Supporting and providing advice to Kāinga Ora

The Kāinga Ora Specified Development Project (SDP) was a process led by Kāinga Ora to facilitate complex urban developments, granting new powers for land acquisition and modifying existing provisions under resource management.

Using two test-case sites, Boffa Miskell was part of a wider project team that assisted Kāinga Ora in creating a set of principles for use in assessing proposed developments

Boffa Miskell was invited to provide urban planning and design, ecology, and landscape planning services for the initial assessment phase of two potential Specified Development Projects (SDP): the Porirua Northern Growth Area and Tauranga Western Corridor.

Client

Kāinga Ora

Location

North Island

Project team

Frazer Baggaley
Marc Baily
Alan Gray
Jos Coolen
Miriam Moore
Shahad Ameed
John Watt

Worked with

WSP
Aurecon
PDP
Envelope
Beca

Project date

2023 - 2023

The concept plan for Tauranga Western Corridor

These two projects were selected for assessment as potential SDPs, representing the first time Kāinga Ora exercised the new urban development powers given to them under the Urban Development Act 2020.  This was the first time that Kāinga Ora had run the SDP process, which required delivering three key features: project objectives, project area, and a governance body.

The Boffa Miskell team adopted a broad scenario-planning approach for stakeholder engagement, leading to a smoother process and positive feedback from Kāinga Ora. Evidence-based research and AI tools were used to define what good future urban design and planning looks like, and how to achieve low-carbon development.

The project team delivered a concept plan for each site, which was assessed against the objectives and principles of the Urban Development Act and other best-practice design principles. The final output was a 'lessons-learned' report and feedback from Kāinga Ora, which highlighted the strengths and areas for improvement in the process.

The Specified Developments Project work was completed in December 2023. Following a change in Government, there remains much uncertainty around the future of the SDP programme and how the new Government may use the Urban Development Act to deliver growth in housing and support greenfield development. 

The concept plan for Porirua Northern Growth Area
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