Plan Change 12 Status
Plan Change 12 – Enabling Housing Supply was made operative on 20 December 2024 in accordance with the First Schedule of the RMA. The plan change has been incorporated into the Operative District Plan.
Hamilton City Council notified Plan Change 12 on 20 August 2022 to December 2022 for submissions. Council’s decision accepting the Commissioner’s recommendations was notified on 20 December 2024.
What does Plan Change 12 cover?
Plan Change 12 is Hamilton City Council’s response to central government’s direction (initiated in 2022 and supported by both major parties) to enable increased housing intensification, including an initial direction of a minimum of three homes of up to three storeys on residential sites.
From the outset, Council has been adamant it would propose and advocate for a solution that was Hamilton-appropriate and delivered on considerations such as Te Ture Whaimana o Te Awa o Waikato (Vision and Strategy for the Waikato River), fairness for ratepayers, and balancing the need for housing growth against the city’s infrastructure capacity.
The new rules include:
- High-density housing (six storeys or more) intensification in the walkable catchment (within 800m) of the central city and along Te Rapa Road.
- Medium density housing (up to three units per site to a maximum of 18m without a resource consent) targeted towards zones around Chartwell Shopping Centre and Five Cross Roads and the following corridors:
- between the city and Five Cross Roads (Boundary Road)
- between Five Cross Roads and Chartwell Shopping Centre (Peachgrove/Hukanui roads)
- surrounding Waikato Hospital.
- In the general residential zone, the ‘3x3’ expectation from central government has been pared back, with Plan Change 12 introducing little change from the Operative District Plan, with two units up to 10 metres high allowed per site.
Since 2020, Central Government has reset the rules for how big cities can grow and introduced two pieces of legislation that tells councils how they must make that happen. These are the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) and Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021.
Amongst other things, the new rules requires cities like Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Tauranga and Hamilton to grow up, not just out.
View the proposed plan changes on our e-plan
Read more about the NPS-UD here.
Read more about the Amendment bill here.
The changes set out by Government are not optional
We must change our plan to reflect the new rules. But we’re aiming to do this in a way that respects our environment and the features of our city that are important to us.
Timeline
August 2022
Public notification (and your chance to tell us what you think).
November 2022
Further submissions
February 2023
Joint Opening Hearing
September 2024
Hearing 2 for PC12 is currently scheduled to commence on 4 September 2024 (See Direction #23).
December 2024
Notification of the decision.
Early 2025
Plan change operative and the new rules come into effect.
IHP recommendation
Note: Due to PC12, updates to the numbering and cross-referencing of provisions within the affected chapters may have been omitted. A final check and update of any outstanding numbering and cross-referencing errors will be conducted before the ePlan is updated.
Appendix 6 — PC12—Recommended provisions
Clean change version
Appendices
Chapters
Tracked change version
Appendices
Chapters
Proposed changes
Plan change documentation
Section-42
Section-32
Chapters
Appendices
Commissioner Directions
Directions
Legal-Memos
Minutes
Other-documents
Responses
Joint Witness Statements
Legal Submissions
Legal
Scope
Strategic
Hearing session 1
Proponent evidence
Hearing-evidence
Proponent-Rebuttal-Evidence
Submitter Evidence
Fonterra
Individual-Submissions
Kainga-Ora
Scope-issues
Strategic Hearings
Day-01
Day-02
Day-03
Day-04
Hearing Session 2
Hearing Schedule
Hearing-Schedule
Hearing Sessions
Day-01
Day-02
Day-03
Day-04
Day-05
Day-06
Day-07
Day-08
Legal Submissions
Legal-Submissions-
Proponent evidence
1-Proponent-Evidence
2-Appendix-A-to-all-Proponent-Evidence
3-Supporting-Documentation
4-Supplementary-Evidence
Proponent Rebuttal Evidence
1-Proponent-Rebuttal
2-Appendix-A-to-Proponent-Rebuttal
Submitter Rebuttal Evidence
Submitter Evidence
Adare
Fonterra
Foodstuffs
Individual-Submissions
Kainga-Ora
KiwiRail
Te-Awa-Lakes
WEL
Submissions on Plan Change 12
01-Submissions
02-Further-submissions
Planning provisions – 27 May 2024
1-Chapters
2-Appendices
3-Section-32a-Report
4-Legal-Memo
Take a look
Plan Change 12 – Enabling Housing Supply – Joint Hearing (15 February 2023)
Plan Change 12 – Enabling Housing Supply – Joint Hearing (16 February 2023)
Plan Change 12 – Enabling Housing Supply – Joint Hearing (17 February 2023)
Other related plan changes
Waipā District Council: PC26 Residential Intensification
Waikato District Council: Variation 3 Enabling Housing Supply