Tauranga City Councillors approved the new housing accord, which will extend by three years the council's ability to approve Special Housing Areas.

Special Housing Areas bypass aspects of the Resource Management Act allowing new developments to be fast tracked if they match criteria in the accord.

The draft accord will be sent to Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith for approval later this week. It will be signed by the Minister and Mayor Greg Brownless.

It will give developers another three year window to approach Tauranga City Council with requests to consider new Special Housing Areas.

The Housing Accord is an agreement with the Government to work together to address housing supply issues, notably by identifying and fast-tracking development in Special Housing Areas.

When signed, developers will be able to bring more housing to the market faster, in areas where there is a clear demand for housing, and where there is already suitable infrastructure in place or plans for it to be built.

The draft Accord retains targets to reduce the size of sections and dwellings in Special Housing Areas, to support the provision of more affordable housing.

The original housing accord expired on September 16. On September 15, the city council extended its own deadline enabling it to process qualifying developments until June 30, 2017. It extends the legality of the old accord until the new one is signed.

Under the old accord Tauranga City Council recommended, and had approved, twelve Special Housing Areas. Eight of these have progressed through to resource consenting stage, with 662 new sections already consented as at 30 June 2016.

The government decided in September on a three year extension to the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act 2013, giving Councils three more years to establish Special Housing Areas in growth areas.

As well as extending the Housing Accords by three years, the new bill will set time limits for lodging resource consents and plan variation applications at 12 months, and provide stronger ministerial discretion to revoke Special Housing Area status to ensure progress is maintained in Special Housing Areas – ie to prevent land banking.

Also proposed in the new Housing Legislation Amendment Bill is the introduction of a Housing Infrastructure Fund. While not specifically targeted at SHAs, the HIF can assist financially constrained councils to advance infrastructure projects that would otherwise hold back housing developments.

It would remove infrastructure constraints that may have prevented the approval of some SHAs; and allow councils to transfer funds set aside for infrastructure projects in one area to alleviate infrastructure issues in another.