New rules affecting development came into effect this week and they are expected to enable hundreds of new dwellings to be added to the city’s housing stock in the next decade.
An appeals period on variation 2 of the Dunedin City Council’s second-generation district plan expired on Wednesday and just one appeal was lodged to the Environment Court.
The rules became operative for anything not under appeal.
The city council has yet to comment on the implications.
However, variation 2 has been described by the council as a focused suite of changes to enable additional housing capacity through specific rule and policy changes and through rezoning specific sites.
Some areas were rezoned to enable higher-density housing.
Other changes, such as allowing smaller site sizes and providing for duplexes, were set to apply to most of suburban Dunedin.
The Otago Daily Times has not yet been advised which parts of the proposed policy have come into effect and which aspects remain up in the air.
Adjustments to the district plan were needed because of a projected shortfall in housing capacity.
That prompted the council to propose a series of changes, known as variation 2.
Council city development manager Anna Johnson said in May that the new rules would allow the city to grow while managing the effects of growth.
Blue Sky Property Group director Lyndon Fairbairn said the changes were a step in the right direction, as the city needed to increase its supply of new housing.
The group has more than 50 townhouses under construction in Dunedin.
Mr Fairbairn was not sure the rule changes would result in as many new houses as the council anticipated, because hilly terrain could make a project less viable when factors such as the increasing cost of building materials were also in the mix.
"Additional supply of new property for Dunedin is definitely needed," Mr Fairbairn said.
"We need new, modern, healthy homes."
Greenfields development zones will be the subject of a separate hearing later this year.
