It may not be dominated by skyscrapers, but housing density is on the rise in one of the country’s fastest growing cities, Tauranga. Jon Rawlinson reports.
Town house developments like these have become popular around the Bay of Plenty.
While house sales traditionally slow down over Christmas/New Year, this festive season saw stock levels rise on average especially in the Bay.
The construction of homes in the region is continuing at a steady pace, ensuring stock levels include new builds.
Although apartment buildings fall into a different category, Tauranga City Council’s Steve Pearce confirms that other multi-dwelling buildings are gaining favour.
“I haven’t seen a huge number of apartments being built in Tauranga, but we’re definitely seeing a reasonable chunk of duplex and townhouse developments being built,” the council’s head of building services says.
“There’s a lot more townhouse developments than even just two or three years ago.”
Steve Pearce, Tauranga City Council
Higher density dwellings are popping up at both greenfield and brownfield sites.
“Through the Te Papa area the council rezoned the land to suit higher density – it’s an urban peninsula through to the city,” he says.
“Papamoa has been a big greenfield area and it stands out in the data. There’s still a fair bit of building there, out towards Papamoa East where there’s a lot of greenfield subdivisions.”
As the iconic standalone home on a quarter acre section may not be the dream for as many these days, more people are looking to subdivide existing sections.
“We’re seeing a lot of brownfield development,” Pearce says.
“The size of the standard section is shrinking, so that is helping to drive more vertical builds than in previous years.”
Pearce says Tauranga is a little behind larger cities with regard to higher density homes, but not too far.
“Other urban areas have seen more townhouse-intensive development in the past 5–10 years and we’re getting to that now, which is nice to see because it means we have more affordable houses.”
First home buyers can still, for the most part, get a foot in the door (or on the ladder) thanks to multi-dwelling developments. In Tauranga, 2025 saw a solid stream of such buildings entering the market.
“I guess it could probably be described as a steady year, on par with previous years,” Pearce says.
“There obviously is demand that we haven’t been meeting for the past couple of years. It’s not where we want to be, but it’s cool to see that we’re still building a decent amount of new houses.”
Looking ahead, new legislation will have an impact on the number and types of new builds. In place this year, a new exemption now permits the construction of small, standalone dwellings (effectively granny flats) without a formal building consent.
This is just one change from Wellington intended to ‘raise the roof’ when it comes to new builds.
“There will be a whole bunch of changes in 2026, which will affect how much certainty people can have with their finances and also because of the legislation,” Pearce says.
“So, it’s going to be an interesting year.”
