Auckland Plan Change 120 (PC120) — Housing Intensification & Resilience

The Facts

Plan Change 120 (PC120) addresses housing intensification capacity and resilience overlays for Auckland. The plan change covers both increased zoning capacity in certain areas and expanded natural-hazard overlays (notably flood risk and slope stability). Following the government's April 2026 RMA amendments — which reduced the minimum required capacity councils must provide — PC120 was substantially re-scoped and re-notified. The plan change includes an interactive map viewer (linked in keyLinks) showing proposed zone changes and overlay extents at parcel level. PC120 is in active hearings as of mid-2026. Any feasibility relying on a current zone needs to check whether PC120 changes that zone or adds a hazard overlay.

A Developer's Take

PC120 is the council's proposed plan change for housing intensification with resilience standards built in. Notified to meet NPS-UD capacity requirements plus add resilience to the broader urban form.

As of 30 April 2026 the story changed. The government amended the Resource Management Act to REDUCE the minimum housing capacity that PC120 must enable, and gave Auckland Council a ministers' direction on how to proceed. The statutory "Further submission" process under the RMA will not apply. Instead PC120 will be publicly notified a second time for submissions open to everyone, including submissions on any amendments council may propose.

What this means for developers right now:

1. PC120 is a moving target. The provisions notified today are not the provisions that will become operative. The second notification round opens that window again.

2. The direction of travel is LESS capacity than originally proposed, not more. If you were modelling a deal on the originally proposed PC120 yield, recheck the numbers.

3. The resilience standards (floor levels, hazard overlays, infrastructure capacity) are likely to survive the rewrite even if the headline capacity numbers come down.

4. The PC120 map viewer is still live and shows the current proposed extents. Open it on every prospective site.

The discipline: open the PC120 viewer alongside the AUP and PC78 viewers. Read the council's PC120 landing page once a quarter to track the renotification status. If you're closing on a deal where PC120 changes are material to your yield, ask your planning consultant for a current read before settlement.

This is still the hot topic for the next 12-18 months. Council and government are renegotiating the framework. Developers paying attention have an edge.

Understanding how the planning landscape is shifting is important as you need to manage this risk. If your land falls in an area where zoning rules are in question it may make it hard to exit the land or hard to move forward with the land.

When to use this

Check PC120 for any site you're considering buying or developing in Auckland. The map viewer shows both proposed zoning changes (which may increase or decrease capacity) and proposed resilience overlays (which can severely constrain or block development on flood-prone sites). A site that was a three-dwelling site under the AUP could be a one-dwelling site under PC120, or vice versa. Read PC120 before AUP, not the other way around, while it's in hearings.