Covenants - good or bad? The use of covenants in residential housing development and the potential impacts for future land use : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Planning at Lincoln University

Abstract

This paper discusses the use of covenant land use controls for residential housing developments. The extent to which covenants exert control over the overall design outcomes of residential subdivisions. How land use control through covenants is likely to impact the incoming legislation for the National Policy Statement on Urban Development and Medium Density Residential Standards for Territorial Authorities in the future. Previous research has looked at how covenants have created affordability issues due to aspects such as minimum floor area. This research used a case study approach and data analysis of covenant documents for the Selwyn District as well as interviews and questionnaires conducted with developers, Council Planners, and the Selwyn District Council Planning Department. This provided an overall perspective of covenant use for residential housing developments. The key findings of this study are firstly that covenants are a private developer tool that is used to create a high level of consistency across the whole of the subdivision. This research also found that covenants are developer driven, and the specific clauses within the covenants themselves can prevent development further than what is stipulated within the covenant documents. The research identified that the use of covenants on burdened land could have implications in carrying out the key objectives of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development and the Medium Denisty Residential Standards. However, this is dependent to the clauses in the covenant documents themselves.