Auckland Council has confirmed what many suspected: in most of the city centre, 20 storeys is quite tall enough. We wouldn’t want to frighten ourselves into looking like a real city. 

Not everywhere, of course. A few favoured blocks in the CBD will be permitted to reach for the sky – provided they don’t offend a protected viewshaft, cast an unauthorised shadow, or challenge our collective sense of scale. But outside that core, the Council has drawn a firm line: 72.5 metres. Generous, but not excessive. 

It’s being hailed as a step forward. Floor area ratios have been abolished. Modelling shows development capacity will more than quadruple. But the ambition remains strikingly limited. While cities across the Tasman are building 30- and 40-storey towers above suburban train stations, Auckland has opted for mid-rise restraint. 

This, in a country where housing remains among the least affordable in the world and home ownership has been falling for a generation. The planning system restricts supply and then blames the market for the consequences – as though scarcity were a market flaw, not a planning feature. 

But this isn’t just about planning. It’s a national disposition – a preference for small, polite improvements over structural change. We’re drawn to gestures that look bold on a press release and feel safe in committee.  

And so, in the same breath that the Council celebrates the City Rail Link – a $5 billion investment in underground mobility – it imposes above-ground controls that prevent that investment from being fully realised. One can have a world-class train station. One just shouldn’t build too much above it. 

There is, of course, a cultural logic to all this. New Zealand was the perfect filming location for The Lord of the Rings – not just for the scenery, but for the sensibility. We took Hobbiton to heart. A tidy hillside, a front door rounder than it is tall, and nothing so vulgar as a skyline. 

Some part of the national psyche remains deeply committed to being “mainly harmless.” Big is risky. Presence is showy. And we know what happens to tall poppies. 

And so, we get a planning regime that permits growth – but only at speeds that won’t alarm the neighbours. Unlimited height in a small zone. Thirty metres in another. Seventy-two and a half if you ask nicely. 

It’s not a system designed to fail. It’s a system designed to gently underdeliver – consistently. 

In other words, it’s Auckland Council at its best.