Generating more housing to meet the escalating need at the same time as protecting the district’s productive growing land is a key consideration for Hastings District Council.

To help achieve this, residential intensification (or fitting more houses into existing neighbourhoods) is required, and it’s a core goal of the Heretaunga Plains Urban Development Strategy 2017 and Hastings District Council’s Medium Density Strategy.

To ensure a high level of quality, best-practice design is encouraged and to assist in this the council has produced the Hastings Residential Intensification Design Guide, which provides property developers, builders, architects and others with ideas and tips to achieve this goal.

“Our vision is to have well-designed and sustainable housing developments that build a sense of community, use land efficiently and protect our productive land for future generations,” said council team leader environmental policy Megan Gaffaney.

“We want to encourage housing providers in our district to marry good design with a variety of residential intensification types to create high quality, high amenity housing options at a range of price points for our community.”

The guide focuses on design elements such as housing type, size and height, colour, connection to open spaces, landscape design and car parking, and is packed with images, diagrams and plans illustrating what to do, and what not to do.

It covers residential types ranging from infill to greenfield developments, inner city housing, mixed-use suburban shopping centres and co-housing and retirement villages.

Council is also about to launch its Hastings Residential Conversion Guide that is particularly applicable to the inner city and helps people understand council’s consenting requirements, and how to navigate them with more ease.

Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said different housing solutions were needed to manage the district’s housing needs but they needed to be carried out in a considered, sustainable way.

“This guide will assist us to be innovative with our housing solutions and we look forward to working together with our developers on well-designed projects that provide sufficient healthy homes for our people.”

See the website to view the Hastings Residential Design Guide here www.hastingsdc.govt.nz/design

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