Landowners, Developers and Nelsonians – tell us your development opportunities and let us know how Nelson should grow!

If you own land that’s suitable for development or are interested in how Nelson develops for both residential and business growth, Nelson City Council wants to hear from you ahead of writing a new Future Development Strategy (FDS).

Public engagement on the new FDS is underway now and will run until 26 October, and there are several ways in which you can get involved. 

For more information or to let us know your development opportunity or comments online you can visit shape.nelson.govt.nz/future-development-strategy or email FutureDevelopmentStrategy@ncc.govt.nz.

This stage of the process is about collating and assessing areas in Nelson that may be suitable for development and understanding community views on residential and business development areas. 

Once this stage is completed. Nelson and Tasman councils will work together to develop a draft strategy with the aim of releasing it for the more formal public consultation in March/April 2022.

Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese said the strategy is important as Nelson-Tasman will see population growth alongside changing business trends in the coming years.

“We need to ensure that development opportunities exist in the right places and for the right uses. The Future Development Strategy offers our communities an opportunity to shape future housing and business development.”

Future development strategies are a requirement for fast growing towns and cities as set out in the Government’s National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS UD), the latest of which came into effect in 2020. 

The new FDS will: 

• promote long-term strategic planning by setting out how well-functioning environments will be achieved; 
• provide at least sufficient development capacity (for housing and business) over the next 30 years; 
• assist with integrating planning decisions with infrastructure funding and decisions; 
• spatially identify where development capacity will be provided and what infrastructure is required to support the capacity; 
• provide a statement of hapu and iwi values and aspirations

The 2019 FDS will form a starting point, but all the sites currently identified for future growth will need to be reassessed under the new requirements of the NPS UD.