Herne BayAuckland, New Zealand — what you can build here, and what it costs

Herne Bay has 923 address-bearing parcels across 11 zones; the middle one is 667 m². 59.2% of them are Single House. A new dwelling attracts $18,519 in council contributions for 91.9% of the suburb (2026/27). 5.9% of parcels touch at least one mapped flood layer.

Parcels923with a street address · 79.2 ha
Median site667m²all parcels · middle half 500–942 m²
Dominant zone59.2%Single House
Contributions$18,519per 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 Herne 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 923 of them, commercial and reserve included; residential-zoned parcels on their own median 680 m². Data as at 17 August 2026.

Zoning

What Herne Bay is zoned

11 zones cover Herne Bay; Single House holds 59.2% 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 59.2%
Mixed Housing Suburban 22.8%
Mixed Housing Urban 7.5%
Local Centre 4.8%
Terrace Housing and Apartment Building 2.9%
6 other zones 2.8%

Every parcel takes the zone covering most of it.
Zone	Parcels	Share of parcels	Share of land	Median site
Single House	546	59.2%	58.2%	717 m²
Mixed Housing Suburban	210	22.8%	22.1%	565 m²
Mixed Housing Urban	69	7.5%	10.5%	793 m²
Local Centre	44	4.8%	2.9%	474 m²
Terrace Housing and Apartment Building	27	2.9%	2.9%	584 m²
Mixed Use	10	1.1%	0.5%	358 m²
Open Space: Informal Recreation	6	0.7%	1.3%	1,132 m²
Open Space: Sport and Active Recreation	4	0.4%	0.9%	1,454 m²
Neighbourhood Centre	3	0.3%	0.3%	727 m²
School	2	0.2%	0.4%	1,594 m²
Open Space: Conservation	1	0.1%	0.1%	466 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
59.2% of parcels

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
Mixed Housing Suburban
22.8% of parcels

Maximum height
8 m

Height in relation to boundary
2.5m + 45 deg

Front yard
3 m

Side & rear yard
1 m

Building coverage
40%

Impervious surface
60%

Minimum lot size
400 m²

Dwellings permitted
3
Mixed Housing Urban
7.5% of parcels

Maximum height
11 m

Height in relation to boundary
3m + 45 deg (AUP H5.6.5.1)

Front yard
2.5 m

Side & rear yard
1 m

Building coverage
45%

Impervious surface
60%

Minimum lot size
300 m²

Dwellings permitted
3

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

Herne Bay spans 4 statistical areas and each has its own median. There is no single "Herne Bay median" to quote — medians cannot be averaged together — so the headline below names the area it belongs to. 3 of those areas have enough bonds lodged to publish one.

$745

a week, all bedroom counts, in Herne Bay — the statistical area holding 84.7% of Herne Bay's parcels. n = 144 bonds lodged over 12 months.

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: $745 in Herne Bay against $770 for 2 bedrooms.

Every statistical area in Herne Bay with a publishable median, 12-month rolling window ending June 2026.
Statistical area	Share of Herne Bay	Median /wk	Bonds
Herne Bay	84.7%	$745	144
Ponsonby West	7.2%	$1,005	51
Saint Marys Bay	7.0%	$700	132

By bedroom count — only sizes with enough bonds to publish.
Bedrooms	Median across areas	Areas with a median	Bonds
2 bedrooms	$770 /wk	1 area	39

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.

2026/27 invoice year

$18,519

per additional dwelling (1 HUE) for 91.9% of parcels in Herne Bay

What the $18,519 is made of.
Activity	Funding area	Level	Per HUE
Community infrastructure	Central	Local	$55
Reserve acquisition	Urban	Sub-Regional	$0
Reserve development	Central	Local	$1,261
Stormwater	Waitemata Central 1	Local	$4,157
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			$5,473
Sub-Regional subtotal			$2,943
Regional subtotal			$10,103
Total per dwelling			$18,519

Not one price for the whole suburb — every rate paid inside Herne Bay:

$18,519848 parcels · 91.9% Auckland wide, Central, Urban, Urban Auckland, Waitemata Central 1
$18,24275 parcels · 8.1% Auckland wide, Central, City Centre GPA, Urban, Urban Auckland

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 Herne Bay

Percentages are the share of Herne 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.

Ministry of Education enrolment zones, as at 1 August 2026.
School	Type	EQI	Share of Herne 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%
Bayfield School	Contributing	356	60.1%
Ponsonby Primary School	Contributing	364	40.6%
Westmere School (Auckland)	Contributing	378	0.1%

Schools sited inside Herne Bay: Auckland Secondary Schools' Centre, Bayfield School, Ponsonby Primary 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 Herne Bay is mapped as flood-affected

5.9%

of parcels touch at least one mapped flood layer — 54 of the 923 assessed

Floodplain 5.6%: Modelled 1% AEP inundation extent (rivers and overland flow).
Flood-prone 4.9%: 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 →

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