This project will deliver a Future Development Strategy (FDS) and Housing and Business Development Capacity Assessment (HBA) for the Wellington-Wairarapa-Horowhenua region.

An FDS sets out a long-term plan to ensure a ‘well-functioning’ urban environment, showing where growth will be, in what form, and what infrastructure is needed to support that growth.

An HBA is an assessment of whether there is sufficient capacity to meet the demand for housing and business land in urban environments.

Both the FDS and HBA must be ready by June 2023, to inform the 2024-34 Long Term Plan (LTP).

Both FDS and HBA are statutory documents required under the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 (NPS-UD), which sets out the objectives and policies for planning for well-functioning urban environments, under the RMA 1991.

This project will also modify the HBA-approach to ensure it works well and is sustainable, reducing the duplicated effort and cost of the previous HBA. It will also look at ways to make the HBA data and processes useful for other purposes on an ongoing basis.

The FDS in short is the next iteration of the Wellington Regional Growth Framework (WRGF). The WRGF has been reviewe to find what can be adapted for use in the FDS.