Are mayors playing whack-a-mole with fast track?
Councils plan where towns grow. The minister keeps letting developers pop up somewhere else.
Every mayor knows the game. You spend years and millions of ratepayer dollars writing a district plan. You zone land. You budget for pipes.
Then a developer pops up in a paddock you never planned to service. You whack it. Another one pops up.
Welcome to fast track.
Start at Orewa. In August, an expert panel approved Vineway’s 1217-home Delmore subdivision over the objections of Auckland Council and Watercare. Watercare cannot connect it to public networks until at least 2033. In dry summers, treated wastewater may be trucked to Whangarei.
Wayne Brown called the approval “amateur, pathetic and stupid”. His council reckons it is losing $50–80 million in development contributions.
Chris Bishop is unmoved. He told RNZ that fast track was designed for out-of-sequence development — so the system is working as intended.
That is precisely the problem.
Waimakariri already has capacity for up to 17,000 new homes. Selwyn’s district plan provides for 32,760 homes over 30 years. Yet in May and June alone, Selwyn was notified of four fast-track proposals that could add more than 8000 homes around Rolleston and Prebbleton.
Developer Urban Estates says it went fast track because the council could not yet accept private plan changes. Fair enough. But that is the plan working, not failing.
Follow the money. The Carter Group has residential schemes at Rolleston and Ohoka on the fast-track schedule. An RNZ analysis found it gave National $81,608.56 in 2025. Director Philip Carter — brother of former National MP David Carter — gave another $59,500 in 2023.
Ohoka has already been declined twice through ordinary planning processes. Now it is back through the side door.
It isn’t only National. Two companies sharing a director with Ridgeburn — the 1210-house proposal near Arrowtown — gave NZ First $10,000 each. After councils flagged “significant information gaps”, Ridgeburn withdrew. It is returning with sweeteners.
Pegasus was the rare whack that landed. After residents gathered more than 16,000 signatures, Bishop declined Wolfbrook’s 1000-home referral. Wolfbrook has vowed to keep going. As I reported at the time, nothing stops it reapplying.
Contrast Brick Bay Lodge near Snells Beach: a 45-suite luxury lodge on rural land never planned or consented for visitor accommodation, which Auckland’s growth strategy does not expect to develop before 2053. The application was vague. Auckland Council objected. Bishop referred it anyway.
That is not planning. It is picking winners — opportunists using fast track to pump land values ahead of zoning, with preferential treatment for developers who have the right connections.
So the mayors changed tactics. If they cannot stop the moles, they will make them expensive.
Brown and Queenstown’s John Glover demanded a pause. Waimakariri’s Dan Gordon and Selwyn’s Lydia Gliddon backed them. Then five mayors branded the regime “a mockery of local democracy” and demanded councils recover 100 per cent of growth costs — with developers given six months to start building.
Auckland went further. Officers put the servicing bill for 50,000 to 60,000 unplanned homes at up to $5 billion. Councillors voted unanimously for advice on targeted rates and simply refusing services. One floated a $200,000 charge per household. “So be it.”
Bishop whacked back, with Christopher Luxon ruling out any pause.
In August, he announced councils could lift development contributions on out-of-sequence fast-track projects — but not on projects already approved or lodged. Delmore escapes.
This week, he confirmed development levies from 2029, with the Commerce Commission regulating how councils set them. Growth will pay — at a price Wellington’s regulator signs off.
Targeted rates? The Government’s own rates cap boxes those in. As Auckland planning chair Richard Hills put it: “We are hamstrung in every direction.”
Gordon — also deputy chair of Local Government New Zealand — and Gliddon have since taken their case to Bishop in person.
The minister’s defence deserves a hearing. He says that of 32 approved projects, only two councils specifically sought a decline, and panels impose conditions on roads and pipes.
And money plays both sides. Two donors linked to fast-track projects also funded Brown’s 2025 campaign. He is fighting anyway.
But the Auditor-General has warned that the perception of donor influence “erodes trust and confidence” — whether or not it is real.
Mayors can keep whacking. But in this arcade, the minister owns the machine — and the donors keep buying tokens.
