Nelson City Council has reached a significant milestone in the city’s development planning, following recommended changes from an independent hearing panel.

Elected members voted in favour of notifying decisions on Plan Change 29 (PC29) submissions at a full Council meeting held on Thursday, 5 June 2025, a key decision aimed at facilitating more housing development and to provide for a well-functioning urban environment.

Council delegated the responsibility to hear and decide on submissions to an independent hearing panel which then made recommendations to Council on planning provisions.

The panel recently provided the Council with their reports, which recommended a number of changes that reflecte their decisions on submissions.

Councillors considered the hearing panel’s recommendations, which reflected a balance between enabling growth in strategic locations (especially the city centre and fringe) and responding to community concerns about enabling widespread residential intensification, heritage protection, and hazard management. The panel ultimately recommended targeted city centre and fringe intensification that aligns with Council’s city centre revitalisation goals.

How Councillors Voted:

After thorough discussion and consideration of public submissions, elected members voted as follows:

For: Councillor Sanson, Councillor Skinner, Deputy Mayor O’Neill-Stevens, Mayor Nick Smith, Councillor Stallard, Councillor Rollo, Councillor Rainey, Councillor Hodgson, Councillor Brand, Councillor Anderson, Councillor Paki Paki,

Against: Councillor Benge, Councillor Courtney

Mayor Nick Smith welcomed the decision.

“These changes support our plans to revitalise the central city by better enabling development to a greater height and over a wider area. They also improve our management of natural hazards. The intensification proposals in Nelson’s suburban areas were too ambitious and were rightly declined in response to public submissions.

“Nelson does need to provide for more choices in housing such as townhouses and apartments and make development easier, but we also need to take our community with us.”

Key approved changes:

Increased building heights and revised development standards within the Inner-City Centre and Fringe zones, enabling greater residential and commercial development

Updates to flood, fault, and liquefaction hazard overlays were also supported, along with new provisions allowing enabling Papakāinga development within the Inner City and Suburban Commercial Zones

Amended provisions for the Manuka St hospital site, providing opportunities to enable the on-going operation of the hospital

The rezoning of the St Vincent and Vanguard Street industrial area from Industrial to Inner City Fringe, opening the door to more diverse and intensive land uses in this key location.

Key rejected changes:

General, Medium, and High Density Residential Zones and related rules for residential housing development

Increased building heights in suburban commercial areas

Most of the proposed changes to heritage, state highway noise and slope hazard overlays.

Next Steps:

Council will publicly notify its decisions on PC29 and serve a copy of the public notice to all submitters and make its decision available for inspection.

Submitters will have 30 working days from the date of service of the notice of decision to appeal the Council's decision on PC29 (on any part of the decision relevant to their submission) to the Environment Court.

The Council will keep the community informed as the process continues.

Full details, and the six hearing panel reports, are available on Nelson City Council’s Shape Nelson website.

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