Areas we service · New Zealand

Architectural rendering · Auckland

Renders from your model, for projects in Auckland.

Auckland is the rare market where the view has already been surveyed before anyone designs into it. Section 6 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 established the council as a unitary authority, giving it the responsibilities and powers of a regional council alongside those of a territorial authority. The Auckland Unitary Plan therefore combines the regional policy statement, the regional coastal plan, the regional plans and the district plans into one combined plan, so a single document carries the overlay, the zone standard and the schedule an image will be read against. Under the Maunga Viewshafts and Height Sensitive Areas Overlay the protected views toward the maunga of Tāmaki Makaurau are not written as adjectives. They are tabulated as numbered viewing points with survey coordinates and a stated height. That reorders the first question of a brief. Not where the building looks best, but which published station it will be judged from, and whether the model even knows where it is standing.

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Where renders get used here

Resource consent under the one combined plan is where imagery actually lands, and the viewshaft overlays make the test unusually literal. Where a building intrudes into a scheduled maunga viewshaft, the council restricts its discretion to a named list of matters, chief among them the effect on the visual integrity of the view of the maunga from the identified viewing point or line, with the criteria pointing back at a values assessment the plan publishes for each viewshaft. The Auckland War Memorial Museum Viewshaft Overlay goes one step further and carries a special information requirement of its own: a non-complying application under its rule must arrive with a landscape assessment prepared by a suitably qualified landscape architect, covering effects on views between Takarunga / Mount Victoria and Maungawhau / Mount Eden. In the Business - City Centre Zone the same habit surfaces as protected street sightlines and sunlight admission cones over named public places. Kallo supplies the imagery to that brief. The consultant who signs the assessment writes it, lodges it and defends it.

Who decides

Auckland Council

Decides resource consent under the combined plan it administers, and in the viewshaft overlay its discretion is expressly the effect on the view of a maunga from an identified viewing point or line.

Auckland Urban Design Panel

Gives independent design review of significant projects as pre-application advice, holding no statutory decision-making power, which is why images earn their keep before lodgement rather than after it.

Tūpuna Maunga o Tāmaki Makaurau Authority

Co-governs the tūpuna maunga under the Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau Collective Redress Act 2014 and the Reserves Act 1977, the features every scheduled viewshaft exists to keep in sight.

Preparing your brief

For an Auckland brief, distinguish the material requested by your consultants from the images you want for a property campaign. Send the current design, the location, relevant site photographs and any agreed list of required views. If your landscape architect or planner has issued presentation requirements, include their brief and nominate who will approve the result. For marketing work, describe the intended buyer, the important spaces and the setting that makes the project distinctive. We can then agree a focused set of deliverables around your review dates and launch plans.

What gets built here

Five of the plan's overlays each publish a sightline somebody has already decided is worth keeping: the Maunga Viewshafts and Height Sensitive Areas Overlay, the Ridgeline Protection Overlay, the Local Public Views Overlay, the Auckland War Memorial Museum Viewshaft Overlay and the Stockade Hill Viewshaft Overlay. The Business - City Centre Zone adds its street sightlines and its sunlight admission cones. The plan's own text flags several of those overlays as affected by Plan Change 120, Housing Intensification and Resilience. A project in the Hauraki Gulf islands is a different case again: its district provisions still sit in the Hauraki Gulf Islands Section, which has never been folded in, while the regional policy statement, the regional coastal plan and the regional plan reach the islands as normal.

Working with Kallo

Kallo works with your team wherever your project is based. Share the approved design, the audience and the date you need the work. Your proposal confirms the images or film, review stages and delivery schedule.

  • Your presentation or launch date helps shape an agreed delivery schedule.
  • The proposal sets out the review stages and the changes included in your project.
  • Bring feedback together so your team can approve a clear direction.
  • Larger sets and complex projects get a confirmed schedule before work begins.
  • Project files and images are private unless publication is approved in writing.

Units and sheets

Units

Metric

Sheets

ISO A series

Models arrive in millimetres and presentation sets are laid out on A1 and A3. Nothing needs converting on the way in or out.

Questions

We sit inside a maunga viewshaft. Does a render prove we do not intrude?

No, and it should never be sold as one. Where a building leans on landform to argue it stays clear of a scheduled viewshaft, the plan wants a report from a registered surveyor, and existing vegetation cannot be counted toward that finding. An image explains a surveyed conclusion to a reader who is not a surveyor. It is not a substitute for the survey itself.

Which viewpoint should the image be taken from?

Your landscape architect or urban designer should identify the required viewpoints and provide the relevant written brief. Include any scheduled viewpoint identifiers they are relying on. We confirm the image scope from that information before you commission the work.

What if our site information is incomplete?

Share the information your team currently has and identify the person responsible for the site details. We will flag anything else required when reviewing the brief. Your surveyor or design consultant should confirm site information needed for a formal assessment.

Do you write the landscape assessment that goes with the application?

No. That assessment belongs with a suitably qualified landscape architect appointed by your team. Kallo can discuss the images requested in their brief, while the consultant remains responsible for the assessment, its conclusions and its submission.

Will the Auckland Urban Design Panel see this work?

It may. The panel reviews significant projects and gives its advice before an application is lodged, without any statutory decision-making power of its own. Images made for that session are doing persuasion in a room rather than evidence on a file, so the useful set is usually context and massing from several angles instead of one finished hero view.

What we checked, September 2026

This page names the bodies and the checks rather than quoting rules, because rules change. It is background for planning a set of images, not planning advice. Your project team stays responsible for what is lodged.

Other areas

Tell us about your project.

Tell us what you are planning, who the images are for and when you need them. We will discuss the right views and film for the project, then prepare a tailored proposal.

Discuss your project

Already know what you need? Send a project brief.

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