The Future Development Strategy for all Councils
And, why you should care
Do you want the future housing developments in your area to look like the picture on the left or the right?
Now that the country’s new local government Councillors are elected and take up their duties this week, it’s an important time as a Councillor, Council staff and/or as a resident in your Council area, to get really informed about what the Future Development Strategy (FDS) is that guides the development of your city or region for the next 30 years and have a say about it.
The FDS says where new housing is to be built, what roading and infrastructure will be developed, how emissions will be reduced, and other really important future decisions that have a big impact and that can’t be reversed if we do it wrong.
When it comes to housing development, it’s important to not get stuck into an either-or mode of thinking. Either we do infill urban intensification, ending up with squished and higgledy-piggledy housing arrangements or we don’t so our city centres look the same but with no more room for more residents. We need to move to both/and thinking.
It’s actually the way we design the infill that makes all the difference and the principles that guide that design. In the picture on the right above, the design of the neighbourhood has as many houses as the neighbourhood beside it but with 50% more green space. It accomplishes this through smart design of clustering homes and keeping cars to the perimeter.
The same goes for our productive rural areas where the FDS plans to put at least 50% of new housing. If we consider a neighbourhood design called an Agrihood, then we can put people close to the agricultural activity that benefits them—they can get their food fresher, without the transport, and agriculture jobs can become available through intensifying the agricultural activities around the homes.