Urban Growth Agenda
The Urban Growth Agenda (UGA) is an ambitious programme that aims to remove barriers to the supply of land and infrastructure and make room for cities to grow up and out.
About the UGA
The UGA is a shift in the approach to urban development and infrastructure and the mix of instruments and levers that are available.
It's designed to address fundamentals of land supply, development capacity and infrastructure provision by removing undue constraints.
The UGA has 5 interconnected focus areas:
- infrastructure funding and financing — enabling a more responsive supply of infrastructure and appropriate cost allocation
- urban planning — to allow for cities to make room for growth, support quality built environments and enable strategic integrated planning
- spatial planning (initially focused on Auckland and the Auckland-Hamilton corridor) — to build a stronger partnership with local government as a means of developing integrated spatial planning
- transport pricing — to ensure the price of transport infrastructure promotes efficient use of the network
- legislative reform — to ensure that regulatory, institutional and funding settings are collectively supporting UGA objectives.
The costs and benefits of urban development – on the Ministry for the Environment website.
The report identifies and categorises the range of costs and benefits of urban development. It was prepared by MRCagney and informs work on understanding and measuring the wider costs and benefits of urban development under the Urban Growth Agenda.
About growth partnerships
The Urban Growth Agenda (UGA) seeks to address the fundamentals of land supply, development capacity and infrastructure provision by removing constraints in our urban planning system.
To help achieve this, the UGA has mandated a role for central government to partner with local government and iwi as a means of facilitating pace and scale in urban development and ensuring government investment in infrastructure is aligned to help deliver connected, thriving and sustainable urban communities.
This has led to the creation of Urban Growth Partnerships, a process of formalising and maintaining a long-term and enduring relationship between the Crown, local government, iwi and local communities to deliver the UGA objectives.
We are focusing first on partnering with those regions who are experiencing significant growth pressures and who want to work alongside central government in helping address the challenges and opportunities from that growth.
An important aspect of the Urban Growth Partnerships is spatial planning. Spatial planning is a long-term and integrated approach to land use and infrastructure planning.
Current partnerships
The UGA has initially focused on two partnerships; Auckland and the Hamilton to Auckland Corridor. A partnership in the Queenstown Lakes is currently being finalised.
Partnerships in development
Urban growth partnerships between the Government, local government and iwi are also in development or discussion in three other major urban centres:
- The Bay of Plenty (Tauranga)
- Wellington Region
- Greater Christchurch
Who is involved?
A number of central government agencies are involved, including the Ministry of Transport, the New Zealand Transport Agency, the Treasury, the Department of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the Ministry for the Environment and Kāinga Ora.
Watch this space for the latest developments on Urban Growth Partnerships
Maps showing Urban Growth Partnerships
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 : Established Partnerships
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: Partnerships agreed in principle
: Partnerships in development
Published: October 23, 2019