What PC120 Means for Your Heritage Home in Auckland
Auckland's heritage villas and bungalows are among the city's most loved and most liveable homes. From Devonport and Northcote Point to Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Herne Bay and beyond, the streets of intact character homes that define these neighbourhoods are irreplaceable. As a studio specialising in heritage architecture across Auckland, it's something we think about every day.
Right now, that character is under pressure.
Auckland Council's Proposed Plan Change 120 (PC120) seeks to reduce the Special Character Area (SCA) overlay across the city from approximately 21,000 properties to around 15,500. For homeowners within Auckland's heritage and special character zones, this matters, a great deal.
The SCA overlay is not a barrier to great design. It is the framework that makes great design possible in a heritage context. It ensures that any work on your villa, bungalow or character home is done thoughtfully, with proper regard for the streetscape and the neighbourhood around it.
Remove that protection, and those same homes become vulnerable to inappropriate intensification and demolition, the kind of incremental loss that quietly strips a suburb of everything that made it worth living in.
We have submitted our opposition to any reduction of the SCA overlay across Auckland's heritage zones, and we encourage our clients and the wider community to do the same. The PC120 hearings process is ongoing, with a further submission round expected in August 2026.
If you own a heritage property within Auckland's Special Character Areas and want to understand what PC120 means for your home, or simply want to explore what's possible within the overlay, we'd love to talk.
Get in touch with the team at Macfie Architecture.