Porirua City has collaborated with Wellington, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, and Kāpiti to evaluate whether the region is able to meet current and future growth pressures until 2047.

Known as the Housing and Business Development Capacity Assessment (HBA), the report estimates that by 2047 the region’s population will reach between 550,000 and 610,000 people, requiring an additional 49,000 to 61,000 homes.

“Not surprisingly, the HBA confirmed that Porirua does not have enough housing, both now or to meet future demand, and housing affordability is getting worse,” says Porirua Mayor Anita Baker.

“The current undersupply of housing is contributing to increasing rents and house sale prices, which are increasing faster than incomes are rising. This is exacerbated by a declining number of new houses for sale.”

Although Porirua has sufficient business floor space for commercial and industrial activities under medium growth scenarios, the location and accessibility of the existing capacity is unlikely to meet future market requirements. Additional land is therefore proposed to be rezoned for industrial and commercial use to meet long term demand.

Mayor Baker says significant investment will be required to address three waters infrastructure constraints to enable long-term residential and business growth.

“In particular, Porirua’s wastewater and water supply networks will not be able to meet required levels of service for the increasing population. The stormwater network also has some constraints although these can be partly mitigated through a range of alternative measures.”

The wealth of information in the HBA will now feed into Porirua’s draft District Plan that we will be consulting on early 2020.

Find out more about the draft District Plan here.

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