National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020

The National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 (NPSUD) was gazetted on 23 July 2020.

It has 8 objectives and 11 policies focused on ensuring that New Zealand’s towns and cities are well-functioning, sustainable, connected urban environments that meet the changing needs of our diverse communities, improving housing availability and affordability and achieving integrated decision-making between urban development, infrastructure and funding, and between local authorities. f2144601-5fb2-44cd-b528-eb9743b31d74

For the purposes of the NPSUD an urban environment is defined as:

Any area of land (regardless of size, and irrespective of local authority or statistical boundaries) that:

(a)    Is, or is intended to be, predominately urban in character; and

(b)    Is, or is intended to be, part of a housing and labour market of at least 10,000 people

This means that an area may seem urban in nature but if does not meet the size threshold then the NPSUD does not apply.  An example of an area where this is a common feature is the Kaipara District.

The NPSUD applies to all local authorities in New Zealand. However it allocates each a Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 status which determines the extent to which many of the requirements in the NPSUD are mandatory or optional, or by when compliance needs to occur. The NPSUD also applies to all planning decisions made by a local authority, which captures both decisions on regional policy statements and on regional and district plans, and on consents, designations, heritage orders, and water conservation orders. 

Key requirements of the NPSUD include:

  • All local authorities must provide sufficient development capacity to meet expected housing demand, and business land demand.   The NPSUD includes criteria that must be met in order for this requirement to be met.
  • Every local authority must monitor (quarterly) demand, supply, price, and affordability for dwellings, the proportion of housing development capacity that has been realised, and available data on business land.
  • Every 6 years every Tier 1 and 2 local authorities must prepare a Future Development Strategy, the purpose of which is to promote long-term strategy planning by setting out how the local authority intends to achieve well functioning urban environments in its existing and future urban areas, and provide sufficient housing and business land development capacity, and to assist in integrated resource management, infrastructure, and financial decision-making.
  • Every 3 years (and in time to inform the next long-term plan) every Tier 1 and 2 authority must prepare a Housing and Business Development Capacity Assessment the purpose of which is to provide information about supply and demand to inform urban environment-related decision-making.
  • Every Tier 1 local authority must ensure that their regional policy statements and district plans enable:
  1. In city centre zones, sufficient building heights and density to maximise the benefits of intensification.
  2. In metropolitan centres zones, building heights and density to reflect demand for housing and business use in those locations.
  3. Building heights of at least 6 storeys with accessibility to urban zones, and
  4. Within and adjacent to neighbourhood centre zones, building heights and densities of urban form appropriate to the level of commercial activity and community services.   
  • Every territorial authority must ensure its plan objectives describe the development outcomes intended for each zone and that the policies and rules in a plan are consistent with achieving those. . Tier 1 authorities are expressly required to monitor the extent to which development is occurring in specific urban zones as anticipated by those objectives. 
  • All district plans must be amended to remove minimum car parking requirements except for in certain circumstances, including the provision of accessible parks.  

The Government has signalled changes to some of these requirements to improve housing affordability. See next section for further details.

  1. National Policy Statement on Urban Development, Cl 1.4.

Last updated at 11:49AM on January 31, 2025