Town infill housing has now been made possible under the changes to the minimum section size requirements in our district plan. If you are located in Levin township and your current house and land is no greater than 2025 m² then you could be eligible to create up to 3 infill sections with a minimum size of 330m² per section.

Due Diligence

Check your title for easements, restrictive land covenants or other encumbrances that may prohibit you from carrying out your infill subdivision. If you are unsure we are happy to sit down and go through these with you.

You can order a copy of your title through Land Information New Zealand for $5 if you are not sure about your land size. You can also order copies of any easements or consent notices lodged on your title for an additional $5 per instrument.

If you need to do a shared driveway you will need to measure your drive entrance as well. Last I checked it needed to be 3.5m wide for 3 houses. A surveyor would be able to confirm the width required for you.

Talk to your accountant about your possible development and what tax implications this may have. The bright line tax rules may apply to your section sales so you will need to account for that additional cost.

Another cost to factor in is the new development levies. The amounts for these depend on where in the District you are subdividing.

The current timeline for infill can be anywhere from 6 to 12 months so factor this into your cash flow too.

Have an initial consultation with a local surveyor to discuss your potential infill subdivision.

Survey

After you have done a bit of background research and decided to proceed then it is time to see your local surveyor to apply for a resource consent.

Your surveyor will draft you a site plan so you can get an idea of what your neighboring sections are going to look like. At this point we can also discuss when/if you want to sell those sections and how to go about it.

Once you have your resource consent you have five years to complete your infill housing subdivision. This includes getting your survey completed and approved by Land Information New Zealand, any works the Council has required you to carry out to complete your subdivision such as vehicle crossings, service connections and earth works.

Title

When the survey and works are all signed off by Council and your 223/224 certificates are issued then it is time to come back and see us to order your titles.

This is the point where we talk about what you want the houses to look like, how the cost sharing arrangement for the services are to work and whether there are third party service providers who need easements registered. We would also talk to your bank to obtain their consent to your new subdivision.

After all the paperwork is done everything goes back to Land Information again for their final approval and your new titles will issue. Your infill subdivision is now complete.