February 2017 Newsletter

Welcome to our February newsletter,

We hope it has been a busy start to the year for you; it definitely has been for us. Summer has come and gone a few more times than what we would have liked but we are still enjoying the long warm days. With summer providing good working weather we have seen continuing rapid development around Auckland, especially in the North West, all of which has been aided by the advent of the Unitary Plan.

As many of you will know, the Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan has divided the opinions of Aucklanders. So much so that there has been an appeal underway in the Auckland High Court that claims that the panel who developed the Unitary Plan misinterpreted it’s statutory duties when they included the capacity for more than 400,000 new homes to be developed in Auckland over the next 30 years.

On the 13th of February, this was ruled against. Justice Whata ruled that the panel’s approach to the development of the plan was valid using several levels of consultation, reporting and disclosure of the plan including the proposed Unitary Plan document and the use of an independent hearings panel.

After the plan was passed by the Council in August of last year 106 appeals were made, 39 of which were filed in the High Court. Whilst Justice Whata had found the independent hearings panel had failed to apply the legal framework in some instances, the number was very few in the scope of all applications, especially once the matters of upzoning had been ruled out.

This decision has brought the Unitary Plan another step closer to being effective in its full force. Whether or not you support the plan, it is likely to create large changes, many of which we can already see happening in Auckland.

Now that we have all settled into 2017 we look forward to hearing from you in regard to any legal matters we can assist with – personal, business or otherwise.

The Directors

DAVENPORTS WEST LAWYERS LIMITED

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