15 October 2025. A major law change is being proposed to prevent new housing being built in flood-prone areas.
In 2022, the previous Labour Government introduced Plan Change 78, which altered Auckland’s Unitary Plan to allow most single-house residential sections to be split into three lots, each with a three-storey home. The aim was to boost housing supply and affordability, potentially increasing Auckland’s housing capacity from 900,000 to two million homes. 
However, the rules also permitted intensification within flood-prone areas and banned “downzoning,” meaning land at risk of flooding could not be rezoned to stop inappropriate development. Auckland Council has long been forced to approve such consents if landowners could show they could keep occupants safe. When the Council tried to decline applications, landowners took Council to court – and won.
Now the Coalition Government plans to reverse these provisions through a new Plan Change 120, reverting zoning in flood-risk areas back to one house per property. Building multiple three-storey homes would no longer be permitted as of right and would instead need resource consent under stricter rules.
While the Government still aims for up to two million homes across Auckland, higher-density development will be focused in the central city and along major transport routes. Flood-risk areas would face tougher standards, including higher floor levels and safer evacuation routes, or risk consent refusal altogether.
For example, in the Kumeu/Huapai area – People living in this area criticise Auckland Council for allowing more housing when the traffic is so bad and the river floods. Again, central Government went against the advice of Council and over-ruled the Council, and mandated through law changes the Special Housing Area (SHA’s) were built.
Once more, Council was forced to give resource consents for housing it did not approve of, 
and must to continue to do so for applications within SHA’s.
These new houses increase the impermeable surfaces, increases flood risks of the Kumeu River, slowly increases the size of the flood prone area maps, and adds to the terrible traffic congestion through Kumeu on SH16.
The disastrous combination of law changes to build the SHA’s (National) , along with Plan Change 78 (Labour), and prohibiting Council from downzoning housing in flood prone areas (Labour), has resulted in houses being built without the appropriate protections and infrastructure being in place. This has been devastating for Kumeu/ Huapai and other neighbouring areas.
The Government will not buy back privately owned flood-prone vacant land, as that would be too costly. Instead, such properties would be limited to one home needing to pass far stricter consent controls.
Public consultation on Plan Change 120 runs from November 3 to December 19, with final decisions expected around mid-2027.
This is your opportunity to have your say on whether these flood-zone housing rules should remain — or be made much stricter.
In the meantime, the NZTA under the new Government continue to do road works to improve safety along SH16 and no work to widen it to increase traffic capacity. I continue to push (with community support) for the road to have more lanes built. I will also keep advocating for the use of dynamic-laning (using traffic lights to to change lane directions to ease peak-hour congestion), which again is controlled by NZTA.
You can add your voice by emailing NZTA via this link: https://nzta.govt.nz/contact-us/email-us/other-question-or-feedback .