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Auckland Council The Auckland Plan

Ki te hanga i ngā pokapū tāone me ngā tiriwā tino pakari

Building strong urban centres and neighbourhoods

In keeping with our commitment to a quality compact urban form, it will be essential that Auckland's centres and neighbourhoods are strong, connected and can flourish.

Centres

Over the next 30 years there will be considerable changes right across Auckland. Ensuring that Auckland creates and retains strong, thriving and resilient centres is vital. A network of centres serves communities from regional through to local level.  This network is reflected in the Auckland Unitary Plan hierarchy of centres.

Centres are at the heart of neighbourhoods and are focal points for the surrounding community. They include a mix of activities and functions, such as retail, commercial and social services, as well as housing, recreation and community facilities.

Auckland's centres are supported by a surrounding (typically residential) area that is within an easy walking distance, usually thought of as 10 minutes.

​Some of our centres currently provide opportunities to maximise investment in infrastructure and support the quality compact approach to urban development. For example, Mt Albert has access to rail and is close to Unitec.

Maximising investment can be achieved by creating higher-density clusters of employment and housing, supported by public transport and other critical services such as schools and hospitals.

Many of these centres are identified in nodes and development areas.  They will be supported to develop and intensify, particularly those that have greater capacity for growth.

Interactive map - Existing urban

You can zoom into areas of the map and click on the icons for more information.

Neighbourhoods

Growth will happen in neighbourhoods too. The Auckland Unitary Plan enables growth throughout most of Auckland's existing urban footprint, and all neighbourhoods are capable of accommodating growth to some extent.

This might be in the form of subdivision, development of previously undeveloped urban land or the redevelopment of existing buildings at higher densities. All are workable options for increasing Auckland's housing stock.

However, there are areas in Auckland that have the potential to achieve higher levels of growth than others. These are identified as development areas. Together with future urban areas they play an important role in Auckland's future growth.

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