Auckland desperately needs homes. Under thirties are giving up on finding homes while politicians promise solutions. So, when the government ordered Auckland Council to allow taller buildings – up to six stories – it looked like progress. Finally, more flats! 

The Council unveiled shiny maps showing where six-storey buildings could sprout across the city. Politicians smiled for the cameras. Problem solved, right? 

Not quite. 

Six storeys is precisely the wrong height. Three-storey buildings are cheap. Just stairs. No lifts needed. Twelve-storey towers are profitable because they spread the cost of lifts and fire systems across many flats. But six storeys? Too short to justify expensive lifts, too tall for stairs alone. Developers call it the ‘dead zone’ where little gets built. 

But wait, it gets better. Council added complications. Want to build above six floors? Your building needs a special base called a ‘podium’ (the tower above this base at around six storeys and up must now be narrower and more set back from this wider podium base) because some Canadian city did it once and it looked nice in photos. This requirement kills more projects. 

Then come the technical games. New rules to preserve sunlight mean most properties would not be allowed to reach six storeys anyway, because of the shadows they cast. They have also invented a 100-metre buffer zone along the coast for ‘flood safety’, even though existing flood rules already cover this. It is like wearing two raincoats in case one gets wet. 

This second layer is a blanket ban that removes development from the most desirable waterfront areas - harbour views, beach access, city proximity - and shoves the ‘replacement’ capacity inland where people are not queuing to build. On paper, the same number of homes stays possible. In reality, prime coastal sites get swapped for the possibility to develop less attractive areas. 

Council deserves credit for consistency: it treats desirability like a disease requiring quarantine. And so, we see a suburb with excellent train links getting less height than another that is further from everything. It is as if they threw darts at a map blindfolded. The randomness is strategic.  

Call it what it is: the dark arts of bureaucratic competence. Council fought government’s housing orders for years. Now, forced to act, they are following the letter of the law whilst strangling its spirit. They have technically allowed more housing and ensured less appears. 

The victims? Everyone under thirty trying to find somewhere to live. The winners? Anyone who already owns property and wants their house values protected. 

An Independent Hearing Panel will review this mess soon. Let us hope they can translate this masterpiece of bureaucratic obstruction into something that builds homes. Otherwise, ‘upzoning’ will be Auckland’s new word for standing still.