His motion asks council staff to report on "possible initiatives to further incentivise the residential conversion of vacant inner-city space".
If a majority of councillors agree, council staff would report back as part of 2023-24 annual plan discussions.
Cr Benson-Pope said ahead of the meeting a lot of space on the first floor of buildings in the central business district seemed to be under-used.
He understood barriers to converting space into residential units included fire regulations and cost.
Cr Benson-Pope said the spaces needed to be legal and safe, and options for helping building owners convert them into residential units might ultimately include adjusting council fees or running a scheme similar to how some heritage work is subsidised.
"There must be a few simple things we can do."
George St was being made more attractive through a street revamp and the area might benefit further from having more people living in the area, he said.
The city council will also discuss today a draft submission to the Ministry for the Environment about infringement fines councils can issue for environmental non-compliance.
That includes noise infringements and the council’s draft submission recommends the ministry review noise-control fines.
The council noted in its draft submission few infringement notices were issued for excessive noise and other regulatory tools such as seizure of equipment were usually relied upon.
Councils can issue fines for offences that range from failing to comply with conditions of a resource consent to breaching an abatement notice.
The ministry said there was concern fines were set at levels too low to be effective.
Environment Minister David Parker said in some cases fines associated with an infringement notice were less than the cost of getting a resource consent, "meaning it can be cheaper to just pay the fine than to follow the rules".
The city council indicated support for increasing fines.
