Opinion: Auckland Council makes its last stand against a better world

Councillors have voted to protect most of Auckland’s villa suburbs, in an audacious, questionably legal act of legislative defiance. Hayden Donnell writes on The Spinoff about the council quest to stop housing where it’s needed most. “Protections on so-called character houses restrict dense development on 41% of the residential land within 5km of the city centre under the council’s Unitary Plan,” Donnell says, adding, “The restrictions are most draconian in the places where development makes most sense.”