21st Century (2000–present)

Wellington Urban Growth Plan 2014–43

2014 · New Zealand · Oceania · Transit-oriented urbanism and corridor planning · Planned by Wellington City Council
Wellington Urban Growth Plan: transformational growth areas — CBD growth precincts, suburban growth centres, greenfield growth and the public transport/cycle spine.
Wellington Urban Growth Plan: transformational growth areas — CBD growth precincts, suburban growth centres, greenfield growth and the public transport/cycle spine. · © Wellington City Council — used with credit · Wellington City Council, Wellington Urban Growth Plan 2014–2043 (draft, Transport and Urban Development Committee attachment), p. 35

Core idea

Densification along PT spine

Why it matters

Compact growth in a constrained city

Description

A growth management strategy adopted by Wellington City Council in 2014, setting the direction for the New Zealand capital's development to 2043. Confronted by a geographically constrained harbour setting, the plan directed most new housing into the central city and along a public transport spine running through existing suburban centres, paired with urban regeneration projects and protection of the surrounding green belt.

Significance

The plan exemplifies compact-city and corridor-based planning applied to a small, topographically constrained capital, anticipating New Zealand's later national push for intensification. It fed into ongoing debates about housing affordability, seismic resilience and the pace of densification that culminated in Wellington's contested district plan reviews of the 2020s.

What shaped it

Plans it influenced

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.