Urban Development

What is an 'urban environment'?

‘Urban environments’ are defined by the NPS-UD as urban areas that have or are intended to be part of a housing and labour market of at least 10,000 people. In the Horizons Region, our urban environments are Feilding, Levin, Palmerston North and Whanganui.

Palmerston North Future Development Strategy

We’ve come together with Palmerston North City Council to lay out the blueprint for housing and business growth across the city for the next 30 years. 

With more people choosing to live and work in Palmy, the city’s population is growing fast. This means we need to carefully plan how we can provide more space for new homes and businesses, while protecting our environment and other things that make the city a great place to live.

This Future Development Strategy guides how we provide infrastructure and transport services for housing and business growth.
 

The strategy sets out: 

• what a well-functioning urban environment means for Palmy 

• iwi and hapū aspirations for urban development 

• opportunities and constraints to growth 

• our growth needs and where we’re proposing growth should occur 

• growth-related infrastructure needs. 

The strategy informs where the city council will prioritise land rezoning to support housing and business needs. It also informs how we will support urban development through our Infrastructure Strategy and Long-term Plan. 

The strategy was adopted in June 2024, and will next be reviewed in 2027.

Future Development Strategy Implementation Plan

We’ll be keeping track of how we implement the strategy each year with our implementation plan. The implementation plan is useful for those looking to buy or develop land in the city’s growth areas and keeps track of growth infrastructure that needs to be built before development.

Included Projects

Our next review of this strategy will be in 2027 to keep pace with any changes in government direction, and to update our strategy with new information from City and Regional Council projects. 

Horizons’ projects include

• Mapping of highly productive land

• New flood catchment modelling

• Supporting the development of a citywide stormwater strategy with the City Council

• A review of the Regional Public Transport Plan

Next steps

Our next review of this strategy will be in 2027 to keep pace with any changes in government direction, and to update our strategy with new information from City and Regional Council projects. 

Horizons’ projects include:

• Mapping of highly productive land

• New flood catchment modelling

• Supporting the development of a citywide stormwater strategy with the City Council

• A review of the Regional Public Transport Plan

Monitoring of Urban Markets

Monitoring of the housing and business land markets in our four urban environments is undertaken by our city and district councils, and the Wellington Regional Leadership Committee. Palmerston North City Council has prepared Housing and Business Capacity Assessments and quarterly monitoring for the city.

The Wellington Regional Leadership Committee has prepared a Housing and Business Capacity Assessment and quarterly monitoring for the Horowhenua District. Manawatū District Council has prepared quarterly monitoring for their district.

Wellington Regional Growth Framework

The Wellington Regional Leadership Committee has prepared a Future Development Strategy for the Wairarapa-Wellington-Horowhenua region, including Levin. Horizons is an observer member of the Committee.

You can find the Wairarapa-Wellington-Horowhenua FDS and implementation plan on the Committee website.