Six Storey Love Song
THE NATIONAL POLICY STATEMENT ON Urban Development (NPS-UD) contains a lot of policy wonkery but its big-ticket item is its mandate for our bigger cities that enables high-density development near train stations, CBDs and commercial centres. This mandate means councils in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch must rezone land in these locations with maximum building height rules of six storeys (or higher, if councils choose).1
It’s not clear when reading the NPS-UD and supporting documentation as to the basis for six storeys. Background reports mention a range of benefits of concentrating density in areas of high demand and near centres and public transport.
I’ve heard it said that six storeys is the maximum building height for retaining human scale; however, this misconstrues what human scale is. If we turn to the literature, then four or possibly five storeys are considered the upper limit for a building size that is not overly dominant (at least in residential areas and urban villages), and within which a reasonable relationship between people in buildings and those on the street can be attained.2
Another good reason to promote density near train stations is to support public transport and reduce reliance on car transport, and the NPS-UD alludes to this. There is a large amount of literature on this topic and there is a well-established link between density and transport; however, international authorities on this subject matter, including Robert Cervero and Reid Ewing, show that there is not a linear relationship
