What is the Urban Design Panel?
The Urban Design Panel is a group of professionals who can provide independent design reviews for both Christchurch City Council and to private developers on urban design aspects of new developments.
Private developers are encouraged to submit their plans to the panel for a pre-application review to provide greater certainty at the resource consent application stage.
Major urban projects the Council is undertaking will also be submitted to the panel for review.
What are the benefits?
The urban design panel provides an opportunity to obtain a design review from a group of Christchurch's leading urban designers, architects, landscape architects and property professionals.
This advice is currently provided at no cost by the Christchurch City Council and can assist in achieving high quality design outcomes for new developments.
The role of the panel
The panel does not have decision making powers. Its role is to provide expert advice to the Council and private developers.
The panel can assist with:
- Providing independent expert advice and recommendations on urban design issues.
- Providing pre-application advice to developers on significant developments.
- A quicker, easier consent process through early identification of design issues.
- Adding value to developments through high quality design.
The recommendations of the panel will be sent to the applicant and will be given to the Council as well. In terms of a resource consent application the recommendations will carry the same weight as any other technical report.
For further information please refer to the following documents:
Which projects should go to the panel?
As a general guide projects which meet the following criteria should be taken to the Urban Design Panel. In some instances significant projects which fall outside these areas can be taken to the Panel. Please discuss with your Council Planner if you think that your project would benefit from a design review by the Panel.
- Proposals that require resource consent from Christchurch City Council under the City Plan and which are located in any site within the Four Avenues (all zones) and/or any land zoned L3 of Business 2 (Suburban Malls) and fall into one or more of the following criteria:
- Multi unit residential development of 5 units or more.
- Multi unit commercial development of 3 units or more.
- Any building with a gross floor area of 1500m² or greater.
- Any building adjoining any item contained in the 'List of Protected Buildings, Places and Objects' in the City Plan.
- Any building adjoining a Conservation or Open Space Zone land in the City Plan.
- Any Christchurch City Council capital project with a value of $5 million or greater, or which is intended for public use, or to which the public have regular access.
For more information please refer to the following documents:
Who is on the panel?
Panel members were nominated by the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA), the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects (NZILA), the Property Council of New Zealand (PCNZ) and the New Zealand Planning Institute (NZPI).
Members are leading practitioners and academics, who are specialists in:
- urban design
- architecture
- landscape architecture
- property
- planning.
Each meeting will include four panellists drawn from the larger pool of approved members to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest and to allow for specialist skills to be utilised when required.
