approach - it should finally create the conditions for systems thinking to operate in practice.

Obviously, the devil is in the details. If delivered effectively, with strong leadership, the integration of ministries should enable a  systems-thinking approach by shifting the urban development system from fragmented, short-term, project-based activity to a coordinated, outcomes-driven model that can genuinely deliver intergenerational value. This place‑based approach needs to be anchored in Te Tiriti, consider mana whenua priorities, prioritise healthy housing, equitable access, economic inclusion as well as growth, cultural wellbeing, climate resilience, and mode shift.

This alignment unlocks braided funding across portfolios, allowing transport, housing, health, education, public realm, and social infrastructure investments to work together rather than compete, capturing the multi-sector co‑benefits that conventional budgeting obscures. Integrated governance structures, such as precinct delivery boards, provide the feedback loops and decision-making forums needed to rebalance trade-offs and keep complex programs on course, while shared data systems allow agencies to observe the system in real time and adapt sequencing, typologies, and enabling works based on actual outcomes rather than assumptions. 

If, delivered effectively, this alignment will simplify and improve urban development in three main ways:

• Coordinated Investment: It enables "braided funding," meaning investments in different sectors (like transport, housing, health, and education) work together instead of competing, which captures shared benefits that old budgeting methods missed.
• Integrated Governance: New governing bodies (for example, precinct delivery boards) could  be set up to ensure better decision-making and continuous feedback, helping complex programs stay on track and balance competing priorities.
• Adaptive Delivery: Agencies can use shared data systems to observe progress in real-time, allowing them to adjust plans and timing based on actual results rather than just relying on initial assumptions.

We’re excited to see if the New Zealand Housing Survey data can play a pivotal role in informing better decision making within the new ministry as it develops. We’re equally energised by the opportunity to contribute to meaningful reform and to help our local government clients make the most of this new ministry and its fresh approach to collaboration and delivery.

If you’re exploring how these changes could shape your planning, strategy, or housing priorities, get in touch - we’d love to help you navigate what’s next.

We've had a truly remarkable year, and we're delighted to showcase some of our 2025 project highlights:

• After years of development, we proudly debuted our findings from The New Zealand Housing Survey®. The report captures the voices of over 2500 New Zealanders to uncover the real, lived experiences of Kiwis navigating our housing system. The initial data set (including the data analysis and first report by the University of Auckland) is being used to bolster the decision-making evidence bases by councils, iwi, developers and landowners. 

• Thanks to a Callaghan/MBIE innovation grant, work has begun on developing a prototype for our Housing Insights Dashboard, visualising  all our New Zealand Housing Survey data. This is a key step in the evolution of our Housing Insights Tool; a data-driven decision support platform that integrates proprietary datasets with external sources (e.g., census data, property market trends, transport accessibility, socio-economic indicators) and a powerful geospatial visualisation engine. 

• We’ve continued the evolution of “TUA Tech” through our partnership with urban software development firm URBANLY. This collaboration has enabled us to build on the development of a globally innovative, agent-based strategic spatial model for use in Aotearoa.

• We have doubled-down on our efforts to unlock mixed-use regeneration, housing and precinct delivery. We are actively redefining what successful urban regeneration looks like in Aotearoa. Beyond just bricks and mortar, we are championing a shift toward intergenerational stewardship - bringing together councils, iwi, hapū, landowners, and enlightened investors who are willing to play the long game. We are proud to be cultivating an ecosystem where the 'too hard' projects become deliverable realities. By connecting landowners with developers who prioritise place over pace, we are proving that the most vibrant, thriving communities are built on a foundation of shared values.

• ‍We’ve delivered a portfolio of research, focusing on enhancing community resilience and housing stability in our rapidly changing urban environments. This mahi included the BRANZ MGH Research on unlocking multigenerational housing solutions; a strategic analysis for Haven Avondale; and research for the Central City Residents Group, which explored structural options to formalise representation and secure sustainable funding for improvements within Auckland’s City Centre.
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We invest our time and resources into what’s important to us.
Here’s a snapshot of TUA’s Impact for 2025:

• Gifted the first tranche of data from the NZ Housing Survey data to the nation. These reports are available to read and download here. ‍

• Presented at 20+ events and conferences across the motu, including the Economic Development NZ Annual Conference, International Conference on Urban Health, Fast Forward Lecture Series, Place Creative’s Night Mayors Series, The Urban Room’s Panel on Urban Regeneration, a BRANZ Research Webinar and many more.

• Sponsored the 2025 CoHo Hui in Ōtautahi, to support New Zealanders opportunity to learn how collective, affordable and sustainable housing can work here in Aotearoa.

• ‍Provided 200+ hours of free advice for community groups advocating for better urban development outcomes as a result of investment into transport and other social infrastructure.
  

• Invested in emerging talent by sponsoring a young wāhine Māori to attend the Women Revolutionising Housing Hui in Motueka, fostering her practical skills and knowledge. Our recipient Talia said she “felt very privileged to be a part of this…highlights included the Riverside community kōrero, strategies of change, and learning about everybody's projects.”

• Volunteered 250+ hours of our time as committee members for groups like the Housing and Innovation Society (THIS), the City Centre Advisory Panel and Urban Auckland. 

• Mentored University students throughout their tertiary studies.

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Next year we celebrate 10 years of TUA!
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• Next year marks a decade of The Urban Advisory championing urban strategy and innovation in the country we love. We have spent 2025 refreshing our website and consolidating our experience into an elevated Knowledge Hub, which is available now to dive into and share! Throughout 2026, we’ll be releasing key insights and a database of our project experience in easily accessible, bite-sized pieces, to have our decade of mahi readily available to continue helping to guide and shape the future of urban development.

• We are continuing to push the boundaries of urban tech in 2026. Our collaboration with URBANLY is entering a critical phase as we operationalise our agent-based strategic spatial model. By fusing strategic urban expertise with advanced software architecture, we are jointly doing the heavy lifting required to create a world-class decision-making tool. We are proud to be bridging the gap between data science and urban regeneration.
  
  
• Diving into our goal of unlocking housing and better urban development outcomes for Aotearoa, 2026 will see us evolve beyond the traditional boundaries of consultancy. We are refining our business model to ensure our success is pinned to our clients' success. We are unashamedly focused on working with partners who possess the vision and leadership required to challenge the status quo. We are already seeing this approach take root with projects and partners in Auckland, Whangārei, Taupō, Wellington, Kapiti, Canterbury and Tasman. 2026 will be the year where we build great partnerships—and even better places.

• Our commitment to delivering an expansive research agenda underpins and remains central to our work in 2026. We are excited to continue this journey, with a pipeline that includes building  The New Zealand Housing Survey®  data set and a new BRANZ research focused on unlocking development on Māori land alongside our long-time partner Matakohe. 
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If The New Zealand Housing Survey® insights can benefit your area or project or you need some help with bringing a very cool yet complex development project to life, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of our directors and shape the future of housing, neighbourhoods, towns and cities in Aotearoa alongside us.

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Meri Kirihimete and Happy New Year!
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From our team to yours, we wish you a wonderful season of rest, whānau, good food and lots of time outdoors. Stay safe, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!

~ Team TUA

We’re excited to announce our new Data Science & Urban Analytics intern, who has come on board with us over the summer thanks to an R&D Experience Grant from Callaghan Innovation/MBIE. Please give a warm welcome to Jadon Chu!

Jadon is a penultimate-year Master of Data Science student at the University of Auckland with a strong academic record and hands-on experience in data analytics, AI, and statistical modelling. He has led projects involving machine learning, natural language processing, and full-stack development, including an AI-powered social media simulation for his capstone project.

Jadon also leads the UoA Data Science Club - so for any other companies out there looking for amazing data-science students to work with, he’s a great connector

He’ll be working with us on developing a prototype for our Housing Insights Dashboard, visualising  all our New Zealand Housing Survey data. This is a key step in the evolution of our Housing Insights Tool; a data-driven decision support platform that integrates proprietary datasets with external sources (e.g., census data, property market trends, transport accessibility, socio-economic indicators) and a powerful geospatial visualisation engine. We’re thrilled to have him on board and look forward to the innovative insights he’ll contribute to our team! 

We want to give a shout out to everyone who applied for the internship - we were so blown away by the quality and number of applications! Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to apply. With the amount of skill and passion in this area, we’re feeling enormously positive about the future of housing in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Budget 2025 Flexible Fund represents a strategic pivot in the New Zealand Government’s housing policy. Operationalised through the newly released Housing Investment Plan, the fund consolidates previously siloed housing programmes (such as Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga and the Affordable Housing Fund) into a single contestable pool. The primary objective is to shift from broad, national-level funding to a "place-based" investment approach that rigorously targets locations with the highest statistical housing deprivation.

The Flexible Fund is the financial engine delivering on the Government Policy Statement on Housing and Urban Development 2025. It is designed to operate alongside supply-side reforms, such as the "Going for Housing Growth" programme, which aims to lower land and development costs through RMA reform.

Key policy shifts:

• Consolidation: Replaces the "alphabet soup" of rigid funds with one flexible mechanism.
• Targeting: Moves from a volume-based national approach to a precision-based regional approach.
• Delivery: Prioritises community housing providers and Iwi/Māori organisations over Kāinga Ora for new delivery in this specific round.

Fund Specifications:

Financials and output:

• Capital funding: $250 million (allocated over 10 years).
• Operating funding: $41 million (allocated over 4 years).
• Output targets: Estimated delivery of 650 - 900 homes (comprising both social housing and affordable rentals).
• Start date: Funding supports delivery from 1 July 2027 onwards.

Procurement timeline:

• Release date: The Housing Investment Plan was released on 21 November 2025.
• Procurement process: A two-stage procurement process is scheduled to commence in late February 2026.
• Contracting: Intended to be complete by the end of 2026, with homes tenanted by mid-to-late 2029.

Priority Locations (Place-Based Approach)

Funding is strictly ring-fenced for nine locations identified via data analysis of the Housing Register and severe housing deprivation statistics.

Tier 1: High unmet need (primary focus)

These five locations will receive the majority of the Budget 2025 allocation due to acute deprivation:

• Far North
• South Auckland (specifically targeting Pacific peoples and large families)
• Eastern Bay of Plenty (Whakatāne, Kawerau, Ōpōtiki)
• Tairāwhiti-Gisborne
• Hastings

Tier 2: Main centres (secondary focus)

These centres are expected to receive ongoing allocations from future budgets:

• Hamilton
• Tauranga
• Wellington
• Christchurch

Eligibility and Housing Types

Eligible providers:

The fund is contestable and open to:

• Community housing providers
• Iwi and Māori housing providers
• Private developers (typically in partnership with community housing providers to deliver outcomes)
• Note: Kāinga Ora is excluded from this specific funding round but may be eligible in future years.

Investment priorities:

1. Social housing: Traditional income-related rent subsidy places for those on the Housing Register.
2. Affordable rentals: A "intermediate" tenure designed to bridge the gap between social housing and the private rental market.

Comparative Analysis: Previous vs. Current Approach:

Structural Shifts

Beyond the official summary, there are several notable, structural shifts in this policy that will directly impact tenants, the construction sector, and specific communities.

1. The affordable rental experiment

One of the most significant but under-discussed features is the formal introduction of "Affordable Rentals" as a permanent tenure type. This is designed to solve a specific structural failure in the New Zealand welfare system.

• The problem: Currently, a tenant in social housing pays 25% of their income in rent. If they secure higher-paying employment, they often lose eligibility and are pushed into the private rental market, where rent can jump to 100% of market rates. This creates a perverse incentive for social housing tenants to avoid increasing their income.
• The fix: The "Affordable Rental" category creates a stepping stone. Rents are typically set at roughly 80% of market rent to bridge the gap between social housing and the private market.
• Who this hits: This specifically targets the "missing middle" - key workers like nurses, teachers, and police officers in high-cost areas who earn too much for state housing but struggle to afford private rentals.

2. The Māori housing pivot

The shift from the dedicated Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga programme to the general Flexible Fund represents a strategic change for Māori housing investment.

• The shift: The Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga programme, which provided ring-fenced funding for Māori-led housing, concluded in May 2025. Under the new plan, Iwi and Māori providers must compete in a general "contestable" pool alongside other community housing providers.
• The impact: While the "place-based" focus heavily favours regions with high Māori populations - such as Tairāwhiti and the Eastern Bay of Plenty - there is a risk that without ring-fenced funding, smaller iwi projects may face increased competition from larger, commercialised providers.

3. Regional construction reality check

The plan relies on a "place-based" approach, but this faces a physical constraint: construction capacity.

• The Gisborne/Tairāwhiti paradox: This region is a Tier 1 priority. However, workforce development reports indicate chronic labour shortages in the region, complicating the ability to deliver new builds on time.
• The northland contrast: Conversely, Northland has recently experienced a 31% drop in residential building consents, the sharpest decline in the country. The fund could act as a vital stimulus here, preventing construction firms from collapsing due to a lack of forward work.
• Notable risk: With delivery slated to begin in July 2027, there is a significant "air gap." Construction firms in struggling regions need immediate workflows, creating a risk that local capacity may diminish before government contracts commence.

4. Impact on private investors (the death of passive gains)

This fund reinforces a signal the government is sending to the market: the era of relying solely on capital gains is fading.

• The signal: By subsidising new builds and affordable rentals, the government aims to increase supply at the lower end of the market.
• For investors: Property investor associations have noted a shift away from "passive gains" towards active development. Investors holding older, lower-quality rental stock may face stiffer competition from new, government-subsidised "Affordable Rentals" that offer better quality at 80% of the market rate.

5. The Kāinga Ora sideline

It is notable that Kāinga Ora is excluded from the initial round of this fund, signalling a move away from the state-led delivery model.

• For tenants: Future social housing tenants are more likely to have a community housing provider as their landlord rather than the state.
• Operational focus: Kāinga Ora’s current mandate has shifted towards managing its existing asset base and "renewing" aging stock rather than leading new large-scale expansion projects.

Pros and cons of the new fund vs. previous funds:

References

• Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. (2025a, November 21). New housing investment plan. New Zealand Government. https://www.hud.govt.nz/news/new-housing-investment-plan
• Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. (2025b, November). Housing investment plan: Allocation of flexible fund. New Zealand Government. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2025-11/Housing%20investment%20plan.pdf
• New Zealand Government. (2025, May 22). Delivering the right houses in the right place, for the right people [Press release]. Beehive. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/delivering-right-houses-right-place-right-people
• Property Council New Zealand. (2025, May 30). Budget 2025 Unpacked: Key Points for the Property Sector. https://www.propertynz.co.nz/news/budget-2025-unpacked-key-points-for-the-property-sector
• Auckland Property Investors Association. (2025, June 30). Property investing in 2025: The death of passive gains. https://apia.org.nz/policy-commentary/property-investing-2025-death-of-passive-gains/
• BDO New Zealand. (2025, June). BDO construction sector report 2025: Foundations for future growth. https://www.bdo.nz/en-nz/industries/construction-and-real-estate/2025-construction-report
• Community Housing Aotearoa. (n.d.). What is community housing? Retrieved November 21, 2025, from https://communityhousing.org.nz/what-is-community-housing
• Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities. (2025). Statement of intent 2025/26 – 2028/29. New Zealand Government. https://kaingaora.govt.nz/assets/Publications/Statement-of-Intent/Statement-of-Intent-2025-26-to-2028-29.pdf
• Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. (2025a, November 21). New housing investment plan. New Zealand Government. https://www.hud.govt.nz/news/new-housing-investment-plan
• Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. (2025b, November). Housing investment plan: Allocation of flexible fund. New Zealand Government. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2025-11/Housing%20investment%20plan.pdf
• Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. (2025c, September 29). Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga evaluation report released. New Zealand Government. https://www.hud.govt.nz/news/whai-kainga-whai-oranga-evaluation-report-released
• New Zealand Government. (2025, May 22). Delivering the right houses in the right place, for the right people [Press release]. Beehive. https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/delivering-right-houses-right-place-right-people
• Northland Regional Council. (2025, July). Economic quarterly: June 2025. https://www.nrc.govt.nz/your-council/economic-development/economic-quarterly/2025/july/economic-quarterly-june-2025/
• Waihanga Ara Rau. (2022). Regional construction workforce planning & development: Bay of Plenty. https://www.waihangaararau.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/RSLG-Construction-and-Infrastructure-Reports_BOP.pdf

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Journalist Greg Ninness from Interest.co.nz published an insightful article covering some of the key findings from our first report of the NZ Housing Survey.

He dug into aspects of the data centred around the findings that younger New Zealanders' attitudes are changing, when it comes to wanting more housing options. It's becoming clear that while the traditional "Kiwi dream" of a standalone house with a garden remains, the decreasing housing affordability is a significant factor driving a shift in attitudes when it comes to wanting more diverse housing options.

A significant finding reveals that a third of all respondents would consider living in an apartment. However, this preference is even more pronounced among the under-35 age group: a remarkable 67% would consider living in an apartment building up to three storeys high, and 47% would consider a high-rise apartment.

These figures strongly suggest that while the allure of a traditional home is still present, younger generations are increasingly open to, and even actively seeking, alternative housing solutions like apartments, largely influenced by the realities of housing affordability. This shift has profound implications for urban planning, development, and how we envision the future of housing in New Zealand.

If we want the New Zealand housing market to properly serve all New Zealanders, we have to start doing things a little differently.

Read the article published on Interest here: https://www.interest.co.nz/property/135550/stand-alone-housing-most-popular-type-housing-survey-finds-two-thirds-young-people‍

Read the full NZ Housing Survey report via our Knowledge Hub here: https://www.theurbanadvisory.com/research/the-new-zealand-housing-survey-year-1-survey-results

TUA’s co-director Natalie spoke with Jesse Mulligan on RNZ recently about some of the key findings from our first NZ Housing Survey report; most notably, the gap in nuanced data around what New Zealanders really want for their housing.

In the interview, Natalie spoke about the high satisfaction rates for a lot of home-owners and older residents, but that there are a lot of people - particularly younger people - who are finding that the market isn’t working for them. Whether it’s some of our key workers like nurses and teachers who aren’t finding affordable options to live close to where they work, or families who want more multigenerational housing options, the message emerging from this first tranche of data is clear: New Zealanders want more options.
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“There’s a gap between what we’ve currently got, and what people would like to see,” Natalie explained.

Jesse’s questions about the cooperative housing solution got us thinking about how lots of people don’t know what cooperative housing is; so here's a breakdown!

What is Cooperative Housing?

Cooperative housing is a legal entity, often a cooperative or corporation, that owns real estate consisting of one or more residential buildings. Instead of owning a specific unit outright, residents are shareholders in this corporation, granting them the right to occupy a housing unit. This membership-based model means residents collectively own and manage the property.

How does it differ from renting and other forms of ownership?

• Renting: Unlike renting, where you pay a landlord and have limited say, cooperative housing members have a direct say in the management and operation of their housing. You're not just a tenant; you're a part-owner.
• Individual homeownership (e.g., unit title): In a co-op, you don't own the deed to your specific unit as you would with a unit title. Instead, you own shares in the corporation that owns the entire property. This means the cooperative bears the cost of maintaining, repairing, and replacing the property, relieving individual members of that burden. Co-ops can also be more restrictive than other housing options regarding ownership requirements and the ability to sell or sublet units, often requiring board approval.

The affordability advantage:

Cooperative housing often offers greater affordability due to its unique structure:

• Pooling resources: A primary advantage is the pooling of members' resources, leveraging their buying power to lower costs associated with homeownership.
• At-cost operation: Many co-ops operate on an "at-cost" or non-profit basis, meaning they collect money from residents to cover expenses without generating profit. This can result in lower monthly fees compared to market-rate rentals or traditional mortgages.
• Below market rates: Housing co-ops typically set rents below market rates, aiming to improve access for a wider range of incomes. Some even offer sliding scale rents based on income.

Cooperative housing fosters a strong sense of community and shared responsibility; it offers a unique blend of collective ownership and individual rights. It's a model that prioritises people over profit, making it an attractive option for those seeking affordable and stable housing.

Have a listen to Natalie and Jesse’s chat via the link below, and let us know your thoughts - do you think of cooperative housing as a solution to our current housing challenges?

Listen to the RNZ interview HERE. ‍

Read the full NZ Housing Survey report via our Knowledge Hub HERE.

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The Post published a great article covering some of the key findings from our first report of the NZ Housing Survey, which is out now.

TUA’s Managing Director Natalie had a chat with Senior Business Reporter Miriam Bell, which touched on points including how the traditional view of housing is undergoing a significant transformation. We're seeing a growing recognition that the lack of mobility in housing directly impacts individual wellbeing, adaptability, and even tenure security. While people are increasingly prioritising choice in housing type and tenure, seeking options that align with their diverse life stages and evolving needs, the reality is that these crucial options are often not available to them.

This shift highlights a crucial point: flexibility across life stages is becoming equally, if not more, important than simply increasing overall housing supply. As our lives become more dynamic, our housing options must reflect that fluidity.

As Greer O'Donnell, our other Managing Director at The Urban Advisory, aptly puts it: "Our lifestyles and daily requirements are vastly different to when most of our housing stock was built in New Zealand. The way we live our lives have also changed, and so it makes sense that the homes and neighbourhoods we live in need to change too."

Thanks to The Post and Miriam for joining us in these important discussions about a topic that affects all New Zealanders. What are your thoughts on this evolving housing landscape? How can we better support diverse housing needs and promote greater flexibility?

Read the article published by The Post HERE.

Read the full NZ Housing Survey report via our Knowledge Hub HERE.

Exciting to have some great media coverage last week as we launched the first report from The New Zealand Housing Survey data! We'll on-share some of this coverage over the coming weeks, with additional discussion from our team to expand on some of the important points highlighted in the articles.

To start, Scoop Business has published a piece with key findings from the report, including one of the big ones: that kiwis want more housing options and housing mobility.

The initial findings affirm that New Zealand's housing market is generally working well for those who own their homes, with homeowners reporting far greater satisfaction than renters. But it's failing the "missing middle"—key workers like teachers and nurses, middle-income earners aspiring to ownership, and a broad spectrum of renters. In fact nearly 75% of renters who have responded to the survey so far expressed dissatisfaction with their choices. What choices do people want? As an example, nearly 50% of those under 35 would consider apartment living.

Younger Kiwis who responded to the survey find homeownership so unattainable that many are choosing different paths; 46% of 16-34 year olds say they would prioritise travel over saving for a deposit. This data got TUA’s Jack Tompkins asking us in the office about if we “consider this against the recent news that 45% of Gen Z are invested in financial markets - most of whom began doing so before they turned 20 - is this a signal of a generational pivot away from the long-held belief that property is the primary path to wealth?

Have you read the report yet? Head to the Knowledge Hub HERE on our website to dive into the data 👀

Read the article published by Scoop Business here: https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2510/S00098/the-new-zealand-housing-survey-finds-kiwis-want-more-housing-options-and-housing-mobility.htm‍

Read the full NZ Housing Survey report via our Knowledge Hub here: https://www.theurbanadvisory.com/research/the-new-zealand-housing-survey-year-1-survey-results‍

And of course, if you haven’t already, you can take part here: https://www.nzhousingsurvey.co.nz/ 

This research is part of a longitudinal study and our #TeamTUA have big plans for it as we continue to support Councils, communities, iwi, and developers across New Zealand with their decision making about housing.

TUA's Managing Director, Greer O'Donnell, shared examples of housing models that have evolved in response to rising house prices and housing inequality as part of Palmerston North City Council's Creative City Conversations

"A diverse housing ecosystem forms an essential part of any highly functioning and creative city, but housing in New Zealand has largely been commodified - viewed as a way to build wealth, with negative consequences for the majority of low-to-moderate income earners."

- Greer O'Donnell

Greer's talk highlights international models and local examples that prioritise community and wellbeing over profit and wealth creation, and outlines what cities like Palmy can do to expedite the development of more diverse, fit-for-purpose and affordable housing stock.

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Watch her talk here:

[Article originally published 18 March 2021 on Greater Auckland]

Housing in New Zealand generally falls into one of three tenure groups: home ownership, private rental or social housing, with a limited amount of community housing (Figure 1).

The housing system is dominated by for-profit development, creating housing for owner-occupiers or investors seeking a market rent. The remainder is largely public (‘state’) housing, plus a little community housing, which itself largely depends on government funding and the social housing register. 

There’s a growing discourse about the challenges this system presents for moderate to low income households, with a severe undersupply of housing options which are secure, good quality and affordable for them.  In 2018, 40.2% (95,400) of renter households in Auckland, or 16.5% of all households were ‘stressed’ - that is, unable to afford to buy a house at the lower quartile house price and paying more than 30% of their income on rental housing. These households fall into the growing Intermediate Housing Market category, with little option other than to end up on the social housing waitlist or endure expensive rental options in the market. 

There are several types of housing overseas that could serve the Intermediate Housing Market, many of which are almost unknown in NZ. One development model that is starting to provide options for these households, and getting a lot of media coverage, is Build-to-Rent. However, there are also other options, such as cooperative housing, which are poorly understood in New Zealand, and are struggling to establish roots here because of our legislative frameworks, monetary and fiscal policy.

What are Build-to-Rent and Cooperative Housing?

Build-to-rent (BTR) are multi-unit residential developments that are designed and built with long-term rental in mind (rather than selling to residents as unit titles to own). Tenants benefit from long-term secure rental, often tailored to a specific price point or ‘market’ rent, and assurance of a reliable, professional landlord. In turn, investors receive a return on their investment for financing the project.

Cooperatives are housing developments where residents own a share of the housing cooperative, which allows them to have a legal interest in, and access to the property, as opposed to owning a title to an individual unit. Purchasing a share creates a pool of resources for the cooperative, which can be used to pay any existing mortgage, cover maintenance, management, services and provide collectively held amenities. This shared approach can reduce the cost of living and, if desired by the cooperative, can be designed to offer affordability, providing a third tenure option between pure ownership and rental. For more info, see The Urban Advisory’s crash course introduction to cooperatives.

Long-term, affordable rental tenure options like cooperatives and BTR support residents to ‘put down roots’ in their neighbourhood, and be involved in their community. At the regional scale, BTR and cooperative housing improve the quality and supply of rental housing by creating new warm, dry homes that are professionally managed, and consequently they improve overall community health and wellbeing with associated economic productivity, education and healthcare benefits. What BTR offers to the rental market is a stark contrast to the realities of rental housing in NZ at present. Renters often live in older, poorer quality houses with insecure tenancies; issues that are only just beginning to be addressed through recent policy changes.

BTR and cooperatives are often produced as medium to high-density housing typologies (e.g. apartments, terraced housing), but that isn’t always the case. There are examples of lower density build-to-rent emerging in New Zealand, with New Ground Living, who has been providing BTR for Aucklanders since 2014 moving into more detached typologies for BTR development. More recently several other forms of BTR development have emerged, such as 26Aroha in Sandringham (a ‘mum and dad’ developer who wanted to deliver a more sustainable housing product) and Modal by Ockham Residential in Mount Albert. The cooperative housing agenda is being advanced in small pockets in Aotearoa too, most notably by CLOSER Developments, in Katikati.

The Future of Build-to-Rent

Build-to-rent has been popular in the UK and Australia over the last decade, but has not yet taken off in New Zealand. However, a recent report from JLL records a growing appetite for build-to-rent in New Zealand among local and international investors. This is an important point, because pre-COVID, multi-unit residential and higher density development made up a large proportion of approved consents in Auckland (Figure 2), contributing significantly to our growing housing supply. Indeed, high-density housing is a critical piece of the housing shortage puzzle we need to solve in Auckland, and BTR developments are likely to be part of the solution. It seems that in post-COVID times, BTR is an attractive new prospect for investors and developers alike.

For renters, BTR also delivers something the market has in short supply: high-quality, secure long-term rental housing. And for the overall market, BTR encourages a more stable and resilient housing system. These benefits of BTR should not be underestimated: stable communities and healthy homes improve wellbeing outcomes for individuals, families and overall productivity, education and healthcare outcomes.

Current market projections for a growing BTR sector focus on the commercial investor-only model of BTR for NZ, however some developments still require a government underwrite or other forms of support. This has been raised with the government, who are looking into what they can do to enable the sector to scale. 

The same challenges (and more) are hindering cooperative housing in New Zealand. For a more detailed look at the cooperative model and the challenges facing cooperative housing development in New Zealand see our report: Cooperative Housing. 

Internationally, this sector is supported through both public sector funding (state or national, philanthropic and impact investment sectors), by banks providing longer amortisation periods, and ‘patient capital’ (low interest, over a long time period) from investors with social responsibility criteria, like pension funds.  In Canada, for example, the Mortgage and Housing Corporation has a seed fund to support cooperatives. In the UK, the Community-led Homes programme offers funding at support at every stage of the development process, in acknowledgment of the benefits these tenures provide to communities. 

Confused about the difference between BTR and cooperative housing? 

The primary difference between the commercial build-to-rent and cooperative housing is the cooperative governance, management and financing structure, that provides the opportunity for cooperative residents to have both an ownership interest through an equity shareholding in the development, as well as their leasehold ‘rental’ interest (see Figure 3). 

Because of their characteristics, cooperative developments have a capacity and track record of attracting more diverse types of capital and investment, e.g. through impact investors. The below table provides a high-level overview of the key differences between the two development models. 

The post-COVID environment and growing pressures on the housing market, presents an opportunity to work with the government to diversify the housing ecosystem, scale the BTR model and remove the barriers to cooperative housing in New Zealand.

Further work is required on what the appropriate support for BTR would look like. It could start with a commitment to support existing projects, through seed funding, capacity building within government organisations, development capital, underwrites or guarantees, and preferential access to leasehold land under The Land for Housing Programme. To ensure an enduring bi-partisan solution however, consideration should be given to what fit-for-purpose legislation and finance settings would like, that make BTR both commercially viable for developers and investors, and fair for residents.

We work with a diverse range of urban actors, across a range of scales, to coordinate policy and development efforts toward more integrated neighbourhoods that are better for people and place. In simple terms, this is what urban strategists do.

In the process of delivering neighbourhoods, we have developed seven strategic principles that we follow when identifying new ways of prioritising people- and place-based outcomes

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This growing sector is part of the way we need to be delivering a more diverse offering of housing options in New Zealand and we’re pleased to have been researching and working in this space for a number of years now. Here is a summary of some of our key thoughts about CFH and growing the sector in New Zealand.

What is Community-focused housing?

Community-focused housing (also referred to as community-led housing) is its own sector within the housing ecosystem – it differs from the approach taken by Community Housing Providers, although both sectors are committed to a ‘not-for-profit’ or ‘limited profit’ model and treat housing as a human right, not a commodity. Government support for both sectors is needed.

Community-focused housing is where people and communities play a leading role in addressing their own housing needs. There is no profit being made by the ‘traditional developer’ in this process. There are a range of models that have varying degrees of resident and community involvement, that have been used internationally to address issues of housing affordability, social disconnectedness and sustainability. They are models, not ‘housing products’, as defined by the set of legal, financial, governance, management, and design parameters that shape them, and include:

• Community Land Trusts (CLT)
• Cooperative housing, and
• Cohousing

Currently in New Zealand there is a handful of cohousing projects including High Street in Dunedin, Habitat Collective in Wellington, and Cohaus in Auckland. However, there are also several projects, including CLOser Developments in Bay of Plenty, Corletts Corner and Madras Square, both in Christchurch, and Hamilton City Council, that are pushing the boundaries of both tenure (ownership) and typology (design) and exploring the viability of the cooperative and community land trust models. For more information on these, see www.theurbanadvisory.com or www.cohousing.org.nz

Who does it serve?

Internationally, national and local governments view CFH models as a primary means to fill inthe ‘intermediate’ housing market, offering options for people whose income levels disqualify them for subsidised, affordable housing, but also does not enable them to purchase housing at market prices. The intermediate housing market is defined as private sector renter households, having at least one member in paid employment, which are unable to affordably (using no more than 30% of their gross household income to service mortgage expenses) purchase a dwelling at the lower quartile housing market sale price). Currently, there are limited options for this segment of the market, despite the large quantum of people falling into this category. Community-focused housing encompasses new builds as well as existing buildings. Community-focused housing has proven to be an effective regeneration and anti-gentrification and displacement tool and assists in stabilising the housing market in economic downturns. Importantly, many governments have learned the added value of community-led models as they have proven to achieve much higher levels of social and ecological sustainability and design excellence targets over more traditional, developer-led approaches.

What are the benefits from Community Focused Housing?

Community-focused housing lowers the cost of the initial purchase price, and produces perpetual affordability by:

• Providing stewardship over land by retaining ownership, therefore reducing the cost,
• Facilitating access to finance at low interest rates, in recognition of CFH’s not-for-profit status,
• Pooling members’ resources to leverage their buying power, and sharing the costs associated with home ownership among a greater number of people,
• Delivering a high level of environmental sustainability and energy efficiency, and making cost efficient, future-focused decisions informed by the whole-of-life costs.
• Controlling resale conditions to ensure that subsidised homes remain in circulation and available to subsequent buyers.

Community-focused housing builds stronger communities by improving personal health (physical, emotional, and mental), and household wellbeing (reduced healthcare needs and costs). CFH also offers a greater degree of flexibility and diversity, by providing fit-for-purpose intergenerational housing options that meet demand, and that are culturally appropriate, by:

• Providing support networks and opportunities to reduce isolation and loneliness,
• Creating diverse mixed-income neighbourhoods that reduce anti-social behaviour,
• Allowing residents to reclaim space within, and control of, their neighbourhood,
• Adopting a participatory design and development process, delivering design typologies with a broader range of functionalities that respond to people’s needs,
• Supporting housing mobility within the same dwelling, as life phases change, and
• Integrating non-housing elements, such as shared laundries, playrooms, guest houses, gardens and cooperative enterprises.

Community-focused housing builds skills and capability by allowing people to participate in the ownership and management of their homes through democratic governance (control) by:

• Enabling residents to develop a range of social, financial, operational, administrative, leadership and job-seeking capabilities that allow them to access further education, qualifications, and employment opportunities, and
• Building democratic capability, thus encouraging participation in civic activities.

Why is it different from other forms of housing development?

The approach taken to design, fund and develop the building(s) is unique to each model, and depends on things like the nature of the issues in the community, the housing demand and most importantly the type of partnerships that can be developed across sectors and their available resources (land, finance and capability).

These models do in some instances adopt the principles of the more commonly understood ‘shared equity’ model. Shared equity is a tenure (ownership) structure that serves as a tool to preserve housing affordability, which can be part of the solution to closing the wealth gap. This style of homeownership mitigates the risks of traditional homeownership, strengthens residential stability, and promotes equitable wealth-building. The equity can come in the form of land or cash. Shared equity homeownership programs make homes affordable to lower income families by investing public resources to reduce the initial prices, and then they keep the prices affordable to all future home buyers through resale restrictions. The organisation supports the residents to attain and sustain homeownership. In return, the homeowners agree to sell their homes at a resale-restricted and affordable price to other lower-income home buyers in the future. Consequently, the homeowner can successfully own a home and build wealth, while the organisation is able to preserve the public’s investment in the affordable home permanently to help family after family.

Community-focused housing development offers a range of tenures (including shared equity) thereby promoting mixed income housing communities. However, the primary difference between community-led or community-focused housing and other mixed income developments, delivered by developers, housing providers and/ or the government, is the process by which itis developed. As the name suggests, CFH involves the residents and a co-design process, so the development generally looks different and people’s roles within the community are also different. Community focused housing promotes the use of a range of different common areas (centralised large areas and smaller pods on levels), including:

• Allotments / community gardens
• Community workshops (tools, arts, music)
• Shared library
• Wellness centre (fitness, sauna, multi-purpose)
• Common house
• Common goods (e.g. household equipment, games)
• Community kitchen and large hireable or shareable dining
• Meeting spaces / community centre
• Play areas/rooms
• Guest rooms
• Solar energy and community heating
• Shared utilities (internet/phone)
• Parking at edge/shared vehicles

In addition to the programme looking some what different from a traditional speculative development, the way that developments are managed and operated is different, with a level of democratic participation and control afforded to those who live there. Fundamentally, CFH developments operate as a community, while also providing for privacy and individual living.

How can we grow the sector in New Zealand?

Growing CFH in New Zealand requires a commitment by both central and local government, and organisations across sectors, to use their resources, and capability, to work together towards a mutually agreed set of outcomes that are underpinned by public or ‘common good’ objectives (be they affordability, social, broader economic or environmental). This represents a shift from ‘highest and best use’ to highest and best ‘public’ use on public land.

A partnership approach makes these models work, and that requires a process that is collaborative, open and transparent; therefore, a commitment is needed to shift from the procurement approaches traditionally taken by the public sector, to a genuine partnership-based approach. Many governments around the world have learned that their role can be partner and enabler of community-led models by adopting a different risk-sharing profile; one where the public sector takes on some of the earlier risk, to unlock the benefits offered by CFH, namely through providing access to land and less expensive development finance.

Transactionally, there is not much difference between a local council engaging with a traditional developer versus a community-focused development group. Contracts and legal instruments would not be dissimilar to manage risk and liabilities between each party. From a procurement perspective, there is a difference. Local governments across the United Kingdom, mainland Europe and North America have evolved their governance and management of land and housing to recognise community-led housing as its own distinct sector within the housing continuum. Numerous local governments have amended their housing, land governance and procurement strategies to specifically support the growth of CFH within their municipalities. For instance, Vienna and Berlin passed laws prohibiting sale of public land, with only CFH or state-sponsored social housing being able to be developed on government land through 60- or 99-year ground leases (Vienna goes a step further to proactively acquire land and reserve it for cooperative housing development only).

Should developers wish to partner with social housing organisation or community-led housing groups, they must adhere to strict criteria weighted as follows:

• 90% criteria weighting on urban/architectural design excellence, sustainability, social value creation
• 10% criteria weighting on tender price

In addition to supporting community-focused housing groups to find and access land for development, local governments also provide critical seed funding to support capacity building, training and resources to help scale the community-led housing sector. For example, in 2019 London Mayor Sadiq Khan approved a £38million ($NZ80million) fund to finance the growth of this sector in London, known in the UK as the community-led housing sector.

To overcome financial barriers to underwriting community-led housing models internationally, numerous local and national governments have also provided support through:

• The creation of Revolving Loan Funds to provide critical gap financing solutions to support projects,
• Loan guarantees and cross-collateralisation of public assets to reduce underwriting risks from senior lender,
• Allowing ground rental payments to be subordinate to senior debt payments,
• Direct grants to support group formation and design development phase, and
• Ground rent concessions to reduce rent levels to meet local income affordability levels (i.e.income derived rents < or = 30%).

As the government looks to ‘infrastructure’ to form the basis of the post Covid-19 rebuilding of the NZ economy, there is an opportunity to take a new approach to addressing issues of housing affordability, social disconnectedness and environmental sustainability through supporting the growth of the community-focused housing sector. An introduction to what CFH is, and why it would be beneficial to New Zealand, as well as some of the things that the government organisations could do to unlock the newer models, including cooperative housing and community land trusts, has been provided in this brief article.

Written by Greer O’Donnell with contributions from Jason Twill.

There are a variety of definitions given to affordable housing, typically, it can be defined as low to middle income households spending no more than 30% of their gross income on rent or mortgage costs and other essential household costs. This is generally accepted standard definition of affordable housing based around income, however appropriate tenure (assisted rental, shared equity etc) is as important as price point. When referring to ‘affordable housing’, in an New Zealand context, it can also mean housing that is delivered at or below the KiwiBuild price points, or assisted housing products delivered by Community Housing Providers (CHPs) to households that are not eligible for social housing or KiwiBuild and cannot afford more expensive market priced housing. There appears then, to be a broader and flexible definition of affordable housing than solely focusing on 30% of income spent on housing cost.

Considering a broader definition of affordable housing is critical because the intermediate housing market defined as “private renter households with at least one person in paid employment, unable to affordably purchase a house at the lower quartile house sale price for the local authority area at standard bank lending conditions” (Mitchel, 2019) is growing at an increasingly rapid pace.

This group of people are becoming increasingly ‘stressed’. “Stressed” households are those paying more than 30% of their gross household income to service rent or mortgage expenses, and those paying more than 50% are “extremely stressed” (Mitchel, 2019). The growing intermediate housing market and number of stressed renters and owners, is therefore putting pressure on the social and community housing stock, and contributing greatly to the risk of gentrification in regeneration areas. Gentrification is a consequence of existing residents having to move out of an area, for reasons of affordability. 

As an example, Porirua’s housing market demonstrates all the signs of a market under affordability pressure, as a result of housing costs (rent and house prices) increasing faster than household incomes (Mitchell, 2016). Rising rents are affecting the ability of households to access affordable and appropriate housing.  In Eastern Porirua, 78% of renters have insufficient income to affordably pay the median market rent and the house price they could affordably buy at is 57% of the median market price.The market is providing little (3%) new stock below the market median or at affordable prices (Ibid.).

Retained affordable housing means that it remains affordable for the duration of the house and is not lost to the open market once affordability restrictions are removed after a set period. It refers also to the continuous recycling of investment into affordable housing from the sale of shared equity products, for example. 

Affordable and assisted housing models often rely on trade-offs with land value or similar indirect subsidy or payments. For the government to have an active role in delivering affordable housing, there has to be a demonstrable ‘public benefit’ from their investment, when considering a total value assessment. If a long term view is taken, the benefits and value created by investing in a range of affordable housing products far outweighs the investment into social housing only. The benefits from shared equity ownership, cooperative housing, cohousing and community land trust are plentiful, and well documented. 

Perhaps what is understood less, is how initiatives like community-led homes revolving funds and low interest loans enable the recycling of investment, and ensure that affordability is retained over time. More thinking needed here. 

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Surveying and spatial disciplines are powerful and influential. Each boundary line and spatial element of a development has a tangible impact on the daily lives of people in that space. At the city scale, this impacts how people choose to live and move around, to places of work, study or recreation. Survey work creates opportunities or constraints around how people interact with their environment and each other in daily life. At the human scale, surveying and spatial design influences the happiness, health and overall wellbeing of people. These impacts are part of the professional legacy of surveying in urban environments, a legacy that will last decades into the future. In this article we will discuss the integral role of surveying and spatial design professions in rethinking our future neighbourhoods, and the emerging challenges and opportunities for building a lasting, positive legacy through spatial practice.

New Zealand is undergoing a period of unprecedented social and environmental change. Our urban centres are pressured by increasing population growth, demand for intensification and higher density urban development. Also, our society is increasingly multicultural, with diverging and diversifying household norms. On one hand, some population groups have a much younger age structure and prefer larger multigenerational households. On the other, the population is ageing, and the numbers of smaller households are increasing. In the context of land development and housing, we also need to be conscious of issues of housing affordability, rental security of tenure, home health and quality, and personal wellbeing. Some serious health issues affecting urban New Zealanders, such as obesity, loneliness and poor mental health, are linked to spatial and environmental design. A history of car-oriented subdivision and suburban development has created places of isolation, separated from urban vitality and places of work or recreation. Infill subdivision patterns, with long right-of-ways and double-garaged houses stacked one behind the other, limit opportunities for neighbours to bump into one another and form social connections. The changing nature of our communities and our evolving lifestyle preferences is necessitating new and innovative approaches to land development in New Zealand, including spatial and surveying practice. 

We need more resilient and liveable neighbourhoods, and spatial design that supports low impact, sustainable lifestyles. To understand how to respond to these present challenges, first, let us consider how past spatial design and development patterns provided for different lifestyles and communities. Roads are one of the most enduring elements of urban form. Looking at road and lot layouts we can discern lifestyle differences between neighbourhoods; for example, compare a gridded block structure with tramline arterials and wooden villas, versus car-oriented street networks from motorways to cul-de-sacs and quarter-acre sections with brick and tile homes. The latter development form describes most greenfield developments after the 1950s. These were designed to provide for suburban living, a low density development form suited to nuclear family households and European lifestyle preferences.

Today, new housing development is largely developer-led, either as infill development in existing neighbourhoods, or greenfield subdivision for new neighbourhoods at the urban fringe. With both approaches we must consider: is this business-as-usual approach appropriate and responsible spatial practice? Will it provide for the needs, wellbeing and lifestyle preferences of New Zealanders into the future? For example, the current development ecosystem incentivises the development of larger 3-4 bedroom dwellings (for maximum profit), while there is an increasing demand for smaller dwelling typologies. European models of nuclear-family housing are no longer fit-for-purpose for New Zealanders. As society changes, land development practices too must change to serve and support the future community.  

Spatial professionals are well-equipped and experienced in providing for tangible physical outcomes such as network infrastructure, different modes of subdivision (cross lease, unit title etc) or easements and esplanade reserves. But intangible outcomes, such as social wellbeing, neighbourly connectedness and good personal health, must also be provided for. Surveying and spatial design schemes of today are setting the stage for our future patterns of living. Hence, in the context of new development, they must develop spaces and places where people and communities will thrive. 

Spatial interventions that support community wellbeing could include:

• Mixed housing typologies and tenures, to encourage a varied demographics
• Planning and integration of mobility networks, not just roads
• Block structures used as a tool for connectivity
• Central community spaces, integrated with amenities
• Alternative governance structures to provide a mandate for community building
• Clustering complimentary amenities to deliver convenience in neighbourhoods

Other future trends in neighbourhood development that are emerging are outlined in Figure 1.

There is a need for a more strategic and integrated approach to urban development in order to create better places where people can live and lead healthy and meaningful lives. The development of an overarching urban strategy is required early on in the development lifecycle, not only to achieve an integrated approach to these complex urban problems, but to deliver better economic, environmental and social outcomes. Urban strategy is a new discipline grounded in systems thinking, collaborative practice and a purpose-driven design philosophy. Urban strategists facilitate collaboration between urban professions and agencies, create accessible and actionable responses to urban problems and work alongside project teams through all phases of development to achieve this. They operate at the intersection of policy, planning, design and delivery, working across scales and sectors to find new opportunities for achieving impactful, integrated neighbourhood development. Urban strategy questions the existing system of land development to help urban professions deliver more integrated projects that meet the needs, demands and lifestyle preferences of future residents. The emergence of urban strategy as a defined discipline is particularly relevant in the current New Zealand context. The new government agenda, including the Wellbeing Budget, has made it clear that the wellbeing of citizens is a priority. However, our current urban development models and approaches are not adequately supporting the wellbeing of our people, or equipped to support a changing New Zealand. 

The urban strategy approach can be explained better by through the Integrated Neighbourhood Framework; this has been developed by The Urban Advisory to assist built environment professionals to create more connected, sustainable and equitable communities in New Zealand. This Framework guides the development process away from the ‘building houses’ mindset, to a ‘thriving communities’ mindset. It aims to create places where people can undertake all their daily activities, including living, working, socialising and finding spaces that suit their needs. The Framework, outlined in Figure 2, summarises this eight-step process to deliver stronger and healthier communities, with integrated amenities and housing for all people.

Surveyors and spatial designers are critical to this integrated development approach. They are often the first specialists onboard in a new development scheme. Spatial expertise in these early stages (steps one to four), such as gathering and processing contextual data, sets the stage for developing a place strategy. While co-creation (step three) is not a common step under current development models, it is critically important. Co-creation validates whether or not a proposal meets the needs and desires of current and future residents. This might take more time and money up-front, but the potential returns (financial and social) outweigh the initial cost.

In recent decades, we have seen surveying and spatial professionals adopting new technology and innovative approaches to advance accuracy, capability and performance. There is further demand for spatial professionals to adopt and advance innovative design thinking to ensure placemaking is integral to the staging and delivery of projects as well (step 4). The foundation of integrated neighbourhoods is the delivery of appropriate urban amenities alongside housing  (step  five). Urban amenities include the corner dairy, playgrounds, parks, public transport, schools, other local shops and services. As we plan and set out developments, it is important to integrate amenities alongside housing. Can residents walk to access services and recreation, or are they dependent on a car? Perhaps a mid-block pedestrian connection or a new cluster of amenities (e.g. dairy, hairdresser, bus stop) would provide more integration for the neighbourhood? 

When integrated neighbourhoods are delivered successfully, intentional neighbouring processes and opportunities are multiplied. The next layer of our Framework integrates and reinforces intentional neighbouring in the built environment, through innovative ownership, delivery, management and operational models (step 6). The Urban Advisory defines intentional neighbouring as the process of regular and purposeful encounters which build meaningful connection between neighbours. This can begin at the visioning and co-design stage, through construction, and into everyday life. Neighbours who live near one other will naturally come into contact around shared amenities, public spaces, overlapping lifestyle preferences, values or routines to find a sense of community belonging grounded in spatial proximity. Innovative ownership, delivery, management and operational models are best demonstrated by the numerous cohousing and cooperative development projects emerging in New Zealand. Cohousing developments, such as Earthsong in Ranui, are underpinned by ongoing democratic participation in community life by residents or housing owners - long after the build is complete. The community was purpose-built with an eco-friendly design imperative and a cooperative design process. Residents share amenities such as an orchard, laundry, common house, guest house, parking area and open green spaces. The Earthsong community worked closely with consultants to develop a site layout that kept cars and parking separate from the living spaces, so that children could freely play along the path and open spaces. An example of alternative development unique to Aotearoa / New Zealand is papakāinga, an traditional Māori practice of collective living among extended whānau on iwi land.

Of course, every neighbourhood and community is different, with nuanced social, cultural and economic values, lifestyle preferences or aspirations. Thus, step seven and eight are critical elements of the Integrated Neighbourhood Framework. These measure and report on outcomes, then check, refine and validate the success of the neighbourhood strategy for its context. Ideally, we should already be bringing this type of thinking to the development process. We need to ensure that development outcomes are positive for communities and that we take opportunities to learn when they arise. By following this Framework, and engaging with the iterative learning process within and across projects, development professionals will undoubtedly find fresh innovations and improvements on existing models to create contextually relevant design and development for New Zealand communities from all walks of life.

We hope this brief introduction to urban strategy and our Integrated Neighbourhood Framework will inspire you to consider how spatial disciplines can contribute to delivering more inclusive, connected and equitable communities in Aotearoa / New Zealand. 

Where we live, both the physical building and the location and community that we live in, influences almost every aspect of our lives and has significant impacts on our health and wellbeing. Designing for health and wellbeing benefits individuals and communities, as well as the wider population, and is becoming increasingly important as we spend more and more time at home.

Designing for Health and Wellbeing

Where we live, both the physical building and the location and community that we live in, influences almost every aspect of our lives and has significant impacts on our health and wellbeing. Designing for health and wellbeing benefits individuals and communities, as well as the wider population, and is becoming increasingly important as we spend more and more time at home. By designing built environments through a wellbeing lens, the ill-effects of buildings can be mitigated and spaces can be created that nurture a sense of wellbeing and actually improve health outcomes. Benefits go beyond direct health and wellbeing outcomes, to economic and operational outcomes, as shown in Figure 1 below.

The fundamentals of designing for health and wellbeing include:

• Re-integrating nature into design: natural materials, incorporation of natural elements (eg. plants), outlook/ views to nature, natural patterns and varying scales of detail in building elements.
• Designing to create or enhance a sense of community and belonging
• Design of spaces that respond to fundamental human needs: eg., spaces for both prospect and refuge.
• Design at the street-scale that supports ‘active transport’.
• Lighting design that supports the 24 hour human circadian rhythm.
• Design that allows residents to feel secure in their homes, with suitable levels of privacy, and adaptability or flexibility for when inhabitants grow and change.
• Design that allows residents to live easily in their homes: suitable layouts for good functionality, design for limited mobility, low maintenance.
• Using healthy materials and enabling efficient heating and ventilation.

Designing for health and wellbeing has synergies with principles of sustainable design, meaning that while this approach follows a people-centred view of design, it also supports a regenerative approach. The above factors have been integrated in the following sections, as a common thread within ‘good’ design.

Urban Design and Neighbourhoods

Cities and neighbourhoods are complex systems, and urban design seeks a coordinated approach to the arrangement of the physical components of urban form and create the setting for urban living.

Good urban design supports wellbeing, across scales - from our homes and streets - impacting our daily lives, our health, how we feel and connect with other people in our neighbourhoods and communities. Important urban design considerations include:

An integrated response to the site and local context. 

New development should be integrated into the existing natural and built environment context, with consideration for community, climate, character and the physical environment. Urban design responses consider the appropriate size and scale of building forms (height, setbacks, materiality), street interface, the layout of streets and provision of public spaces and amenities, within the existing context as well as looking to the future, and responding to the demand for growth and changing lifestyles and environments (e.g. climate change response, housing crisis). Low impact urban design is also important, which is an integrated hydrological and ecological approach to stormwater management.

Access and connection: well-functioning urban environments provide safe, convenient and equitable access for people for everyday activities. 

A range of viable and convenient transport modes should be provided, catering to a range of access abilities. Walkability, as separate from vehicle access, is crucial. Walkable neighbourhoods support environmentally and socially sustainable communities, including access to amenities. Dedicated cycling infrastructure is also vital, allowing cyclists to move at suitable speeds without being hindered by cars or pedestrians, and while optimising safety. Consideration of universal design for accessibility is important at the building scale too, as well as access for larger service vehicles (emergency services, waste collection).

Density, diversity and activity.

The density of built form determines the concentration of people and overall activity and vibrancy of a community, and the viability of commercial activities, community amenities and services. Density also supports a range of efficiencies with building sustainability (see below). The design of the public realm (streets, parks etc) influences how people use and relate to these spaces, and in turn, how they relate to one another. Urban design considerations like ‘bumping spaces’, a balanced provision of private and public outdoor spaces from the home to the neighbourhood can support a diversity of spatial functions, and vibrant neighbourhoods, whatever the density. 

Access to nature and amenity. 

Consideration for daylight, sunlight, and outlook through the aspect, orientation and access to private outdoor space in homes supports wellbeing (physical, mental, spiritual, cultural). Passive surveillance or ‘eyes on the street’ strengthens neighbourhood safety through the careful consideration of outlook from private spaces to the public realm (e.g. kitchen window outlook to the street or shared open space) - this is one consideration of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). As well as visual links, physical links and access to public open spaces, reserves close to home are important too, with good visibility and lighting (CPTED consideration). Landscape considerations can support privacy and amenity at home, and street trees and low impact design for stormwater support environmental resilience, wellbeing and biodiversity, balancing the integration of the built and natural environment.

Architecture and Homes

Design that gives people a sense of belonging and pride. 

People naturally want to feel settled in their environment, and feel included and as though they belong. This creates the sense of “home”. Belonging and pride can be influenced by feelings of ownership of a place, a sense of identity tied to one’s home, and interactions with neighbours and the wider community that increase overall community participation.

Design that enables some resident control, to give a sense of personal attachment and stability.

To build a sense of identity of home, people need to feel as though they have some control and ownership of their space so that they can make their home their own. This helps with feelings of stability and results in greater pride of place and respect. Allowing control can be as simple as allowing walls to be painted, or pictures to be hung on walls.

Design that is flexible/ adaptable to accommodate changes across life stages.

The longer people can stay in their home and their community, the greater the social connection and sense of community wellbeing. To cater for all life-stages, a variety of housing typologies is needed. However, by designing-in flexible or adaptable spaces, people are able to adjust their home as their family and lifestyle changes and remain in their home for longer. 

Design that incorporates nature, through natural materials, connection to green outdoor spaces, natural patterns, textures, and scales (fractals), views to nature. 

Humans have an innate desire to be in nature. We are drawn to green spaces, trees, mountains, rivers, and the ocean. While we may not always be lucky enough to experience these things directly, we can enhance health and wellbeing by incorporating nature as much as possible in design. This includes natural materials, textures and patterns, levels of aesthetic complexity and composition that mimic natural patterns, and being in, or in-view of nature as much as possible. 

Design that encourages active ways of living.

In conjunction with designing for activity at the urban scale, homes can also be designed to enable or encourage active ways of living. This can be achieved through provision of cycle storage, gardens that open out onto larger shared outdoor spaces or shared pathways, and making it easier for people to walk or cycle out of their house rather than drive.

Presence of natural daylight to help with regulating human rhythms (circadian rhythm).

Natural daylight is critical for regulating the natural human internal clock (circadian rhythm) that sets our sleep-wake cycle (and other biological cycles) over a 24 hour period. Artificial light impacts circadian rhythms by confusing the naturally anticipated light sequence of a day, and has negative effects on health and wellbeing. It is therefore important that we receive as much natural daylight as possible throughout the day.

Buildings that are healthy, with low VOCs, good ventilation, easy to heat and maintain.

An unhealthy home means unhealthy residents. While being warm and dry is paramount to creating healthy living environments, there is more that can be done to optimise health. Machine-made or artificial building materials can contain compounds (Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs) that harm both humans and the environment. By reducing these, through the use of low VOC materials, the risk can be reduced and health can be optimised. It is also important that homes have good ventilation, are easy to heat, and easy to maintain, so that they are able to be kept warm and dry in the long-term. 

Houses that are designed to have varying levels of privacy - allowing passive surveillance where needed, and interaction between neighbours, but also provides a sense of safety and retreat.

The balance between public and private (prospect and refuge) is important to get right, so that people can feel both a sense of community interaction and participation, and security and safety. This is best achieved by using a public-private gradient at both the neighbourhood and building scale. Spaces just beyond and just inside the property boundary should be created as public-private buffer zones where neighbours can bump into each other or wave over the fence. 

Variation in house typologies to give a sense of individuality, exploration and discovery, rather than a monotonous street frontage. [this links to enriched environments]. 

House types should be varied, to add to people’s sense of place and individuality, and to prevent monotonous street-scapes. At the urban-design scale, architectural variation adds interest to the street, enhances wayfinding, and encourages exploration through a neighbourhood. (This is especially important for elderly residents who may get lost in rows of houses that all look the same).  

Variation in house typologies also helps in creating diverse groupings of people (e.g., a one bedroom unit that may be inhabited by elderly, next to a three bedroom house that may be home to a family)

If you are interested in learning how your organisation can deliver more socially connected and sustainable design get in touch at info@theurbanadvisory.com

Participation and partnerships have an important role in delivering successful urban regeneration. Here we’ve covered a few of our favourite urban development partnership models and their successful usage in projects that have inspired us, and hopefully you too!

Introduction

Community engagement, consultation, co-design, co-creation, citizen participation or collaborative planning – there are many terms that describe the range of approaches to engaging with and involving communities in urban development processes. This article includes five case studies illustrating a diverse range of approaches used in urban development to increase participation in the urban development processes. Different projects require different approaches to respond to the context and drivers of the project, but also in order to achieve the engagement objectives, which may differ between projects. Sometimes a community consultation programme is relevant and other times, a public-private partnership is the appropriate approach - it really depends on what the project is aiming to achieve, who it will be affecting and how it will be resourced. Each successful example, however, shares a common characteristic – a commitment to listening, and developing a mutual understanding of all parties’ perspectives. 

To achieve better outcomes for people and communities, we need smarter and more effective collaboration between all stakeholders; from councils to central government, the private sector, and community organisations.

Community Engagement & Participation‍

Community engagement, consultation, co-design, co-creation, citizen participation or collaborative planning – there are many terms that describe the range of approaches to engaging with and involving communities in urban development processes. Based around the values of inclusivity, collaboration and empowerment, community engagement allows those who are, or may be, affected by an issue to have an opportunity to influence or inform the decision making process and the end solution. 

Emerging consultation facilitation groups offer a potential solution to the issue of time limitations and lack of in-depth knowledge that can often affect Councils and Government groups. Third party consultation specialists taking the lead on community engagement can reduce the load on Councils while also collecting more relevant data that translates better to policy. Methods can include pop up stands, with freebies and vouchers to incentivise (participation), online surveys, feedback drop boxes, town hall style meetings etc. Community Engagement is an urban partnership model used globally and findings are used to guide and inform various short term and long term strategies or developments. It is an opportunity to empower communities to drive the future of their neighbourhood, and is also a great opportunity for youth engagement; getting young people involved and excited about their community, learning to be active citizens and pushing for positive social change. In a time of poor voter turnouts and resident participation, we’re excited to see innovative approaches to consultation emerging! 

Case Study 1: Conversation Caravan, City of Casey Action Plan 

Fun, effective public consultation...on wheels! 

Conversation Caravan are a team of social strategists who offer their expertise in community engagement and communication to organisations seeking to establish a dialogue with those who would be impacted or be users of their work.

The City of Casey Council wished to consult their local community to guide and inform their 2019-20 Action Plan. The Conversation Caravan was brought onto the project and in the space of a month they employed a variety of techniques to collect a pool of input that was as reflective of the area as possible. Eye-catching “Pop-Up” stands were strategically set up and offered coffee, plant and canteen vouchers as incentives to engagement.

Residents outside of the Pop-Ups weren’t excluded, with an online survey and “Conversation Boxes,” (drop boxes at key neighbourhood locations) enabling them to partake if they chose to make a direct submission. Over 1000 submissions were made.

Case Study 2: Project for Public Spaces, Gansevoort Plaza

Specialists in community engagement and activation, Project for Public Spaces were tasked with the reimagination of Gansevoort Plaza – a disused, cobblestone plaza in New York’s Meatpacking District. 

An extensive consultation process began in 2005, engaging with residents, local business owners and community leaders to establish a vision and a series of community outcomes. They dug up local knowledge, sought to understand unique neighbourhood characteristics and used photo stimulation to communicate their ideas for the space to the public. This community feedback, along with traffic engineering investigations, was compiled into a document that presented PPS’s recommendations to key decision-makers. The community leaders went on to bring the community’s vision for Gansevoort Plaza into reality and the plan was implemented in 2008. Tactile urban methods of planter boxes, seating and sculptures were employed to reclaim the space but leaving it easily adaptable to future community needs as they were realised. This further improved its provided amenity and ensured it was serving the needs of its users in the best way possible.

Public Private Partnerships

Public Private Partnerships refer to a collaboration between the public sector and the private sector in order to deliver urban development projects. These partnerships are often established to resolve funding issues, whereby the private sector agrees to partially or fully deliver or fund a project on behalf of the public sector, on a set of agreed terms, generally based around future economic returns or the privatisation of the project. PPPs are characterised by shared risk, innovation and improved quality of delivery.  This type of partnership can be a useful model for large scale, or complex projects, as private companies are generally better placed to provide the resources and expertise to get ambitious projects off the ground. 

Collaborative work between the public and private sectors is bringing top professional thinkers together who are introducing us to some of the highest quality spaces. However, in some cases existing businesses have been “pushed out,” by the land use zonings changed to accommodate regeneration projects. This leaves space to question how we implement PPPs – they can be effective and innovative but not always fair and equitable. Can this type of collaboration between professional bodies be extended to include existing businesses, residents and other relevant stakeholders, and promote equity and long-term sustainability, also?

Case Study 3: Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland and Lendlease, Brisbane Showgrounds

The Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (RNA) and Lendlease, a multinational urban development company, are partnering to deliver the Brisbane Showgrounds Regeneration, a 15-year undertaking which is to be the largest brownfield development of its kind in Australia.

The RNA owns and operates the Brisbane Showgrounds. Through this development, they aim to revitalise and establish the area as an urban village precinct, and year-round destination. The 22 hectare project will include 340,000m² of new residential, commercial and retail buildings, together with an additional 76,000m² of new development on RNA retained land. Due to the scale of this project, Lendlease have come in to assist with financing a large portion of the estimated $2.9 billion cost. Lendlease will also manage additional funding partners, as well as the development management, project management, design management and construction. Once finished, the project is expected to generate $300 million per annum and over 2,000 jobs, while ensuring that Queensland’s people and agricultural community are provided with facilities that are progressive, multi-faceted and future-ready.

Case Study 4: Panuku Developments, Precinct Properties and other partners, Wynyard Quarter Innovation Precinct

Within Panuku’s redevelopment of Wynyard Quarter is the Wynyard Quarter Innovation Precinct, envisioned by Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED). It is being delivered by multiple private sector partners. The project is 48,000m² of high-quality, flexible office space, spread across five buildings. It aims to be a world-class hub of creativity, fitting seamlessly within the overall vision for Wynyard Quarter as an attractive, sustainable, wellness-focussed mixed-use area.

Precinct Properties is the leading delivery arm, with its roles including masterplanning and leveraging investment. As one of the most significant property development and management agencies in New Zealand, Precinct Properties has a broad range of resources available, a wide client reach and an experienced and diverse team. The company brought architectural firm Warren and Mahoney to the table to deliver a physical structure that supported user wellbeing and performance while also delivering on Panuku’s goals relating to identity and sustainability. As a result, Mason Bros earned a 6-Star Green rating and a 5-Star NABERSNZ rating, the first building in New Zealand to receive this award, whilst 12 Madden Street also achieved a 5-Star Green rating. Wynyard Quarter is set for completion in 2030, and should house around 25,000 workers and 3,000 residents, with the Innovation Precinct at the centre of it all.

Business Improvement Districts

Business Improvement Districts (BID) are forms of Public Private Partnership (PPP) where business and property owners agree to share the costs associated with the upkeep, development and promotion of their district. BIDs are common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and South Africa, where they have supported revitalisation and regeneration of urban areas.These partnerships are typically more successful for commercial property and large areas.

BID are now also gaining increasing popularity in New Zealand, with a few towns and cities implementing these partnerships; there are almost 50 in Auckland, 5 and growing in Wellington, and a variety of regional centres including Kaitaia, Hastings, Nelson and Hamilton with many more councils and business association groups continuing to investigate setting up a BID in their town or area. These groups in NZ are typically funded by an additional rate which is collected by councils (in partnership with the BID) from businesses within a set area and used for services such as increasing security presence, graffiti removal, networking events, marketing and advocacy, just to name a few. The Nelson BID is run on a slightly different model where the funds come exclusively from council without local businesses needing to pay additional rates. BIDs have been successful in reinvigorating local businesses and drawing more visitors into the area to buy local.

Case Study 5: Bryant Park, Manhattan

Bryant Park was in a badly deteriorated state by the end of 1970, having been poorly maintained and its isolation in a business district attracting antisocial behaviour. In response to this degradation, the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation (BPRC), a non-profit, private management company was founded in 1980. The company was led by a group of highly successful and influential businessmen including Daniel A. Biederman, a Harvard Business School graduate and systems consultant with a reputation as an innovator in downtown management. With their business backgrounds, they believed they could do more for the park using innovative, market-based approaches, while working alongside the city council.

A Business Improvement District (BID) was formed, with the BPRC leasing the park from the city. It was controversial, some fearing introducing businesses to a public space would cause it to become a privatised area. However, a 15-year responsibility agreement was signed over to BPRC (now Bryant Park Corporation) in 1988 and an intensive restoration programme began. The budget available was six times what it would have been under city management, enabling greater interventions, in a more timely manner. In an intensive four-year restoration programme, the unattractive aspects of the park were addressed, security measures added and landscaping carried out to improve attractiveness, functionality and visual and physical connectivity. A seven-year push followed its reopening, combining supplementary park maintenance, temporary kiosks, and public events, which reduced crime by 92 percent and doubled the number of annual park visitors.

The BID has been a triumph, not only in its regeneration of the Park but also in its reinvigoration of local businesses, with the Urban Land Institute stating in an award citation that “the success of the park feeds the success of the neighbourhood.” Now a focal point and source of great amenity, Bryant Park’s success has had a flow-on effect of increased rents and improved business performance.

With reference to the Eastern Porirua Regeneration Programme in New Zealand, this chapter explores the concept of wellbeing in the built environment; specifically, why it is important and how it is defined. The Eastern Porirua Regeneration Programme is the first urban development project that has been mandated and funded under the New Zealand Government's 2019 Wellbeing Budget, an important step towards embedding wellbeing in New Zealand public policy (1).

Why Wellbeing?

One of the most difficult challenges facing today’s world is how to accommodate the rapidly growing and crowding of urban populations in a way that supports and enhances inhabitants’ long-term health and wellbeing (2). The World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies worldwide urbanisation as one of the leading 21st century challenges to personal and public health. Cities have historically been a challenge for how human health and wellbeing can be delivered; they can contribute unique or intense stresses and adverse-effects to urban residents (3). Over half of the world’s population (55%) live in urban areas and this is predicted to increase to over two thirds (68%) by 2050 (4). A predicted 90% of New Zealand residents will live in urban areas by 2050, despite the fact that New Zealand is not considered to be densely populated by global comparison (See Figure 1).

Urbanisation presents numerous and varied challenges to citymakers, from population growth and social change to housing affordability, population health and environmental crises. In the context of these complex challenges, cities and governments are taking the opportunity to apply new frameworks and methodologies to address urban issues. For example, decision-makers are recognising that “the health and wellbeing of their citizens is perhaps a city’s most important asset” (7) and thus are adopting approaches that nurture wellbeing and consider both people and place. Similarly, the global emergence of ‘smart city’ approaches reflects the complexity of our urban systems today, by creating a desire and necessity to embrace innovation to address urban issues. However, smart cities are not only about data and digital technology, as it is widely understood to be, rather, it is about better governance and enabling data driven decision making that promote better outcomes for citizens.

Human-centricity and agency is crucial to inform and guide the transformative use of data and technology (8). This is especially critical with governance, data collection and working collaboratively. An example is the City of Edmonton Smart City Strategy (Figure 2), which is about “working collaboratively with citizens and partners to optimise the use of data and technology, and influence the development of policies, programs, services and innovative funding models” (9). Here, a smart city framework became the foundation for delivering wellbeing outcomes, such as health and community connectivity, across the city.

Many of the principles of smart cities transcend the framework itself. New Zealand is a leader in the emergent field of wellbeing governance. This budget was developed by integrating data around human, social and environmental capital, as well as the standard financial capital. The budget is to be used as a governance tool that better connects wellbeing assessment with the actions of the government (10). New Zealand is experiencing significant urban growth and population change, coupled with housing affordability, security and quality issues.

This situation has developed a mandate to pursue major urban regeneration projects to provide for the needs of current and future generations in local towns and cities. To achieve this, the New Zealand Government established Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities in late 2019, an urban development authority tasked with developing integrated urban communities and delivering a range of social, economic, and environmental outcomes (11). A case study of the first Kāinga Ora led urban regeneration project, informed by a wellbeing business case, is provided in this chapter to explore how the delivery of urban regeneration is intrinsically linked to the wellbeing outcomes experienced by residents.

Defining Wellbeing

Wellbeing is a broad term, generally associated with conceptions of human health, happiness and thriving - for people and communities - inclusive of the physical, mental, emotional, cultural and spiritual aspects of being (12). The concept of wellbeing is not new - it has been explored and broken down into various different constructs. Debate over the definition of wellbeing is believed to date back centuries, to the philosophers of ancient Greece whose definitions of wellbeing incorporated concepts of happiness, pleasure and flourishing. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary includes as a definition of wellbeing: “The state of being or doing well in life; happy, healthy, or prosperous condition; welfare.” The New Zealand government has defined wellbeing as “when people are able to lead fulfilling lives with purpose, balance and meaning to them” (13). Further, the New Zealand Mental Health Foundation has identified five ways to wellbeing (14): 

1. Connect, me whakawhanaunga 
2. Give, tukua
3. Take notice, me aro tonu
4. Keep learning, me ako tonu
5. Be active, me kori tonu

The collective understanding of wellbeing is still evolving. There is now growing evidence about the health and wellbeing impacts of the physical environment on not only physical, but also emotional, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of wellbeing (15). However, it has not been until relatively recently that wellbeing has gained attention in the built environment sector.

Measuring Wellbeing

To have any impact, any urban wellbeing agenda must inform and influence decision making and development outcomes in the built environment. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, introduced in 2015 under The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, lists the third goal as ‘Good Health and Wellbeing’ (16). Many governments world-wide are investing in measuring and quantifying their nation’s wellbeing. For example, Bhutan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Wales, Australia, France and New Zealand, have variously introduced a “wellbeing approach” to their public policy and are implementing ways to measure and assess how well its wellbeing agenda is being achieved.

Wellbeing is difficult to quantify and measure. However, with its rise in popularity, numerous indexes and frameworks have been developed to define and measure wellbeing. These include the UN Development Index, Happy Planet Index, World Bank World Development Indicators database, Gallup-Healthways Wellbeing Index, the United Kingdom’s Measuring National Wellbeing Programme, and the OECD Better Life Index (17). In the context of the physical environment, there are numerous guidelines for achieving wellbeing through building and urban design. These include the The Happy Homes Toolkit (18), WELL Building Standard (19), GAPS (20) Framework, and The Community Wellbeing Framework (21). 

On reviewing these it becomes clear that, although framed in many different ways, there are consistent themes that are common to all frameworks, these are: 

• Social cohesion and community participation; 
• Access and useability,
• Comfort, image, culture and values,
• Exposure to nature,
• Joy, surprise or delight (alongside ongoing learning), and 
• Connection - connection to each other, connection to place and connection to ideas.

Wellbeing and the Built Environment

Wellbeing, in the context of the built environment, has been defined as physiological wellbeing, psychological wellbeing or social wellbeing and has implications at city, neighbourhood, and dwelling scales (22). The quality of the social fabric of the neighbourhood in which a home is embedded is directly connected to wellbeing and, further, the concept of social connection is key to urban wellbeing (23). Loneliness is acknowledged now as a public health ‘epidemic’ that directly affects physiological functions, increases risk for mental illness, and diminishes adherence to health-related behaviours (24). Sanguinetti highlights how shared or integrated services in housing developments can increase sociability and connection to nature (25). To support a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Housing and Health Guidelines (2018) highlight the importance of both the built and social or community aspects of places, and the immediate housing environment. Fundamentally, people are intrinsically linked to place: “the two central dimensions of wellbeing and the environment are people and places” (26).

Eastern Porirua, New Zealand

The current New Zealand government has adopted a broad agenda of wellbeing that commits to putting people’s wellbeing at the heart of all its policies. A 2019 Wellbeing Budget sought to broaden the focus beyond economic and fiscal policy. It adopts a Living Standards Framework as an important step towards embedding wellbeing in New Zealand public policy (27).

The Eastern Porirua Regeneration Programme is the first long-term, large-scale regeneration programme of its kind in New Zealand to be mandated by a Treasury Business Case (2018) under the Wellbeing Budget and in line with Treasury’s Living Standards Framework (LSF). This case provides Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities (Kāinga Ora) with a unique opportunity to explore different ways to deliver affordable, sustainable housing for the communities in which they work. Kāinga Ora have responsibility for leading the delivery of physical redevelopment, including master planning, land development and sales, community infrastructure projects and the rebuilding and retrofitting of state homes. The regeneration programme is designed to deliver wellbeing outcomes for the people and place of Eastern Porirua. Adopting new approaches such as Community-led Housing and Community Wealth Building align well with the intention of the Wellbeing Business Case that mandated the Programme, and the government’s shift in focus away from housing delivery, towards creating strong communities.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (28) has stated “there is a need to change the ways we develop our urban areas so that our cities can thrive, and this must happen at a scale and pace so every New Zealander can live in healthy and safe homes in sustainable communities.”A Regeneration Framework has been developed to guide the implementation of the Programme in line with the Wellbeing business case. It provides for wellbeing outcomes across a series of domains shown in Figure 3.

These domains are reflected in the outcomes and objectives for the programme. How well the objectives of the programme are being achieved will be monitored and evaluated at different times throughout the lifecycle of the programme, to gain a comprehensive understanding of how the activities and interventions included in an urban regeneration programme, impact the wellbeing of residents and contribute to the global discourse about how well-designed neighbourhoods, benefit their inhabitants and contribute to the economic and social success of towns and cities. The hypothesis being tested, is that ‘both the physical and social structure of neighbourhoods are critical to their success’ (29).

Conclusion

Wellbeing has evidently become an influential agenda, and human-centred priorities are becoming increasingly valued across the built environment industry globally (30). In the past the value or function of cities were largely defined in terms of their built form and infrastructure, now cities worldwide are increasingly adopting more ‘human-centric’ approaches to development, placing higher value on the people that use and inhabit their city (31). Rapid global urbanisation and its associated urban challenges supports the case for supporting wellbeing, beginning with an understanding of the interrelationship between people and place. Namely, how an individual’s personal wellbeing (“individual wellbeing”) is affected by the social fabric, or overall wellbeing of a community (“community wellbeing”) at different scales (city, neighbourhood and home) and how the two are impacted by significant changes to the built environment, is therefore worthy of further discussion. As a relatively young country, when compared to others, New Zealand has the opportunity to define its urban future, and be an exemplar for the ways cities could function and contribute to the wellbeing of the people living in them.

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^{1. Robertson, G. (2018). Budget at a Glance 2018. Retrieved from https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/glance/budget-glance-2018}

^{2. Pineo, H., & Rydin, Y. (2018) Cities, Health & Well-being. London: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)}

^{3. Taylor, L., Hahs, A. K., & Hochuli, D. F. (2018). Wellbeing and urban living: nurtured by nature. Urban Ecosystems, 21(1), 197-208.}

^{4. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). The World’s Cities in 2018—Data Booklet (ST/ESA/ SER.A/417).}

^{5. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision.}

^{6. For statistical purposes, urban areas in New Zealand are defined as cities, towns and other conurbations comprising of 1,000 people or more. (Stats NZ).}

^{7. World Health Organisation - Urban Health. (2020). Retrieved 18 February 2020, from https://www.who.int/health-topics/urban-health}

^{8 Tonar, R. & Talton, E. (2019). Smart Cities Are Built By Smart People, Not Smart Things. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellistalton/2019/07/09/smart-cities-are-built-by-smart-people-not-smart-things/#aa437ad75d62}

^{9. City of Edmonton (undated). Our Smart City Program. Retrieved from: https://smartcities.edmonton.ca/our-smart-city-program/}

^{10. Yates, AM. (2019). Whanake mai te mauri ora: Think piece - an expanded wellbeing framework and urban science data tool for integrated wellbeing governance. Report for Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities: Mauri ora and urban wellbeing. Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland: BBHTC.http://buildingbetter.nz/resources/piblications.html}

^{11. Kāinga Ora–Homes and Communities Act 2019. Retrieved 22 February. From http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2019/0050/latest/LMS169206.html}

^{12. Cooper, R. (2014). Wellbeing and the Environment: An Overview. In Cooper, R., Burton, E. & Cooper, C. (Eds.), Wellbeing and the Environment: Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide , Volume II (p1). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.}

^{13. Government of New Zealand. (2019). Wellbeing Budget 2019. Wellington. Retrieved from https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/wellbeing-budget/wellbeing-budget-2019}

^{14. Mental Health Foundation (2020). Wellbeing. Retrieved from: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/home/ways-to-wellbeing/Mental Health Foundation (2020). Wellbeing. Retrieved from: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/home/ways-to-wellbeing/}

^{15. Pineo, H., & Rydin, Y. (2018) Cities, Health & Well-being. London: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)}

^{16. United Nations. (2015) Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=400&nr=2125&menu=1515}

^{17. Yates, A.M. (2019). Whanake mai te mauri ora: Think piece – an expanded wellbeing framework and urban science data tool for integrated wellbeing governance. Report for Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities: Mauri ora and urban wellbeing. Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland: BBHTC. http://buildingbetter.nz/resources/publications.html}

^{18. https://thehappycity.com/project/happy-homes/}

^{19. https://www.wellcertified.com/}

^{20. https://www.urbandesignmentalhealth.com/mind-the-gaps-framework.html}

^{21. http://www.dialogdesign.ca/community-wellbeing/}

^{22. Janahi, H., Raman, S., & Zapata-Lancaster, G. (2018). Understanding the impact of the residential built environment design on inhabitants’ wellbeing. ARCC Conference Repository. https://doi.org/10.17831/rep:arcc%y534}

^{23. Yates, A.M. (2019). Whanake mai te mauri ora: Think piece – an expanded wellbeing framework and urban science data tool for integrated wellbeing governance. Report for Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities: Mauri ora and urban wellbeing. Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland: BBHTC. http://buildingbetter.nz/resources/publications.html Leyden, K. M., Goldberg, A., & Michelbach, P. (2011). Understanding the pursuit of happiness in ten major cities. Urban affairs review, 47(6), 861-888.}

^{24. Holt-Lunstad, J. (2017). The potential public health relevance of social isolation and loneliness: Prevalence, epidemiology, and risk factors. Public Policy & Aging Report, 27(4), 127-130.}

^{25. Sanguinetti, A. (2014). Transformational practices in cohousing: Enhancing residents' connection to community and nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 86-96.}

^{26. Cooper, R. (2014). Wellbeing and the Environment: An Overview. In Cooper, R., Burton, E. & Cooper, C. (Eds.), Wellbeing and the Environment: Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide , Volume II (p1). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.}

^{27. Robertson, G. (2018). Budget at a Glance 2018. Retrieved from https://treasury.govt.nz/publications/glance/budget-glance-2018}

^{28. MHUD (2019) Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities Factsheet. Retrieved from: https://www.hud.govt.nz/assets/Urban-Development/709abaded2/Factsheet-Kainga-Ora.pdf}

^{29. https://www.buildingbetter.nz/research/urban_wellbeing.html}

^{30. Watson, K. (2018). Establishing Psychological Wellbeing Metrics for the Built Environment in Building Services Engineering Research and Technology, 39(2), 232–243 DOI: 10.1177/0143624418754497}

^{31. Science in the city: applying neuroscience to urban design. (2020). Retrieved 18 February 2020, from https://theknowledgeexchangeblog.com/2018/08/20/science-in-the-city-applying-neuroscience-to-urban-design/}

Aotearoa New Zealand’s new coalition government has agreed to “institute long-term city and regional infrastructure deals… to fund infrastructure.” (1) National campaigned on introducing city and regional deals, following in the footsteps of other right wing governments like the UK Conservatives and Liberal Party of Australia. A relatively recent development in infrastructure financing, the form they will take in this country is still unclear. Nevertheless, it is important for Councils, iwi, hapū, and infrastructure providers to begin thinking about what these deals could mean for addressing infrastructure issues in their backyards. In this paper, we take our best shot at de-muddying the waters.

City Deals are agreements between Central governments and ‘economic regions’ designed to deliver significant infrastructure (both physicaland community) projects and associated economic uplift.

City Deals are designed to increase collaboration and cooperation between central and local governments working towards a shared vision for the ‘economic region’ - which may be part of a city, a territorial authority area, regional council area, urban growth partnerships, or some combination of these. He piki tūranga, he piki kōtuku: The future for local government report identified City Deals as a type of “place based agreement” that would be useful to “drive long-term, large-scale wellbeing improvements at place in a way that shines light on local priorities” (2). The cooperative approach usually means decision making power is devolved from central government to local governments in the economic regions.

How have they worked overseas? Evidence from the United Kingdom and Australia shows some teething problems.

31 City Deals have been signed in the UK, with 2 being negotiated as of January 20233. UK City Deals primarily prioritise investing in Infrastructure and Job Creation to improve GVA. Manchester has one of the oldest city deals and is generally considered the most successful. Key elements of this deal are its transport focus, binding governance and decision making structure, and an ‘earn-back’ scheme which allows the local governments to recoup a portion of national tax revenue generated by the investment (4).

Benefits of the City Deal initiative include greater cooperation between local authorities who are incentivised to focus on shared benefits, the perception of improved local control and decision making, which has assisted with engagement, and more rigorous decision making process for infrastructure investment. Critics of the UK experience have pointed to opaque negotiation, decision making, reporting, and accountability processes, variable benefits resulting in unequal geographies, and central government withholding negotiations as a stick to incentivise regional government policy reforms (5, 6).

Australia’s City Deal programme is newer, beginning in 2017. Australian City Deals are predominantly partnerships between Federal, State/Territory, and Local governments who co-fund infrastructure and development projects. Initiatives typically include significant infrastructure (e.g. stadium) re/development, creation of innovation precincts, and enhancing digital economies. Key milestones and some metrics are included in City Deals, however metrics/ KPIs are often not established during negotiations, instead being developed as part of a later implementation plan. Many metrics are somewhat basic - typically population growth, economic growth, employment data, etc, with some specialty metrics like number of patents registered.

Launceston, Tasmania’s deal includes 3-yearly implementation reviews (7). The first review was primarily positive, with improvements on all-but two metrics, positive stakeholder feedback, and general economic growth. However, it also recommended refreshing outcomes, objectives, and metrics to be more meaningful. These reviews are good to show accountability and an impetus to refresh the deal if needed.

City Deals in Aotearoa New Zealand are an opportunity to further existing urban development agendas and continue relationship building. There is no need to rewrite the rule book.

There is already recognition of the need for greater regional planning and cooperation in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is seen in Urban Growth Partnerships like the GCP, WRLC, SmartGrowth etc. The short-lived RMA reforms also included the formation of Regional Planning Committees who will be responsible for developing Regional Spatial Strategies and Natural & Built Environment Plans (8).

Evidence from the UK and Australia show that transport infrastructure have often been successful projects funded by City Deals. This highlights the potential benefit of growth catalysed by GoldenTriangle rail improvements, or mass transit proposals in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

What is a clear ingredient for a productive City Deal is genuine commitment to working together, and partnership.The growth of Spatial Planning in recent years has allowed local governments to strengthen their distant planning muscles, being able to identify what key priorities for growth and urban change are in the coming decades - as more urban environments produce Future Development Strategies, the ability to partner and collaborate is also growing. Central government (both politicians and agencies) need to come to the table being prepared to accept the visions of our local authorities and all parties need to have mutual trust and confidence in each other to succeed. This will require, especially from the politicians, putting ideological aversions to certain projects to bed and keeping their promise to “reshape the relationship” with local government.

Mana whenua participation in governance and decision-making will need to be significant to meet Te Tiritio Waitangi obligations, enable tino rangatiratanga, and recognise mana whenua role as kaitiaki. While this might be difficult given some of this government’s manufactured hysteria about co-governance, it is essential so that any deal is truly representative of the long-term aspirations and vision of an area. A quick review of Australian City Deals reveals an inconsistent approach to including Indigenous decision makers, values, and aspirations in the agreements and governance arrangements, in some cases promising to consult on cultural matters, while others include Aboriginal representation at all levels of implementation. This ad-hoc approach simply wouldn’t fly in Aotearoa New Zealand - the government needs to be clear what commitment it is making to Māori in any City or Regional Deal programme.

Finally, integrated Outcomes Monitoring & Evaluation frameworks should be a key element of City Deals. Our public sector is accustomed to looking beyond financial & economic metrics when evaluating the success. Taking elements of a wellbeing approach, or implementing metrics from (for example) the Living Standards Framework would be useful to give life to the proposed outcomes of any City Deals.

Local and regional government should start thinking about and articulating what they might want out of a City Deal.

We still know very little about the shape and size of City and Regional Deals in Aotearoa New Zealand, but we think its really important to begin thinking about what they might contain. It is clear that the infrastructure financing and funding game is changing - with indications that there will be fewer grants akin to the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, or Central Government led projects; instead authorities will be incentivised to work with the private sector to fund infrastructure and rewarded for delivering projects or presenting comprehensive delivery plans. Hopefully we’ll hear more early next year. Whenever we do, we’ll be hoping that the government is committing to a genuine partnership with councils and mana whenua, and to ensure that any deals are embedded with strong outcome metrics.

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^{1. Coalition Agreement - New Zealand National Party & ACT New Zealand, 54th Parliament}

^{2. He piki tūranga, he piki kōtuku The future for local government: p43}

^{3. City Deals - UK House of Commons Library}

^{4. Introducing UK City Deals - KPMG}

^{5. (PDF) City Deals, Decentralisation and the Governance of Local Infrastructure Funding and Financing in the UK}

^{6. City Deals: - UK Centre for Cities}

^{7. Launceston City Deal Three-Year Implementation Review Report}

^{8. Key components of our future resource management system| Ministry for the Environment}

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Urban regeneration is a more holistic approach than intensification and renewal, with a focus on delivering wellbeing as well as changes to the built environment. We’d describe urban regeneration as happening with a community, instead of to a community.

Urban renewal, and in some cases regeneration, has historically been associated with gentrification and displacement. Although usually associated with the USA, there was in-fact a global movement of large scale slum clearance, displacement of vulnerable communities, and destruction of communities done under the guise of improving the health and wellbeing of the city. Reckoning with these unfortunate and sometimes brutal histories is important as we think about urban regeneration in the 21st century. What we know now is that a top-down, opaque approach simply does not work. There will always be the need for large scale infrastructure and neighbourhood improvements in our cities -but we cannot ignore the existing social geography of a place.

This is why good urban regeneration is characterised by intersectional collaboration, visioning, and brokering. Strong frameworks and structures are needed to guide regeneration projects through fragmented processes of engagement, planning, construction, and management. At The Urban Advisory, our experience and research has guided our understanding and development of regeneration principles, models, and frameworks. Establishing these early in a development is crucial to clarify what we are talking about when we are talking about urban regeneration.

Case Study Framework: Walworth, London, United Kingdom

Cities like London, with long histories, are no strangers to urban regeneration. Through time they have constantly had to adapt to growth and various changes. The local community of Walworth was recently included in a collection of regeneration initiatives for the Southwark area, south of the Thames River. With Walworth, we really loved that this community engaged Urban Strategists to provide support to co-develop and co-deliver a framework for regeneration. The Urban Strategy team from ‘We Made That’ worked with a wide range of local stakeholders, through conversations, workshops and observations to develop the ideas for priority projects. The result of this work was the ‘What Walworth Wants’ regeneration strategy. The projects were carefully developed to co-ordinate with each other, and be delivered through an incremental and aggregated approach. It is this kind of strategic thinking that we want to see more of, where the impact of placemaking programmes, rather than individual projects, helps everyone’s investment go that bit further. The ‘What Walworth Wants’ strategy was developed to be a practical tool for the co-delivery of projects, by residents, community groups, public authorities and other stakeholders. The graphic design and structure of this document is also very user-friendly and accessible. Together, these support both the co-ownership and co-delivery of the regeneration projects. This process is a more involving, tangible regeneration framework for South London.

Before we dive too deep, we should also understand what a Regeneration Framework is. A Regeneration Framework is a holistic and actionable strategy for regeneration. It should include a collective vision, key strategies, objectives, partnership agreements and delivery indicators for a regeneration project.

In practice, a Regeneration Framework supports accountability, project delivery and performance. They provide regeneration partners, stakeholders and the community with certainty, confidence and clarity about how regeneration will be delivered.

• Working with all stakeholders to develop a Regeneration Framework connects delivery with design and ensures that the regeneration programme is co-created and co-owned by everyone that affects or will be affected by the regeneration process.
• Establishing a clear guiding framework is needed to help create certainty for the investment community and key delivery partners, This increases the likelihood that the shared vision and all the great ideas developed through community engagement can be delivered.
• Developing a deep understanding of the challenges, opportunities & constraints needs to underpin all project planning.
• Strong leadership from local councils is key; investing strategically in the public realm (such as transport improvements or pedestrian facilities) to generate private investment provides more significant Return On Investment in line with project objectives.
• Masterplans need to be delivery-oriented, at both area-scale and site-scale.
• Resilience is built through supporting mixed uses and diverse activities and a variety of amenities integrated throughout the neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, projects are individual interventions or actions that act as a centrepiece or catalyst for a wider regeneration programme. Design of the projects should be developed according to the broader programme’s framework, to act as a tangible example of what regeneration will look like and represent for a district. Some of the best regeneration projects are bold, creative, and symbolic for the context they occur in. These can go on to be catalysts for further investment or promotion of the regenerating district.

Case Study Project: Superkilen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Situated in Nørrebro, the Superkilen is a massive 750m linear park that has allowed communities to embed their identities in the built landscape. Oneof Copenhagen’s most diverse and impoverished neighbourhoods, the area near Superkilen faced negative social perceptions and isolation. As part of a wider regeneration programme, the Superkilen was envisaged as a ‘world exhibition’ to reflect the diverse communities in the neighbourhood. The designers and architects undertook “extreme public participation” to design the park. This resulted in three zones: a market / culture / sportszone, an urban living room, and a sport and nature green zone. Throughout the park are elements sourced from the home nations of many of the neighbourhood’s residents, including swings from Iraq, South African braai, and manhole covers from Israel.

Integrated with the cycling and walking network, Superkilen has increased connectivity and pride among the communities, being a popular place to meet, play, relax, cycle, and walk. Throughout the regeneration process, Nørrebro has undergone a change in perceptions- to the point where Time Out magazine named it the World’s Coolest Neighbourhood in 2021.

Successful regeneration projects are built within good regeneration frameworks. So, based on successful urban regeneration frameworks and projects, we’ve compiled 10 Urban regeneration principles that we keep in mind in our work in the urban regeneration space.

Collectively, these principles demonstrate what is required to deliver the holistic outcomes of urban regeneration, consistently, across the various stages of the project.

1. Coordinated Strategic Partnerships

Well-executed urban regeneration relies on robust strategic and delivery partnerships from the beginning: between Council, Government, mana whenua, private sector and community partners. With a view toward delivery, regeneration partnership planning ensures that all the necessary players are involved and engaged in the project from day one and resources, knowledge, and skills are optimised.

2. Shared Vision & Objectives

Regeneration partners must form and commit to a shared vision for the project, with aligned values and objectives around what they aim to achieve through regeneration and how. Different partners may put greater focus and effort toward some objectives over others, but the collective vision must hold all of these in balance.

3. Delivery Tailored to Local Community & Context

At its core urban regeneration is about people and place. As such, development that applies replicable or ‘cookie cutter’ responses cannot be classified as urban regeneration. Urban regeneration strategies must be bespoke, developed and delivered as a specific and relevant response, tailored to local community needs, desires and aspirations and the unique constraints and opportunities of that place.This principle is one of the primary points of difference that sets urban regeneration apart from renewal and intensification.

4. Integrated Engagement & Participation

Community engagement and stakeholder participation is critical to urban regeneration. These processes must be woven throughout the regeneration process, from planning to delivery, engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders periodically and purposefully to verify objectives and planned outcomes. A Regeneration Framework is a helpful guiding document that can be developed with partners and stakeholder participation, to respond to local issues and integrate community aspirations into the regeneration process.

5. Performance Tracking & Accountability

Regeneration partners need to be held accountable to their stakeholders and each other, to check and reconfigure how they are performing and delivering on the regeneration objectives and desired outcomes, at each stage of the project. An independent regeneration board can support successful urban regeneration.

6. Resource Efficiency & Coordination

Successful urban regeneration understands and utilises the available resources (e.g.time, social capital, political power, financial capital, land and other assets, cultural knowledge etc) that different partners offer. Project planning should consider how to utilise what different partners bring to the table – their ability and willingness to contribute from their particular resources, skill set and capacity etc – to deliver efficient and effective development outcomes.

7. Measuring, Monitoring & Evaluating Success

Robust urban regeneration must have clear development indicators of success that are planned for, deliverable and measurable through monitoring over time. Successful regeneration doesn’t happen by accident, and a Framework for monitoring and measuring success makes it clear what the end goal is, and when the outcomes and objectives sought have been achieved.

8. Responsive Long-term & Short-term

Planning Capacity Urban regeneration projects are long-term, and delivery generally occurs in stages over several years, or decades even. Projects inevitably face variations and disruptions over time (e.g. changing political climate). Hence, it is important to have a suitably responsive or flexible Framework for regeneration planning and delivery that provides consistency and certainty for partners, but that can change and adapt as needed.

9. Prioritised Sustainability & Stewardship

To manage the process of change, sustainability and stewardship are critical. Ideally, communities are brought into the journey of regeneration (stewardship) and build a positive sense of ownership around the changes that occur. However, the inevitable disruption and change processes need to be dealt with by taking a deliberate approach to mitigate potential negative impacts and effects by working alongside the communities who live there. Sustainable regeneration seeks to serve both current and future generations, and to form a positive legacy in the built environment that endures beyond the life of the project.

10. Strong Leadership & Governance

Urban regeneration requires effective leadership throughout the entire process. A dedicated leadership team from central or local government (usually) is required to hold the vision and provide guidance and support to the regeneration delivery partners. But this team cannot be responsible on their own for delivering every aspect of a regeneration programme. Therefore, leaders must also maintain a two way communication and engagement approach with cross-sector delivery partners and stakeholders to enable a collaborative approach to leadership over the life cycle of the regeneration programme.

Urban development doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Historically, too much intensification, renewal, and regeneration has happened without consideration of the geographies of the neighbourhoods they happen within.

Adopting regeneration approaches with the principles highlighted in this article can lead to strong frameworks to guide the entire programme.For communities, being taken on the journey and actively involved in regeneration programmes gives them ownership over their neighbourhoods. We can build all of the pretty buildings and parks in the world, but if the process of building them has been distressing for communities, we will never find the urban wellbeing we hope to achieve. Urban regeneration practitioners must adopt frameworks and approaches that take a long term view of the needs of communities, embed accountability, and leave room for changing and adapting.

Strong, transparent, and committed governance is required to ensure this. Before any shovels hit soil, we should know why we are undertaking regeneration, what we want to achieve, what we need to do it, and who the regeneration will impact (and invite them to the table)! Setting outcomes and robust frameworks at the start of the process is a common theme across the regeneration projects highlighted here. In the past, cities have built places which have been oppressive and unhealthy, but strong communities have still thrived within - regeneration gives these communities an opportunity to stamp their identity and vision within the built form, it is the job for the public and private sector to enable and empower.

At a recent lecture from our director Natalie Allen, George Weeks MRTPI MCIHT asked which example of the projects I'd shown was my favourite; such a good and tricky question. My answer was Mehr als Wohnen in Zurich — a housing cooperative that redefines what mixed-use, community-led development can look like. It's name literally means 'more than living'.

Greer and I have done a number of memorable study tours at TUA (and I think 2026 might be time for another one) and while we've seen so many great examples of regeneration and housing innovation, here's why this project stood out:

Located on the former Hunziker Areal industrial site, the project was initiated in 2007 through a collaboration 30+ housing cooperatives, supported by the City of Zurich. It was delivered following an international design competition and completed circa 2015.

The precinct comprises 13 buildings, and serves 1,200+ residents + 150 workers through 370 apartments, retail and community spaces, a school, kindergartens, co-working studios, and generous public realm — all on leasehold land from the city, secured for 100 years.

The funding model is particularly compelling. Delivered by a coalition of cooperatives pooling capital, supported by municipal land lease and planning incentives; rents are 20% below market, with 10% of units allocated to charities and social organisations.

What makes Mehr als Wohnen so memorable isn’t just the scale or the delivery model; it’s the lived experience. From the diversity of housing typologies to the shared amenities and public art, it’s a place designed for connection. When we were there there was even an art installation where you could pick up a phone in one part of the precinct, and if someone answers on the other end… you get a free hot chocolate. A small moment of delight that speaks volumes about the ethos of the place.

For those of us working in precinct delivery, housing innovation, and urban transformation, Mehr als Wohnen offers a powerful reference point:
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✅ Cooperative-led delivery at neighbourhood scale

✅ Embedded affordability and tenure diversity

✅ Activation and experience as core infrastructure

✅ Systems thinking in practice — not just policy
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See more here: Rethinking Aotearoa's Housing: Myths, Realities, and the Path Forward & https://lnkd.in/gR_V4FSE

Thanks to Jason Twill, LEED Fellow and Michelle Tabet GAICD for organising this part of the trip as part of the City Makers Guild leg of our study tour.

My term on Auckland Council’s City Centre Advisory Panel (CCAP) has recently come to a close— a moment to reflect on the privilege of serving our city alongside a powerhouse group of passionate, future-focused change makers.

The CCAP exists to provide strategic advice on central city issues and support the delivery of key outcomes from the City Centre Masterplan, the Auckland Plan, and the City Centre Targeted Rate. Our guidance informs the Governing Body, Waitematā Local Board, and council-controlled organisations, helping shape the future of Tāmaki Makaurau’s urban heart.

What made this experience so meaningful was the depth of strategic dialogue we shared. The panel was often a space where housing, infrastructure, culture, and community weren’t treated as isolated challenges—but as interdependent levers for shaping a resilient, inclusive, and vibrant city centre.

What has really been galvanised for me through the experience has been the affirmation that with the right strategic lens, housing and precinct delivery can be the twin pillars of a more vibrant, equitable, and future-ready central city.

Housing as the Strategic Anchor of Vibrancy

One of the most urgent and exciting opportunities we explored was the growth of the residential population in the city centre. A thriving downtown isn’t just about commercial vibrancy—it’s about people. Students, professionals, families, creatives, entrepreneurs, temporary workers, international visitors, new migrants finding their first foothold in Aotearoa, and those navigating housing insecurity all shape and share in the life of the city.

Growing the residential population is not a side objective—it’s central to long-term vitality. Residents bring life to streets, stability to local economies, and stewardship to public spaces. Global best practice shows that the most effective levers treat housing as part of a strategic urban system, including through:

• Affordable and inclusive housing mechanisms, such as public land partnerships to deliver mixed-tenure housing with iwi, community housing providers, and institutional investors
• Zoning for density and diversity, enabling mixed-use, high-density housing in strategic precincts
• Precinct-based planning and delivery, aligning housing with transport, public space, and social infrastructure, brought to life by place activation strategies
• Social infrastructure clustering, with schools, health services, and libraries within walking distance of homes and commercial opportunity
• Financial and regulatory incentives to unlock development
• Digital and data-driven tools to engage residents and track quality-of-life outcomes

Precinct Delivery as the Engine of Opportunity

Precincts, when planned and delivered as integrated systems, become engines of urban vitality. Unlocking economic, cultural, and social opportunity through precinct delivery means treating each precinct not just as a development site, but as a strategic platform for transformation.

Economically, precincts attract investment, support local enterprise, and create jobs by clustering commercial, retail, and hospitality offerings in walkable, high-amenity environments. Culturally, they provide a canvas for iwi-led design, public art, and storytelling that reflects the identity of Tāmaki Makaurau and fosters a sense of belonging. Socially, they enable inclusive housing, accessible public realm, and community infrastructure that supports diverse populations.

With coordinated governance, intentional design, and cross-sector partnership, precinct delivery becomes a lever not just for growth—but for legacy.

The headline that council wants to enable 2 million houses in Auckland, is understandably, terrifying for your average resident. Not all of us are housing enthusiasts and significant change is universally accepted to cause angst. However, the key message that should accompany such headlines could explain that the likelihood of this number of housing being delivered is low to impossible (for a multitude of reasons we won't go into now). However, the point that the plan will enable significantly more housing remains. So if we are going to build more homes within existing neighbourhoods, how can we do that in a way that is respectful of what exists but also ensures that the future environments are suitable and fit for purpose?

This article brings together two of our greatest passions here at The Urban Advisory - housing and precinct delivery! Firstly I will explore the interrelationship between the two, and why we consider them to be two sides to the same coin. A second article will follow in the coming days that outlines the challenges with bringing these two critical elements of built environments together, and ideas for overcoming those challenges, which, in our view, are in fact not insurmountable. The third article will explore the proposed mechanisms for overcoming the challenges to integrated precinct and housing delivery using three examples from the New Zealand context.

To start with: Why are Housing and Precinct Delivery worth talking about?

The creation of vibrant, functional neighbourhoods hinges on a delicate balance between two fundamental elements: precinct delivery and housing. Often discussed separately, their interrelationship is not just significant, but absolutely critical to building truly liveable towns and cities.

Precinct delivery encompasses the broader infrastructure, public spaces, amenities, and overall design of a defined urban area. It is also about the processes, systems and structures that are required to enable it. It's about creating the framework – the streets, parks, community facilities, transport links, and the intangible sense of place – that underpins daily life. Its about bringing the right players together to get agreement on the critical elements and establishing a process for achieving those. Housing, on the other hand, provides the individual homes where people live. While seemingly distinct, the success of one is deeply intertwined with the success of the other.

Think of a new housing development built in isolation, without thoughtful precinct delivery. Residents might have a roof over their heads, but they lack convenient access to shops, schools, green spaces, or public transport. This can lead to car dependence, social isolation, and a lower quality of life. Conversely, a beautifully designed precinct with excellent amenities will fall short if it doesn't offer a diverse range of housing options that are accessible and affordable to different segments of the community. A thriving precinct needs people from all walks of life to contribute to its vibrancy.

Of course not all housing needs to be designed in a precinct concept, but where we are talking about large scale urban renewal and regeneration, or mass intensification in a concentrated area the likes of which the proposed plan will enable, such as Kingsland or Morningside in Auckland (the Minister's favourite example), we need to take a macro view and consider the key issues of interconnectivity and accessibility, as well the right mix of housing. This process should serve both those those living in the existing community and those that we want to attract to that area, such as key workers that enable our cities to operate and function effectively, or families, who currently can't live in apartments because most of them are not suitable for larger family units.

The magic happens when precinct delivery and housing are planned and executed in a coordinated manner. This integrated approach, often seen in well-executed master-planned communities and urban regeneration projects, ensures that new housing is seamlessly integrated into a supportive and enriching environment. The question I find myself asking is how do we do this where land ownership is varied and there are multiple public sector entities, organisations, business owners and residential property owners to consider? We get more into this in the second article, but for now, here's why this interrelationship is so vital:
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• Enhanced Liveability: Integrated planning creates neighbourhoods where residents can easily access everything they need, fostering a higher quality of life and reducing reliance on private vehicles.
• Stronger Communities: Well-designed precincts with accessible public spaces and community facilities encourage social interaction and build a sense of belonging among residents.
• Economic Vibrancy: A mix of housing types within a well-delivered precinct attracts a diverse population, supporting local businesses and contributing to economic growth.
• Sustainability: Coordinated development can lead to more efficient use of land, resources, and infrastructure, contributing to more sustainable urban environments.
• Adaptability and Resilience: Planning for both housing and precinct infrastructure together allows for greater adaptability to future changes and builds more resilient neighbourhoods.

For urban developers, planners, policymakers, funders and financiers and communities alike, recognising and actively managing the interrelationship between precinct delivery and housing is paramount. It requires a shift from siloed thinking to a holistic, integrated approach that prioritises the creation of complete, connected, and liveable neighbourhoods.

By focusing on this critical interplay, we can unlock the potential of our urban spaces and build towns and cities that truly serve the needs and enhance the wellbeing of their residents.

What are your thoughts on the connection between precinct delivery and housing?

Hopefully you all had time to put your submissions in! Here's The Urban Advisory’s submission on the Government Policy Statement on Housing and Urban Development (GPS-HUD) 2025.

Our response acknowledges the Government’s vision for thriving, resilient communities and the steps outlined in the draft GPS-HUD. However, we believe the real test will be in the depth and ambition of its implementation.

Key themes from our submission:

• The urgent need to clearly define and deliver genuine housing affordability.
• Structuring the Flexible Fund as a long-term, sustainable investment—drawing inspiration from Australia’s Housing Australia Future Fund.
• Rethinking subsidy mechanisms to create enduring public benefit and mobilise institutional investment.
• Prioritising urban regeneration, precinct delivery, and true public-private partnerships to unlock housing supply in well-serviced locations.
• Using robust data—like our NZ Housing Survey—to measure success beyond just supply numbers, focusing on housing choice, tenure security, and quality of life.

We’re committed to supporting the Government in turning policy into action and building a housing system that truly meets the needs and aspirations of all New Zealanders.

Read our full submission here:‍

To: Hon Chris Bishop, Minister of Housing; Hon Nicola Willis, Minister of Finance

From: The Urban Advisory

Date: 16 September 2025

Subject: Submission on the Consultation Draft of the Government Policy Statement on Housing and Urban Development 2025 (GPS-HUD)

Introduction

The Urban Advisory welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission on the draft Government Policy Statement on Housing and Urban Development 2025. We commend the Government for producing a document that correctly identifies many of the systemic, long-term challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand’s housing and urban development system.

The vision that "Everyone in New Zealand lives in a home and within a community that meets their needs and aspirations" is one we wholeheartedly support. We are encouraged by the focus on core principles such as creating thriving and resilient communities, resetting investment to help those most in need , and the frank acknowledgement that the current approach to housing support is "complicated, unfocused, duplicative and expensive".

As a specialist consultancy focused on rethinking our cities, our work is grounded in our proprietary data, international best practice in regeneration and precinct delivery, and a deep understanding of the New Zealand housing system. Our submission is informed by our extensive research, including the findings from our inaugural New Zealand Housing Survey , which, in its first iteration, captures the nuanced needs and aspirations of over 2,500 New Zealanders.  This is just the beginning; by committing to run this survey as a longitudinal study, The Urban Advisory will build the most comprehensive dataset available on housing demand.

While we support the strategic direction of the GPS-HUD, we believe its success is entirely contingent on the depth and commitment of its implementation. This submission will outline our support for the document's direction, highlight areas where we believe some detail and ambition are lacking, and propose tangible, mutually beneficial opportunities to translate this policy statement into meaningful action.

Commendation of Strategic Direction

We wish to acknowledge several strengths within the draft GPS-HUD that align with our core principles and research.

• A Systemic View: The document rightly frames housing within a broader system, acknowledging the interplay between land markets, infrastructure, regulation, and social support. This moves the conversation beyond a simplistic focus on supply towards a more sophisticated, system-based understanding.
  
  
• Resetting Investment: The recognition that over $5 billion is spent annually on housing support with poor outcomes is a critical and welcome admission. The desire to reset this investment to be more deliberate and evidence-based is the most promising aspect of this GPS-HUD.
  
  
• Place-Based Approaches: The commitment to place-based solutions, working with local partners to deliver the right mix of initiatives, is fundamental to successful housing outcomes but also urban regeneration and precinct delivery. Great places are not created by top-down mandates alone; they require genuine collaboration.
  
  
• Focus on People: The objective of "Right house, right place, right people" and the stated intent to better understand the needs of specific population groups resonates strongly, and is the topic of much of our own research. Our NZ Housing Survey affirms that New Zealanders have a growing appetite for more housing choices that cater to different life stages, financial situations, and cultural needs.

5 Key Observations and Corresponding Recommendations from our Review of the DRAFT GPS-HUD

The GPS-HUD would be greatly strengthened by having a clear implementation pathway. It presents a compelling diagnosis but then has a vague prescription of what to do next. We urge the Government to build on this foundation by considering some concrete actions, such as.

1. Defining genuine 'affordability' goes hand in hand with really delivering it

The GPS-HUD frequently mentions affordability  and "affordable rentals"; we’d be remiss if we didn’t begin by raising the importance of having this clearly defined. Without a clear definition and delivery mechanism, 'affordable' remains an empty platitude. Our NZ Housing Survey paints a stark picture of the human cost of unaffordability: nearly 60% of respondents are making sacrifices to meet housing costs, including delaying doctor visits (24%) and economising on food (21%), this is despite many respondents having average or higher than average incomes. We hope to assess more data in the coming year to understand even more the effects overleveraging due to housing costs are having.

High housing costs negatively impact productivity by increasing commutes, decreasing disposable income, limiting access to high-wage jobs, and diverting investment from other productive activities. Getting the right homes in the right places for the right people means freeing up land so, for example, nurses can live near hospitals.

Furthermore, the goal of "enabling efficient land markets" must not inadvertently sideline the development of homes that are not for private sale. Without safeguards, freeing up land will simply result in the "highest and best use" being market-rate housing, leaving affordable providers unable to compete. We advocate a balance to serve all parts of the housing continuum, including the assisted ‘missing middle’ options that act as stepping stone products in many jurisdictions overseas.

Corresponding Recommendations: 

• Define 'affordability' in policy as a clear percentage of median household income for a given region, with tiers for different levels of need.
• Safeguard land for affordable housing through mechanisms such as inclusionary zoning, a right of first refusal for CHPs on surplus Crown land, and long-term ground leases that remove the cost of land from development equations.
• We support Minister Bishop’s comments from May 2025: “Affordable rentals allow people to pay less than the market rent in a region. They are a missing link in the social housing system. There should be an intermediate option between traditional social housing, where people usually pay 25 per cent of their income, and market rentals.”
• Supercharge larger developments of affordable housing - currently our system enables the delivery of housing on a small scale but that we need to supercharge this and get comfortable with scale-driven affordable housing developments.

2. The Flexible Fund is a critical opportunity to build a mature, diverse housing market

The GPS-HUD references the flexible fund (as established in the Budget 2025 in May) to simplify investment. A fund to be able to deliver more variety when it comes to affordable housing products is a great thing. However, there is no detail yet on how this fund will be capitalised or deployed. This vagueness risks perpetuating the status quo.

We support the idea of a "Flexible Fund" in New Zealand that is structured in a similar way to Australia's Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF); a long-term, sustainable investment vehicle rather than a simple grant program that relies on annual government budgets.

The HAFF is a $10 billion investment fund where the capital is preserved, and the investment returns are used to fund social and affordable housing projects. A similar fund in New Zealand could work in the following ways:

• Establishment as an Investment Fund: The New Zealand government could create a multi-billion dollar, ring-fenced investment fund. This capital would be managed professionally (for example, by the NZ Super Fund or a similar entity) to generate ongoing returns.
• A Perpetual Funding Stream: Instead of spending the fund's capital, only the annual investment returns would be used to fund housing initiatives. This would create a predictable, long-term source of funding that is insulated from short-term political cycles and annual budget negotiations.
• Clear Mandate and Targets: The fund would have a clear mandate with specific, measurable targets, such as delivering a set number of new public, affordable, or key worker homes over a defined period.
• Targeted Allocations: Like HAFF, the New Zealand fund's returns could be specifically allocated to address the needs of underserved groups, such as older adults seeking to downsize, low-income families, or to support the development of culturally specific housing like papakāinga.

By adopting a HAFF-like model, New Zealand's "Flexible Fund" would shift from ad-hoc, short-term spending to a sustainable, long-term investment strategy for addressing the nation's housing challenges.

Corresponding Recommendation:

• Structure the Flexible Fund as a long-term, ring-fenced investment vehicle, modelled on Australia's Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), to ensure a sustainable and perpetual source of funding.
• Appoint a professional investment manager to manage the fund's capital, preserving the principal and using only the investment returns for housing initiatives.
• Establish a clear and specific mandate for the fund, with measurable targets for the delivery of new public, affordable, and key-worker housing over defined periods.
• Create a perpetual funding stream by using only the annual investment returns to finance housing projects, insulating the fund from short-term political cycles and annual budget constraints.
• Allocate the fund's returns to target the specific needs of underserved groups, including older adults, low-income families, and the development of culturally specific housing like papakāinga.
• Partner with an expert delivery agency or agencies, to manage the assessment and disbursement of funds to on-the-ground projects led by councils, iwi, and community housing providers.

3. It is time to reconsider the role of existing mechanisms, such as the Accommodation Supplement alongside the Flexible Fund and Income Rent Related Subsidy

One of the greatest opportunities for systemic change lies in adjusting subsidy payments to be a financial instrument. These predictable, bond-like, recurring government subsidies should be used to underwrite and attract long-term patient capital. 

As an example, the Government could systematically redirect the portion of the Accommodation Supplement that currently flows to private landlords to underwrite the development of a national portfolio of affordable, long-term rental housing. This could be done without anyone who currently relies on the Accommodation Supplement going without.

By offering a, say, 35-year rental guarantee to a consortium of developers, Community Housing Providers (CHPs), and impact investors (such as KiwiSaver providers), the government can leverage this operational spending to create a multi-billion-dollar public asset over time, delivering both social and financial returns for New Zealand. Our research in this space has revealed a number of potential players who could deliver at scale.

We often tell young people that "renting is just paying off somebody else's mortgage," yet as a nation, we are doing exactly that on a massive scale. The direct transfer of public funds into private capital gain misses the opportunity for enduring public benefit.

Corresponding Recommendation: 

• Repurpose demand side subsidies to become intergenerational supply side investments. Ensure that mechanisms such as the Accommodation Supplement continue to support those who need it in the short to medium term, whilst mobilising institutional investment with greater public return being received over time.

4. Fostering Urban Regeneration, a Precinct Delivery approach, Transit-Oriented Development and true Public-Private Partnerships must be a key part of how the government supports urban development.

The GPS-HUD rightly prioritises housing growth, with a focus on maximising gains from transit-oriented development. This aligns with our view that urban development must be strategically focused on areas with existing or planned infrastructure capacity, particularly urban centres and brownfield sites. 

Adding residents to areas with existing infrastructure is significantly more economical than greenfield development, offering a lower-cost way to increase housing supply and expand the rating base. Areas where there is infrastructure capacity should be the primary focus of development efforts.

Unlocking this potential hinges on genuine Public-Private Partnerships. As our research into regeneration highlights, public-private sector collaboration is almost always essential to success. The government's role is not to lead all development, but to create the conditions for the private sector to invest with confidence. This involves a clear-eyed assessment of risk, reward, and control. 

Public sector investment should be concentrated on de-risking opportunities—through land assembly, infrastructure upgrades, and streamlined consenting—to attract private capital. This model leverages the strengths of both sectors: the public sector's ability to plan for long-term community outcomes and the private sector's efficiency in delivery.

As previously mentioned, public sector intervention need not be limited to policy and delivery tools and levers. The strength of the government’s credit rating could be used to underwrite and attract patient capital which is key to enabling the long-term approach required in regeneration.

Finally, the cyclical nature of the construction market presents a unique opportunity. During market downturns, when private sector activity slows (such as now), the Government can act as a counter-cyclical partner by commissioning the construction of affordable homes, providing concessions, capital grants or discounting land. This keeps the industry productive, retains skilled labour, and delivers desperately needed housing at a lower cost.

Corresponding Recommendation: 

• Prioritise brownfield and urban centre intensification over greenfield expansion. Develop a clear framework for Public-Private Partnerships that focuses public investment on de-risking projects in areas with existing infrastructure capacity. This approach will maximise the value of public funds, accelerate the delivery of housing in well-serviced locations, and harness the expertise and capital of the private sector to build the thriving, resilient communities envisioned in the GPS-HUD.

5. There is a critical role for data in measuring success

We commend the GPS-HUD's intention to use data and indicators to measure progress. However, success must be measured by more than just dwelling consents. Our NZ Housing Survey highlights a significant gap between what is being built and what people need. There is strong latent demand for alternative housing models like co-housing (59% support), rent-to-buy (34%), and residential cooperatives (32%). There is strong and broad support for higher density apartment living in the right areas.

These insights demonstrate that simply "more houses" is not the answer. The goal must be more of the right homes, of the right tenures, in the right places, supported by the right amenities.

Corresponding Recommendation: 

• The Government’s monitoring and evaluation framework must track nuanced outcomes beyond supply numbers. It should incorporate metrics on housing choice, tenure security, quality of life, and satisfaction with available options—data that can be captured through longitudinal studies like the NZ Housing Survey.

Conclusion

The GPS-HUD 2025 provides a solid foundation by correctly identifying the problems within New Zealand's housing system. The challenge, and the measure of this Government's success, will be its willingness to move from words to bold, decisive action.

A truly adaptive and responsive system requires more than just policy statements; it requires innovative funding mechanisms that create a national housing asset base, clear definitions and delivery models for affordability, and a commitment to genuine, long-term partnerships.

The Urban Advisory stands ready to work with the Government to help design and implement these solutions, ensuring that the vision of a thriving Aotearoa where everyone has a place to call home becomes a reality and welcomes further discussion about the impact our proprietary data could have on the government's ability to create fit for purpose policy.

Sincerely,

The Urban Advisory

The Urban Advisory have announced an exciting opportunity for January 2026. Funded by a Callaghan Grant, a 10-12 week internship is available for a motivated data science or software engineering student to contribute to an exciting R&D project.

Below are the details of the position available:

About The Urban Advisory (TUA)

The Urban Advisory (TUA) is a dynamic urban strategy consultancy established in 2016, dedicated to creating healthier and more equitable communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. We operate at the intersection of research, policy, design, and delivery, and are currently pivoting to be more technology-focused. Our R&D efforts include advancing mixed-tenure housing models, developing culturally responsive frameworks for Māori and Pacific housing, and innovating precinct-scale urban regeneration strategies. We are building an interactive dashboard platform to inform decision-making about housing across public and private sector clients. This internship is funded by a Callaghan Grant.

Internship Overview

This 10-12 week (400 hours @ $30/hr) summer internship offers a unique opportunity for a motivated data science or software engineering student to contribute to an exciting R&D project. The intern will play a crucial role in developing a prototype interactive dashboard that maps nationwide housing demand over time. This platform will integrate data from TUA's New Zealand Housing Survey with other key housing datasets to generate actionable insights for councils and developers, supporting evidence-based decision-making related to housing strategy, spatial planning, and infrastructure investment.

The internship is based is TUA's Auckland office off Symonds Street.

‍Key Responsibilities‍

Working alongside our Managing Director’s and other team members, the intern will:

Data Acquisition and Preparation

• Access, review, clean, and preprocess diverse datasets from sources such as the New Zealand Housing Survey, Stats NZ (Census, housing statistics), CoreLogic (property values, sales), REINZ (rental trends), and Council housing data.
• Identify and implement modes of automation to draw in and code data.
• Develop scripts (in Python/R or similar) to merge disparate datasets and ensure data consistency.

Dashboard Design and Development

• Contribute to the design and development of the interactive dashboard prototype, including selecting suitable platforms.
• Design and implement key visualisations (charts, graphs, maps) to effectively convey housing demand findings, including housing satisfaction, affordability strain, housing aspirations, and barriers to homeownership.
• Develop interactive features such as filters, drill-downs, and geographic mapping.

Testing, Refinement, and Documentation

• Participate in functional and performance testing of the dashboard prototype.
• Refine the dashboard based on user feedback from potential end-users.
• Document the dashboard architecture, data sources, integration methodology, and user guide.
  

Skills and Experience

• Currently enrolled in a Data Science, Software Engineering, or a similar degree program.
• Post-graduate level preferred but undergraduate considered based on skill-level.
• Strong understanding of data analysis and statistical interpretation.
• Proficiency in programming languages (R or Python preferred).
• Experience or strong interest in data visualization and dashboard development.
• Familiarity with UI/UX design principles is a plus.
• Creative and critical thinking, with strong problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
  

Learning Outcomes & Benefits for the Intern

• Gain real-world experience in urban analytics.
• Develop advanced skills in data integration and dashboard development.
• Contribute to a portfolio-ready product with tangible policy impact.
• Be mentored by leading researchers with doctoral expertise in housing and urban development.
• Enhance problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills within a professional R&D environment.
• Contribute to innovative housing strategy in Aotearoa, supporting TUA's pivot towards a more technology-focused approach.
  

Application Process

Interested candidates should submit their CV and a cover letter outlining their relevant experience and interest in this specific project to info@theurbanadvisory.com. Applicants via LinkedIn will not be considered.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis throughout October. The successful applicant will be notified in the first week of November. The internship will commence in January 2026.

TUA's Managing Director, Greer O'Donnell, speaks about her visits to the UK, Europe and US with government officials and international delegates to explore how these models are delivered, their impact on the health and wellbeing of communities, and how to grow the New Zealand intermediate housing market, with support from central and local government.
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TUA's Managing Director Natalie Allen collaborated with The Bridge's George Hulbert to discuss Paradigm Shifts in ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) as part of the Keystone Talks series.

Looking at the broader picture, Natalie and George discuss how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) are affecting us as a nation and define what this looks like in our daily work practices. With the support of compelling case studies, the talk covers thinking around converting ESG into core principles in your company’s operating process, regenerative thinking and creating an outcomes framework with flexible and workable KPIs and measures.
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We often forget that we already have a great example of what precinct delivery looks like at scale in NZ. 15 years on and most people will be quick to tell you how great Christchurch is (the population growth supports this!). Don’t get me wrong, it is not perfect, and we learnt a lot about what not to do, but the thinking that underpins the rebuild was sound, and still applicable today.

I dug back into the archives with the view of doing a strategic review of the Christchurch Blueprint Precinct Programme. So, where did we start 15 years ago that led to the vibrant and active city we see today? The initial work we did with Cameron Partners had three purposes:

• Evaluate the strategic merits of Christchurch’s precinct-based rebuild post-earthquake.
• Defined precincts as micro-scale economic clusters with unique offerings.
• Assessed economic benefits, success factors, and risks.

The precincts I refer covered the six key areas of development in Christchurch:

1. Health Precinct
2. Innovation Precinct
3. Justice Precinct
4. Convention Centre Precinct
5. Retail Precinct
6. Performing Arts Precinct

Each precinct was considered in terms of:

• Strategic intent
• SWOT analysis
• Expected benefits
• Success factors (what would it take to make the precincts work)
• Degree of specialisation and coordination between the precincts to ensure the programme benefits were achieved (each precinct on its own was only part of the puzzle to rebuild the economy, urban form and social fabric)

The key themes, or relevant points to note, that emerged from the first phase of work included:

• The underlying purpose related to Agglomeration Benefits: Co-location fosters innovation, productivity, and economic growth.
• There were fundamentals Precinct Success Factors: All of the precincts would require effective market analysis, stakeholder engagement, leadership, infrastructure, and collaboration.
• There had to be a clear and consistent Strategic Framework that was applied, and government investment to anchor each precinct: Precincts aim to attract businesses, achieve efficiencies, and reshape Christchurch’s economic geography. The urban form is important, and high quality public realm alongside core social infrastructure should be funded by the government as a catalyst for private sector investment to follow.

The framework for progressing the development of each precinct included:

• Strategic Goals: Objectives driving the precinct programme.
• Benefits: Economic and social outcomes expected from precinct development.
• Success Factors: Critical elements needed to ensure precinct success.

Each layer builds on the previous, showing how precincts are designed to achieve strategic goals, which in turn generate benefits, all supported by foundational success factors.

The Blueprint Precinct Analysis provided detailed evaluations of six key precincts in Christchurch’s post-earthquake rebuild strategy. Here's a summary of what we thought each precinct would achieve, the benefits of achieving them, the risks associated with its delivery and the critical success factors required to ensure they could live up to the expectations we set for them!

Health Precinct

• Purpose: Co-locate health education, research, and service delivery near Christchurch Hospital.
• Benefits: Infrastructure/resource sharing, knowledge spillovers, potential for specialisation.
• Risks: Demand uncertainty, unclear coordination, competition from other precincts.
• Success Factors: Strong market demand, private sector involvement, infrastructure design, partnerships with academic institutions.

Innovation Precinct

• Purpose: Focus on ICT and other innovative sectors; attract startups and research institutions.
• Benefits: High potential for knowledge spillovers, collaboration, and productivity gains.
• Risks: Unverified demand, high rent costs, lack of coordination, competition from other cities.
• Success Factors: Clear strategy, public/private champions, robust business case, social infrastructure to support collaboration.

Justice Precinct

• Purpose: Co-locate justice and emergency services to improve operational efficiency.
• Benefits: Resource sharing, logistical efficiencies, improved coordination.
• Risks: Governance and cooperation challenges.
• Success Factors: Strong public sector leadership, clear strategy, infrastructure design.

Convention Centre Precinct

• Purpose: Create a landmark civic asset to attract conventions and tourism.
• Benefits: Economic stimulus, amenity enhancement, investment signalling.
• Risks: Commercial viability, demand uncertainty, competition.
• Success Factors: Government support, partnerships, infrastructure quality, strategic integration with surrounding areas.

Retail Precinct

• Purpose: Revitalise central city retail, enhance amenity, and attract residents.
• Benefits: Comparison shopping, vibrancy, economic stimulus.
• Risks: Fragmented land ownership, demand shifts (e.g. online shopping), design challenges.
• Success Factors: Market alignment, private sector leadership, master planning, infrastructure integration.

Performing Arts Precinct

• Purpose: Support arts and culture, enhance city vibrancy and amenity.
• Benefits: Creative synergy, community engagement, cultural identity.
• Risks: Commercial viability, demand uncertainty, limited investment impact.
• Success Factors: Clear strategy, partnerships, infrastructure sharing, governance structure.

In addition to the precincts, there were several frames, one being the residential eastern border of the city, the second bordering the southern side of the city now a creative and hospitality hub, and the third following the Avon River along the western and northern sides of the city. The value of public realm amenity deserves its own article, so not covered in detail here.

So how much progress has been made in the last 15 years? Here’s a very high level overview of the current status of each of the six Christchurch Blueprint Precincts based on the latest available sources:

Health Precinct (Te Papa Hauora)

• Status: Operational and evolving.
• Progress: The precinct has become a hub integrating healthcare, research, education, and industry. Partners include Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury, University of Otago, University of Canterbury, and Ara Institute.
• Initiatives: Focus on population health, innovation, and collaboration. Infrastructure improvements like bus shelters are underway to enhance accessibility.

Innovation Precinct

• Status: Partially developed, with mixed progress.
• Progress: Anchor tenants like Vodafone and Kathmandu have established headquarters. Hospitality and retail venues are active, but some areas remain underdeveloped.
• Challenges: Vacant lots and slow development in some blocks. Full connectivity of laneways and public squares is still pending.

Justice Precinct

• Status: Fully operational since 2018.
• Progress: A $300 million project housing all justice and emergency services in one location. Includes Ministry of Justice, Police, Corrections, Fire and Emergency NZ, and Civil Defence.
• Impact: Largest multi-agency government co-location project in NZ history. Designed to improve collaboration and emergency response coordination.

Convention Centre Precinct (Te Pae)

• Status: Open and active since December 2021.
• Progress: Te Pae is a world-class venue hosting national and international events. Features include a 1,400-seat auditorium, exhibition halls, and meeting rooms.
• Design: Inspired by Canterbury’s braided rivers and Māori cultural narratives. Managed by ASM Global, with strong operational performance.

Retail Precinct

• Status: Largely developed, with ongoing enhancements.
• Progress: Key developments like The Crossing and The Terrace are complete or nearing completion. Retail and hospitality businesses are active, though some gaps remain.
• Future Plans: A new mixed-use precinct called “Downtown Christchurch” is planned to further transform the area, with construction expected to begin in 2026.

Performing Arts Precinct

• Status: Partially developed, with new proposals underway.
• Progress: Includes the restored Isaac Theatre Royal, The Piano venue, and the Court Theatre (under construction). A vacant site on Gloucester St is open for proposals.
• Future Vision: Ideas include a public outdoor theatre hub (“The Hexagon”) and flexible public spaces. Council is seeking development proposals to enhance the precinct.

Christchurch is not perfect, ask anyone involved in the delivery of these major project! Getting the projects designed, funded and procured, took patience resilience and lot of hard work, and there are still elements that have not been delivered. However, no one expected that this scale of urban renewal would be complete within two development cycles, after all urban regeneration takes time.

A note on the residential aspect of the city centre: While the residential development and higher density apartment dwellings have been slower to eventuate than the vast amount of greenfields development at the periphery of the city (which arguably has kept house prices affordable but cannibalized the residential opportunity in the central city), fast forward 15 years at the eastern frame comprising a 7.7-hectare redevelopment forming the eastern edge of the CBD with several residential precincts of its own.  The Avon offers green city living near the river and Margaret Mahy Playground, Latimer; more classical urban living with heritage buildings and Lichfield end with more creative, industrial-style lofts and warehouse conversions. The area features a linear park spine, diverse residential typologies, and integration with existing structures.

In summary, from a high level perspective, these projects have largely been successful (although no formal evaluation of their benefits realisation frameworks has been undertaken, or if it has, it has not been made public). We understand that the convention center has exceeded utilisation rates and occupancy is growing year on year. The performing arts precinct Piano development is the same. These are now places that people frequent and cafes and bars are plentiful. When you move around Christchurch it is busy and the feeling of possibility is evident in the new developments that we see coming online; the commercial development pipeline is strong. As of May 2025, Christchurch has 35 active commercial projects underway or planned, according to CBRE’s New Development Monitor. Industrial: 71% of new development (101,000m²), led by Hornby, Rolleston, and Middleton, Retail: 17% (24,000m²), Office: 12% (17,000m²). In summary there is strong growth in industrial and mixed-use developments across the city.

Arguably, the precincts have played their role, in shifting the economic geography of the city catalysing private sector investment into the ongoing development of Christchurch city.

This methodology for urban regeneration projects offers a flexible, collaborative, and iterative advisory approach. It's designed to leverage existing foundational work, even if completed in silos, and provides a clear pathway to advance projects that may have stalled due to funding constraints or the inherent inflexibility of traditional local government processes in enabling comprehensive regeneration.

This outlined methodology is designed to be highly accessible and cost-effective, enabling organizations to leverage existing internal resources and staff. Crucially, it operates within established decision-making processes, ensuring compliance and smooth integration. Presented at a high level, these steps provide actionable advice for navigating the complexities of urban regeneration and renewal, particularly within established areas, to achieve successful implementation.

This approach is structured around several key phases, acknowledging that much of the work will overlap, and may already exist, rather than being strictly sequential:

1. Establishment: This initial phase is crucial for building strong working relationships with key decision-makers and stakeholders. It involves understanding the project context, confirming the scope, and defining what success looks like. Key activities include kick-off workshops, establishing project governance, determining a baseline for subsequent steps, and initiating a comprehensive engagement strategy.
2. Investigation: This phase centers on a critical review of existing masterplans or strategic documents, particularly their assumptions regarding land values and overall viability in the current market. It seeks to clarify whether further master planning will be public or market-led and acknowledges that prior assumptions may need revisiting due to evolving conditions. Preliminary due diligence will be conducted to establish achievable outcomes, connecting the regeneration project with wider developments in the area. A draft engagement plan, including key messages, will also be developed.
3. Early Engagement: This involves immediate engagement with Māori partners (Iwi/Mana Whenua) and other crucial steering groups. It also includes initial market sounding to gauge interest once the strategic intent and decision frameworks are confirmed. This early engagement is critical for securing social license and managing expectations, particularly given potential "project fatigue" among the community and stakeholders.
4. Develop a Precinct Delivery (Outline) Plan: This phase focuses on clarifying the project's fit within central, regional, and local strategies and priorities. It includes options development, assessing scenarios like public sector-led versus private sector/market-led approaches, and initial commercial assessments and costings. A blueprint will be created to define the public sector's role and the intended space for the private sector, identifying co-investment and risk-sharing models. The methodology acknowledges that funding for public realm and capital works may not be solely achievable through increased land values and that traditional business case approaches may not suffice for complex regeneration.
5. Implementation (and Partnerships) Plan Development: The team will work alongside the relevant authorities to develop an implementation plan that articulates the ongoing work required to deliver the agree upon programme, potentially including a high-level commercial and financial strategy (if enough information exists, or there is the funding to support this at this stage in the process).
6. Revised Project Delivery Plan: The culmination of the advisory services will be the development of a revised project plan based on the insights and strategies developed throughout the preceding phases, providing a clear roadmap for the future.

Throughout these phases, the methodology emphasises several core principles:

• Collaboration: A strong emphasis is placed on working alongside project staff and stakeholders, fostering capability building and knowledge transfer to ensure enduring outcomes and sustainable development.
• Adaptability: The approach acknowledges that urban development is not linear and requires flexibility to navigate political cycles, local government processes, and evolving market conditions.
• Holistic View: The methodology integrates commercial advisory, project delivery, engagement with diverse groups, and an understanding of other critical industries such as the civic, arts, cultural, and creative industries, as an example. It aims to marry ambition with on-the-ground realities, using an evidence-based approach to ensure comprehensive solutions.
• Risk Mitigation: Various market, macroeconomic, process, and budget risks are identified, with proposed mitigation strategies such as comprehensive cost planning, risk workshops, value engineering, and strategic procurement to safeguard the project's success.
• Authentic Engagement: There is a commitment to authentic engagement with Māori partners and the wider community, ensuring their inclusion and placing tangata whenua and the creative arts and cultural sectors at the center of the program's design and delivery.

The overall methodology reflects a practical, experienced-based approach to complex urban regeneration, aiming to provide the necessary confidence, certainty, and clarity needed to successfully design and implement a defensible programme of work that will help to deliver the regeneration outcomes, which are so often sought but very rarely delivered.

In the world of city-making, the term precinct is gaining traction—but what does it actually mean?

A precinct is more than just a geographic slice of a city. It’s a defined area—often a neighborhood, district, or cluster of blocks—where land use, infrastructure, and community needs intersect. Think of it as the “sweet spot” between individual buildings and the whole city: large enough to enable meaningful planning, but small enough to tailor solutions to local context.

So, why plan at the precinct level?

Integrated Design: Precincts allow agencies and the private sector to coordinate transport, housing, public space, and sustainability initiatives holistically—not in silos.

Community Impact: Localised planning means better alignment with the needs, identity, and aspirations of the people who live and work there.

Scalable Innovation: Precincts are ideal testbeds for emerging technologies, for example smart city tech, green infrastructure, and new mobility solutions—before scaling city-wide.

Resilience & Sustainability: Climate adaptation, energy efficiency, and circular economy strategies are more effective when applied at a precinct scale.

Urban development isn’t just about buildings—it’s about creating vibrant, connected, and resilient places. Precinct-level thinking helps us do just that.

So how to we deliver defined areas where innovation, community, and infrastructure converge. It requires vision, strategy, and collaboration.

Here’s what matters most:

Objective Market Analysis & Early Engagement Precinct planning must be grounded in robust market analysis and early stakeholder engagement. Engaging potential developers and tenants helps verify demand and shape expectations from the outset.

A Clear, Shared Vision Precincts evolve along spectrums of specialisation and coordination. Defining where a precinct sits on these spectrums supports the development of a compelling vision, mission, and strategy.

Government Support & Championing Precincts may be led by the private sector (“bottom up”) or government (“top down”). Governments play a vital role—especially where risk is high—by promoting innovation, providing funding, offering incentives, and even acting as anchor tenants. But caution is needed: research warns against governments attempting to create highly specialised Greenfield clusters without strong foundations.

Private Sector Investment Regardless of who initiates the precinct, success hinges on strong private sector support. Boston’s Innovation District and Barcelona@22 are prime examples—government-initiated, but largely delivered through private investment.

Clear & Strong Leadership Whether from government or industry, successful precincts are driven by clear leadership from a dedicated organisation or coalition.

High-Quality, Innovative Design Precincts must be designed to foster collaboration and community. Shared infrastructure, informal meeting spaces, and mixed-use environments are key. Master planning and policy can help embed quality and connectivity. The planning rules should then be used to enable the design outcomes, rather than design been driven by rigid planning requirements!

Deliberate Collaboration Efforts Proximity alone doesn’t guarantee interaction. Precincts need ongoing, intentional efforts to build trust, visibility, and cooperation among participants.

Academic Partnerships Universities bring knowledge, talent, and research capability. Their active involvement—seen in Boston, Barcelona, and East London—can be a game-changer for driving innovative precincts.

Precincts aren’t just places—they’re ecosystems. And building them well means aligning vision, investment, design, and leadership to create something truly transformative.

We are delighted to announce our newest member of the 2025 TUA team, Amy Te Maro (Ngāti Porou).

Amy joins us from Te Whanganui-ā-Tara, Wellington, where she was a Graduate Interior and Indigenous Designer with experience in landscape architecture, urban design and cultural design advisory, her mahi focuses on working with communities, understanding the layers of whakapapa, and expressing these narratives within urban spaces.

Amy is passionate about kaupapa Māori design, and she is always striving to create better outcomes for and with Māori, which is something that has always been important to us here at TUA, too. Her experience maintaining relationships with whānau Māori and holding space for genuine engagement is going to be invaluable for us and our clients - we can’t wait to introduce her to you!‍

"Precinct delivery" or "integrated transport and urban development" are hot topics, especially as leaders question if we've truly leveraged the CRL's potential.

I recently revisited the Precinct Delivery Strategy that guided the Christchurch Rebuild—an entire city rebuilt through integrated precincts, anchored by public infrastructure investment. This single page has been foundational to my career, offering a clear understanding of HOW to do integrated precinct delivery. It even inspired the core offering at The Urban Advisory (something that Dr Natalie Allen and I have been reflecting on, and making strategic decisions to return to).

I'm sharing this to highlight that this thinking isn't new; we don't need to reinvent the wheel. The expertise is out there. As we plan for the next decade of TUA, we continue to see urban strategy as the answer.

While we are obviously biased (I am sure those writing business cases and developing masterplans think they have the answer, too), this diagram clearly shows that public and private sectors collaborating for precinct delivery is complex, requiring innovative thinkers and doers - i.e. your friendly urban strategist!

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BACKGROUND

Large-scale regeneration programmes often operate under comprehensive frameworks aimed at long-term, successful urban revitalisation. These programmes typically involve redesigning neighbourhoods, revitalising local centres, upgrading public amenities, and providing healthy homes.

Such programmes generally align with a number of strategic outcomes for central and local government, including:

• Delivering affordable housing in an environment of constrained supply
• Improving the well-being of public housing tenants while addressing the renewal liability attached to existing housing stock
• Improving amenities, community infrastructure, and connectivity in a way that benefits the wellbeing of all residents
• Building Community resilience.

The business case for such programmes identifies key Investment Objectives and anticipated Benefits, such as:

• Better Housing choices
• Housing quality is future-proofed
• Safer neighbourhoods with high quality amenity
• Prosperous and Resilient Economy and Community

These objectives are generally reflected in Master Plans:

• Collaboration and Partnership underpins delivery
• The area should be recognised as a great place to live
• Community-specific outcomes must be prioritised
• Health and Wellbeing outcomes must be enhanced
• Ecological and Environmental restoration are priorities
• A range of housing options must be made available to the community
• Infrastructure and service delivery must address community and environmental needs
• High quality education must be available locally
• Economic wellbeing should be advanced through transition and diversification into new sectors
• It should also leverage a creative and inclusive community

If we are doing a good job, we might even create an Outcomes Monitoring and Evaluation Framework that includes key performance indicators for each objective.

However, we very rarely deliver on all of the above, and in many instances we don’t deliver on very much at all. Why not?
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TURNING INTENT INTO A PARTNERSHIP FRAMEWORK

Regeneration programmes involve a significant number of stakeholders across central government, local government, iwi, community groups, not-for-profits, service providers, and the private sector. These are usually identified in stakeholder and governance maps within strategic documents.

However to effectively engage the collective interests, resources, and ambitions of this stakeholder group, a Communications and Engagement Framework is usually used. This is predicated on the idea that effective stakeholder engagement is a ‘whole of project’ commitment, often built off existing successful precedents. This framework is effective in driving the programme through the initiation, definition, business case, and framework planning phases.

However…

A common challenge for large-scale regeneration programmes is the transition of approved BC's, Master-plans and Strategic Frameworks into effective implementation (i.e. built outcomes and happier people that earn more because we have grown the economy and created opportunity). In a business case sense, this is where the Strategic, Economic, and Financial cases conclude, and the Commercial and Management cases begin. The emphasis also shifts from Stakeholder Engagement to Market Engagement, even as effective communication remains a critical component of the overall work program.

Where area-based Projects have access to land, funding, and regulatory powers, the ability to manage this change from defining and enabling outcomes to pursuing outcomes can be relatively seamless. While effective and efficient market engagement is still critical in managing process, development, and delivery risk, this is easier to achieve when presenting as a single client. Maintaining strong alignment with those stakeholders identified as key delivery partners in the implementation phase is also crucial.

In areas where the implementation plan relies on a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary framework seeking to unlock aligned and coordinated decisions and actions across the public, private, financial, community, and household sectors, the challenges are much greater. Governance arrangements may reflect a commitment to programme outcomes but often grapple with decisions made in an individual entity context, with distinct decision-making processes, information sets, and competing priorities.

External factors, such as unprecedented economic impacts (e.g., negative shocks to incomes, demand, and supply chains), can amplify these challenges.

However, as economies move through various stages of recovery and re-opening, it often becomes clear that the Public Sector will have a stronger presence. In doing so, it will also hold a much stronger risk profile, as evidenced by economic, monetary, and financial policy responses.

Within this scenario, it is critical that the Public Sector also provides itself with exit strategies. Over time, it is important that the private and community sectors re-establish themselves at the heart of the economy. Developing those exit strategies requires a strong partnership framework.
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THE PARTNERSHIP PLAN

The concept of stakeholder engagement as a ‘whole of project’ concept provides for varying degrees of participation as the regeneration programme moves from initiation to delivery. If a key principle of engagement is aligning stakeholders around a common vision and strategic objectives, then the intended outcome is not just strengthening the value proposition, but also the willingness to pay.

A Partnership Plan represents the point at which an initiative becomes transactional. This is essentially where the intention is to transition from participation to commitment – across all forms of financial, natural, social, human, and manufactured capital. It is also intended to ultimately take a contractual form, which requires a clear strategy, process, and commitment of resources to achieve that. The impact cuts across the organisation in three ways:

• Strategic – the ability to seek solutions; reconcile dilemmas; innovate and develop new business ideas
• Operational - identify emerging issues; a clear understanding of pressure points; access external expertise
• Risk – be conscious of reputation risk and the social license to operate; explore opportunities for cost mitigation, conflict mitigation, and regulatory efficiency

The complexities of a large-scale regeneration program are often reflected in existing commitments by public development entities to work in partnership with developers, indigenous groups (where applicable), local and central government, community housing providers, and non-profit organizations to achieve their public housing and development roles. Such entities also seek to support industry transformation and leverage private sector expertise, capability, and investment, particularly when delivering affordable and market-priced housing.

In terms of what a public development entity brings to the table in enabling successful long-term regeneration, it typically commits to:

• Coordinate the urban development work of multiple agencies
• Support others to take the lead on urban development projects
• Unlock investment for urban development projects
• Take a lead role in delivery itself, for example, where projects are particularly complex.

A Partnership Plan is intended to sit alongside existing Stakeholder, Communications, and Marketing strategies but with the intention of migrating participation into commitments. This will include looking to engage counterparties who may not have had visibility of the Programme during the Project Definition and Approvals phase.

The key objectives of such a Plan are to:

• Identify the opportunities of the regeneration programme which require strategic partnerships
• Identify the key goals for those partnerships in enabling a co-ordinated implementation of the regeneration plan
• Identify what steps are required to secure the level of commitment from each partner, and the form of that commitment
• Commence the process of engaging with the wider market on the Project, enabling market participants to consider potential opportunities, risks, and solutions that will ultimately lead to improved outcomes.

The Regeneration Framework identifies the key principles and commitments under which the programme's Strategic Partners have agreed to work together.

Over time, the nature of those commitments will become more granular. This includes those sought from public sector entities, landowners, the financial sector, developers, businesses, asset investors, and ultimately individual households. The process of advancing that will involve degrees of complexity but with the overarching intention of both confirming the partners’ respective commitments and informing the market of intentions in order to develop solutions together.

We’d like to introduce you to Jack, our newest member of team TUA.

Jack joins us from the UK where he was an Associate Director in JLL’s Strategic Development Consulting team. Working across both the London and Regional businesses Jack advised public and private sector clients on some of the UK’s most high-profile and complex regeneration projects such as:

• Arden Cross Development Partner Selection - selection of Muse as development partner for a £3.2bn 346-acre site centred around the new HS2 interchange.
• Defence Infrastructure Organisation - masterplanning, site promotion and delivery strategies across numerous complex sites earmarked for disposal by the MOD.
• University of Southampton - strategic advice to UoS on the delivery of new student housing to support the University’s growth plans.
• Basingstoke and Deane District Council - strategic advice across the Council’s property and development portfolio.
• Network Rail - strategic advice across 40 train stations across the south coast focused on enabling transit oriented development.

With a broad and specialised skillset, honed through this experience managing multi-disciplinary teams to create masterplans with delivery strategies, Jack's appointment further strengthens TUA's capabilities in mixed-use development and precinct delivery as part of our commitment to creating thriving urban environments. 

“I am incredibly excited to be joining The Urban Advisory,” says Jack. “It's inspiring to work alongside thought-leaders like Natalie and Greer who are truly committed to doing things differently and challenging the status quo in urban development. I'm eager to contribute my experience to help catalyse our approach to large-scale, mixed-use development projects, through entrepreneurial public and private sector partnerships.”

Away from the office, Jack grew up on the occasionally sunny shores of Bognor Regis in the UK where he was 1st XV captain for Bognor RFC. Jack took up refereeing after he finished playing and was a part-time referee for the RFU National League Match Official Associates. He has recently joined North Harbour Referees Association and can be found on the pitches of the North Shore most Saturdays.

We’re excited to have Jack on board; he’s already hit the ground running, applying his invaluable experience to our shores here in Aotearoa. Welcome, Jack!

As part of our commitment to diversifying the housing system, we’re committee members for The Housing Innovation Society (This) - we share our time and resources to support their mission of “bringing collective housing into the mainstream in Aotearoa”.

We’re excited to share the news of their bi-annual CoHo Hui happening this April 15-17, in Ōtautahi Christchurch!

This year’s CoHo Hui theme is “The Future of Housing”, which is in line with the special issue journal with Emerald Publishing, that will contain the best and most relevant papers that are submitted to the conference, and others from a wide range of academics.

A brilliant lineup of speakers have been announced; they’ll all bring new knowledge and perspective to Aotearoa, which will inform the collective housing movement here.

Tickets and registration is happening now. Go to their website for more details!

We were delighted to hear that we’ve been selected as one of the “Next 95” by the Sustainable Business Network!

The list recognises innovators and entrepreneurs progressing sustainable business in Aotearoa. We’re honoured to be among these other incredible businesses and organisations!

Ngā mihi nui Sustainable Business Network for your inspiring mahi.

Asylum 2023: Rethinking Our Future Neighbourhoods is out now!

Guest edited by Dr Natalie Allen and Devon Sanson from TUA, the journal published by Unitec ePress contains 12 practitioner and peer-reviewed academic articles.

We have drawn together articles that explore ways to address our social, cultural and environmental challenges, opportunities for decolonisation what embracing citizen-centric approaches to designing our neighbourhoods might look like, and how the built-environment professions might work together in new ways to deliver these wellbeing outcomes. The issue includes new, young voices, and some less-than-conventional ideas. The combination of peer-reviewed and practitioner articles asks the reader to imagine what amight be, and challenge their own preconceptions.

It was great to celebrate the launch of the journal with Unitec | Te Pūkenga at their architecture gradshow last week, along with some of the authors who attended. Thank you to Unitec for giving us this platform, and to each of the authors for making this such a great edition.

We encourage you to read and absorb the edition, and let us know what you think!

Natalie, Greer, and the whole team at The Urban Advisory have been putting in hard mahi to launch something pretty special, New Zealand’s Housing Survey!

New Zealand’s Housing Survey is the culmination of many years of work in the housing sector; researching housing, developing housing strategies and housing needs assessments, and working with different groups to deliver housing that meets their unique needs. We're stoked to be able to share what we've learned!

Through this unique housing survey we will be able to help to build awareness around how people live, want to live and what barriers are in the way to achieving their housing aspirations, plugging a critical gap in the information that is needed for meaningful decision making. New Zealand’s Housing Survey results will provide the evidence that's been missing about the kind of housing people want and need and how this is different from what is currently available to them.

We hope that government agencies, developers, councils, community providers, iwi and hapū, researchers, social scientists and many others will find this information useful.

Help us spread the word, take and share the survey here, or by clicking the button below.