Auckland upzoned: planning, policy mobility and the complex dynamics of urban housing markets

In 2016 Auckland Council implemented a new planning regime that upzoned approximately 75 per cent of residential land in the city. The scale of this rezoning is significant in international terms and upzoning advocates have sought to position Auckland as an exemplar of the effectiveness of large-scale zoning de-regulation in producing housing supply and, potentially, reducing housing costs. Yet, Auckland continues to have a significant housing affordability problem and has experienced rapid house price increases under the new planning regime. This paper identifies the economic ideas and internationally ‘mobile policy’ dynamics that have helped shape the upzoning regime in Auckland. It critically examines the existing empirical evidence concerning the impacts of upzoning on housing supply and house prices in Auckland and offers an alternative reading of the drivers of housing change. The paper argues that the dominant policy logics used to support upzoning in Auckland, and elsewhere, have myopically focused on housing supply and calls for greater attention to be given to the impacts of housing demand and, in particular, housing developer behaviour. It is argued that mobilising and exporting the Auckland upzoning model is an inherently problematic undertaking.