Freemans BayAuckland, New Zealand — what you can build here, and what it costs
Freemans Bay has 943 address-bearing parcels across 10 zones; the middle one is 335 m². 67.4% of them are Single House. A new dwelling attracts $18,242 in council contributions for 100.0% of the suburb (2026/27). 8.1% of parcels touch at least one mapped flood layer.
- Parcels943with a street address · 54.1 ha
- Median site335m²all parcels · middle half 232–513 m²
- Dominant zone67.4%Single House
- Contributions$18,242per new dwelling (2026/27)
Every figure on this page is measured from the source registers named beside it, for the whole suburb — not for any one address. Site-specific answers need the parcel itself. Which parcels count as Freemans Bay: LINZ address attribution — a parcel belongs to the suburb if it contains at least one address point whose suburb_locality is this suburb. No radius, no drawn boundary: the database holds no suburb/locality polygon layer. The median site is the middle of all 943 of them, commercial and reserve included; residential-zoned parcels on their own median 325 m². Data as at .
Zoning
What Freemans Bay is zoned
10 zones cover Freemans Bay; Single House holds 67.4% of its parcels. The zone decides the height, coverage and yard rules below — and it is the first thing that changes what a site is worth building on.
- Single House 67.4%
- Terrace Housing and Apartment Building 19.0%
- Mixed Use 8.8%
- Open Space: Informal Recreation 2.1%
- Town Centre 1.1%
- 5 other zones 1.5%
| Zone | Parcels | Share of parcels | Share of land | Median site |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single House | 635 | 67.4% | 50.3% | 350 m² |
| Terrace Housing and Apartment Building | 179 | 19.0% | 26.9% | 220 m² |
| Mixed Use | 83 | 8.8% | 12.7% | 385 m² |
| Open Space: Informal Recreation | 20 | 2.1% | 3.8% | 436 m² |
| Town Centre | 10 | 1.1% | 2.0% | 743 m² |
| City Centre | 7 | 0.7% | 1.7% | 1,599 m² |
| Strategic Transport Corridor | 3 | 0.3% | 0.4% | 625 m² |
| Mixed Housing Urban | 3 | 0.3% | 0.4% | 392 m² |
| Open Space: Sport and Active Recreation | 1 | 0.1% | 0.8% | 4,486 m² |
| Open Space: Community | 1 | 0.1% | 1.0% | 5,336 m² |
Source: Auckland Unitary Plan (Operative in Part). Each address-bearing parcel is assigned the zone covering the largest share of it (same rule as the site report). Shares are given both by parcel count and by land area. standards[].notes is an internal audit trail, not page copy — do not display it; standards[].activity_over_note is the opposite, it is written for readers and explains the permitted dwelling count. Both weightings are printed because they disagree on purpose: share of parcels is how many owners a rule applies to, share of land is how much ground it covers — one large reserve outweighs a whole street on the second and barely registers on the first. The headline figures on this page use share of parcels.
Rules
The permitted envelope in each zone
What you can build as of right, before any resource consent. Exceeding any one standard turns the project into a consent application — it does not make it impossible, it makes it discretionary.
-
Single House
- Maximum height
- 8 m
- Height in relation to boundary
- 2.5m + 45 deg
- Front yard
- 3 m
- Side & rear yard
- 1 m
- Building coverage
- 35%
- Impervious surface
- 60%
- Minimum lot size
- 600 m²
- Dwellings permitted
- 1
-
Terrace Housing and Apartment Building
- Maximum height
- 16 m
- Height in relation to boundary
- 3m + 45 deg (AUP H6.6.6)
- Front yard
- 3 m
- Side & rear yard
- 0 m
- Building coverage
- 50%
- Impervious surface
- 70%
- Minimum lot size
- —
- Dwellings permitted
- —
-
Mixed Use
- Maximum height
- 18 m
- Height in relation to boundary
- n/a
- Front yard
- 0 m
- Side & rear yard
- 0 m
- Building coverage
- —
- Impervious surface
- —
- Minimum lot size
- —
- Dwellings permitted
- —
Source: Auckland Unitary Plan (Operative in Part) — indicative, coded by Feasify from the plan text. A dash means the plan sets no such standard for that zone (an apartment zone has no minimum lot size, a business zone has no recession plane) — it does not mean we could not find one. Heights are in metres, never storeys: the plan regulates metres, and dividing one by an assumed floor-to-floor would be our number, not the plan's. Overlays (heritage, viewshaft, special character, height variation) can tighten or relax every line above, and they are parcel-specific: check the site itself before designing to these numbers.
Rental market
What it rents for
Freemans Bay spans 4 statistical areas and each has its own median. There is no single "Freemans Bay median" to quote — medians cannot be averaged together — so the headline below names the area it belongs to. 1 of those areas have enough bonds lodged to publish one.
The headline counts every tenancy in that area including studios and one-bedroom flats, while the table below starts at two bedrooms — so the headline can sit below the rows under it. Here it does: $795 in Freemans Bay against $1,010 for 3 bedrooms.
| Bedrooms | Median across areas | Areas with a median | Bonds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 bedrooms | $760 /wk | 1 area | 84 |
| 3 bedrooms | $1,010 /wk | 1 area | 48 |
Source: MBIE / Tenancy Services bond lodgements, 12-month rolling window ending June 2026. MBIE tenancy bond medians by SA2 (2018 boundaries) over the latest 12-month rolling window ending June 2026 — the window MBIE itself computes the median on, not four quarterly medians averaged together (medians do not average). Medians are reported per SA2 and never averaged across SA2s — a suburb usually spans several SA2s, and averaging medians is not a median of anything. The headline SA2 is the one holding the most of the suburb's parcels. Bedroom counts resting on fewer than 30 bonds lodged in the window are omitted rather than shown as zero. An indication of the rental bond market for this area, based on bonds lodged with Tenancy Services — not a market rent for any individual property. Where a bedroom size shows a span, it is the lowest and the highest of the statistical-area medians — not an average of them; a single figure means only one area has a publishable median for that size. A wide span means the suburb is genuinely mixed, not that the data is noisy. Every figure here stands on at least 30 bonds — counted as bonds lodged during the window (the sample the median is computed on), not the active stock. That is a small sample, and it is the honest one: the median is computed on exactly those bonds. Thinner cells are dropped at source rather than shown as a zero, so nothing on this page sits below that floor. One-bedroom medians are withheld for this window: Omitted for this window: MBIE's own bedroom coding is off in at least one quarter it covers — the 1-bedroom bucket holds up to 67.2% of newly lodged bonds against a long-run 18-23% share, i.e. bonds with an unrecorded bedroom count have been folded into it (MBIE's own NA bucket collapsed from 1,386 cells to 26 when this first showed). A rolling window dilutes a bad quarter, so the test is applied per quarter, not to the window as a whole. Restored automatically once every quarter in the window is back below 30%.
Development contributions
What the council charges per new dwelling
A one-off charge levied at consent stage, per household equivalent unit (HUE). It is the largest council cost most people never see coming — and it is set by where the site sits, not by what you build.
Funding areas: Auckland wide, Central, City Centre GPA, Urban, Urban Auckland.
| Activity | Funding area | Level | Per HUE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community infrastructure | Central | Local | $55 |
| Reserve acquisition | Urban | Sub-Regional | $0 |
| Reserve development | Central | Local | $1,261 |
| Stormwater | City Centre GPA | Local | $3,880 |
| Stormwater | Urban Auckland | Sub-Regional | $748 |
| Transport | Central | Sub-Regional | $2,195 |
| Community infrastructure | Auckland wide | Regional | $646 |
| Reserve acquisition | Auckland wide | Regional | $441 |
| Reserve development | Auckland wide | Regional | $25 |
| Transport | Auckland wide | Regional | $8,991 |
| Local subtotal | $5,196 | ||
| Sub-Regional subtotal | $2,943 | ||
| Regional subtotal | $10,103 | ||
| Total per dwelling | $18,242 | ||
A $0 line is a real zero rate in the policy — that activity is not charged in this funding area. It is not missing data, and the lines still add to the total above.
Auckland Council development contributions per additional dwelling (1 HUE), resolved per parcel from the 2025 policy funding areas. Parcels in the suburb are grouped by their funding-area combination; the headline is the combination covering the most parcels. breakdown itemises that headline combination by activity and funding area — the rates add up to the headline figure, they are not shares of it. Development contributions are one-off per-HUE charges levied by Auckland Council at consent stage; shown here at 2026/27 invoice-year rates under the 2025 policy funding areas, one dwelling = 1 HUE (reductions for small/multi-unit dwellings per Schedule 2). The council's invoice is definitive. Existing dwellings on the site are credited — a two-into-three development pays for the net additional units, not all three. Rates rise each policy year.
Schools
Enrolment zones covering Freemans Bay
Percentages are the share of Freemans Bay parcels that fall inside each school's enrolment zone. A zone boundary can run down the middle of a street, so treat this as the suburb's shape — the address decides.
| School | Type | EQI | Share of Freemans Bay in zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auckland Girls' Grammar School | Secondary (Year 9-15) | 485 | 100.0% |
| Ponsonby Intermediate | Intermediate | 380 | 100.0% |
| Western Springs College | Secondary (Year 9-15) | 422 | 100.0% |
| Freemans Bay School | Contributing | 408 | 98.9% |
| Ponsonby Primary School | Contributing | 364 | 1.1% |
| Kowhai Intermediate School | Intermediate | 403 | 1.0% |
Schools sited inside Freemans Bay: Auckland Girls' Grammar School.
Source: Ministry of Education school and enrolment-zone registers. Schools whose enrolment zone covers part of the suburb, and schools physically located in it. EQI = Ministry of Education Equity Index (lower = fewer socio-economic barriers). Deciles were discontinued in 2023 and are deliberately not shown or back-derived. vintage is the date the school roll and zone data itself is current to — not the date this page was generated. EQI is the Ministry's Equity Index — a lower number means students face fewer socio-economic barriers. It replaced deciles in 2023 and we do not back-calculate the old ones. Zones change; schools with no zone enrol from anywhere and do not appear here. This is coverage, not a ranking — we publish no school quality score on this page.
Flood exposure
How much of Freemans Bay is mapped as flood-affected
- Floodplain 7.5%
- Modelled 1% AEP inundation extent (rivers and overland flow).
- Flood-prone 5.4%
- Topographic depressions with no outlet, where water ponds.
The two layers overlap, so these do not add up to the figure on the left — a parcel can sit in both.
Share of address-bearing parcels in the suburb whose boundary intersects each mapped Auckland Council flood layer, and the share touching at least one of them. The two layers overlap, so the shares do not add up — read any_layer as 'touches at least one'. Intersecting does not mean the whole site floods: depth and extent vary within a parcel.
Source: Auckland Council flood plains and flood-prone areas, both layers. "Touches" means any part of the parcel meets a mapped layer — most affected sites are affected at one corner, not throughout, and the maps model overland flow rather than record past floods. This is not a flood assessment and it is not the same thing as insurability.
Now do it for your own site
Everything above is the suburb. Feasify runs the same registers against a single parcel — zone and overlays, the envelope you can actually build, contributions, hazards, rent and the report you can hand to a client.
Check an address →Before you build or buy, Feasify.