‍ ‍Auckland is going up. ‍ ‍

In an act of compromise pretty much no-one is completely happy with, Auckland councillors voted in favour of allowing buildings of up to 15 storeys near transport hubs in central suburbs, and up to six storeys outside a 10-kilometre radius of the CBD. ‍Plan Change 120 has for five years incited passionate debate about the future of Auckland's skyline, eliciting over 10,000 submissions to local boards and iwi authorities across the city. ‍On Tuesday, the plan at last got sign off, meaning taller buildings would be allowed within walking distance from transport hubs, the CBD and other metropolitan centres. ‍Buildings up to 15 storeys high could go up in inner-Auckland suburbs like Kingsland, Mt Eden and Morningside.

Councillors voted in favour of the plan by 17 to five.

Outside of the council chamber, Sally Hughes of the Character Coalition said the group was "deeply disappointed" that councillors did not address its concerns.

"This new hybrid does provide some relief from intensification in areas outside of the 10km circle that the council invented, but they haven't provided any relief for some of those inner suburbs that will really suffer from 15 storey buildings being able to be built on one side of the road when there are special character houses on the other side of the road. That's how crazy the plan is."

‍ ‍

Auckland's intensification plan is a step closer to reality after big compromises were agreed at a marathon council meeting. The Government wants the capacity for homes in Auckland to rise from around 1.2 million to at least 1.4m. There are currently about 620,000 homes in Auckland. Councillors spent five years shaping Plan Change 120 and in a four-hour meeting of the Policy, Planning and Development Committee councillors voted 17-5 to push ahead.

But the Character Coalition, which aims to preserve neighbourhoods with character homes, is less pleased with the outcome. “In some areas it’s so arbitrary, that one side of the street is still protected by the special character area and the other side is not, So you could have this beautiful street the houses on one side and you could have 15 stories apartments on the other side.”

Image: Auckland housing pictured from Mt Eden. RNZ Moring Report. Diego Opatowski. 3 July 2026

Residents of Auckland's leafy central suburbs have come out swinging against a plan that could see 15-storey apartment blocks next to the historic villas and bungalows in places like Mount Eden, Kingsland and Epsom.

Not only did the proposal come under fire for removing the special character status of nearly 500 homes in the area, some residents said with the flood risk it would create a death trap owing to ailing water infrastructure.

This story was corrected on 3 July - it should read 500 special character status homes, not 5000.

Along with more than 20,000 other Aucklanders, I live in what is known as a character home, a house which has been identified for a long time as one of a number of special heritage properties.

These homes are generally built of kauri and are only found in New Zealand.

Under the 2016 Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP), our homes are in Special Character areas (SCAs).

These protect the villa-lined streetscapes of Ponsonby, the bungalows of Mt Eden and the workers’ cottages of Freemans Bay and Grey Lynn and more.

Currently, these properties can’t be pulled down, and owners need a Resource Consent to alter them. The AUP recognises they are unique and that where we live is special.

But late last year Auckland Council changed everything with Plan Change 120, a proposed change to the Unitary Plan required by the Government.

This was to allow capacity for 2,000,000 more housing units for the city.

It would amend the Unitary Plan by removing or reducing many of our SCAs and allowing apartment blocks 15 storeys high in them.

Over the last six months, the Government has reduced that number to 1,400,000 housing units.

Special Character homes, however, have remained a target of this new intensification, with the proposed loss of 4735 of them, reducing the numbers protected from 20,466 to 15,731.

The main losers will be in the Waitemāta, Ōrākei and Albert-Eden local board areas. Some Special Character areas will lose a few houses, while other SCAs will be removed completely.

In 2022, Council estimated that in the Unitary Plan, SCAs covered merely 3.6% of all residential-zoned land and just 0.3% of the council’s total land area (an area of only 14.8km).

Removing these SCAs would dismiss their heritage significance.

They encompass a broad variety of eras, styles, materials, and building use from the city’s history. They are not just any collection of old buildings.

They are living records of Auckland’s development, shaped by waves of migration, economic change, and architectural innovation.

The kauri villas of the late 19th century, the Californian bungalows of the inter-war years, and the modest workers’ cottages tell stories about who we were and how we lived.