5-lot mixed subdivision · Papatoetoe
809m² · All consents approved in 5 months · Negligible RFIs & built in 6 months
Faster consents. Fewer surprises. One team, brief to BC.
Most North Island subdivision budgets bleed before construction starts — RFIs, redesigns, council back-and-forth. Nivas keeps design and planning in-house, so your project moves through council with the same hands that drew it.
Designing, consenting, and delivering across Auckland — from cross-lease conversions to multi-lot developments.
Trusted by
Why Nivas
Built around one idea: the people who design your project should be the same people who get it through council.
Most North Island practices subcontract their planning. A designer hands over to a planner. The planner writes the report. The council asks a question. The planner asks the designer. The designer revises. Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into RFIs. RFIs turn into cost.
We started Nivas because we got tired of watching good projects stall in handovers that didn't need to exist. Our design and planning sit under one roof. The person who drew your lots writes the report. The person who wrote the report answers the council. No translation lost. No emails chasing emails.
It's a smaller way to work. It's also faster, cleaner, and more accountable.
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Subdivisions consented
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Lots delivered to RC + BC
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Average time from brief to RC lodgement
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Projects delivered within original fee scope
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What we do
Six ways we help North Island landowners and developers move faster.
Whether you're unlocking a multi-lot site, renovating a home you'll actually live in, or trying to make sense of a cross-lease title — we handle the design, the planning, and the council coordination as one connected process.
Subdivisions (RC + BC + build)
Maximise yield, design buildable homes, and move through council without the usual loops.
Renovations needing Building Consent
Major renovations and additions on Auckland homes — designed, consented, and coordinated end-to-end.
Single home on your lot
Already own a section? We'll design, consent, and document a home that fits the site and the budget.
Cross-lease to freehold (Guide)
A plain-English breakdown of what conversion actually involves in Auckland — and whether your title is worth converting.
Feasibility & site analysis
Before you commit, find out what your site can actually do — yield, constraints, realistic timelines.
Council coordination & RFI response
Stuck in an RFI loop with another firm? We can take over council coordination on existing projects.
Recent work
Different sites. Same way of working.
Each of these came with its own constraints — yield, access, neighbours, council expectations. Each one moved faster than the Auckland norm because the design and planning didn't change hands.
4-lot standalone subdivision - Papatoetoe
729m² · All consents approved in 4 months · Challenging traffic due to slope & currently under construction
5-lot standalone subdivision · Manurewa
756m² · Each house with a unique facade · Saved $30K on Vector fees · Less RFIs & built in 4 months
What clients say
Why developers trust us with their next site.
Common questions
Things developers ask before working with us.
Auckland Council's statutory clock for non-notified consents is 20 working days from lodgement. We can't speed up council. What we can speed up is everything before lodgement — and how we respond to RFIs after. Our average time from brief to RC lodgement is [X weeks]. Most projects clear council without redesign because we resolve council questions before they're asked.
It's the reason we're fast. With a large firm, your project changes hands between designers, planners, project managers, and council liaison staff. Every handover loses context. With us, the same hands draw, document, and defend the project from start to finish. Smaller teams aren't a weakness when there's no internal coordination loss.
Most Auckland design firms subcontract planning to external consultants. We don't. Our planning sits inside the practice, so the person who drew your lots is the person who writes the report and responds to council. No translation between firms. No waiting for the planner to be available.
Plan Change 78's Medium Density Residential Standards were partially withdrawn by Auckland Council on 9 October 2025 and replaced by Plan Change 120, which has been notified for submissions and is now the live framework for residential intensification. PC120 reinstates Unitary Plan zoning across most residential areas and downzones around 12,000 properties in flood and coastal-risk overlays. If your project is in flight or you're considering one, this affects your design strategy and your timing. We can review your site's current zoning position — and any PC120 overlay impact — as part of a feasibility check.
Yes. Cross-lease conversion is a legal and planning process before it's a building one. We've outlined the steps, costs, and gotchas in our cross-lease guide. Once converted, many owners explore subdividing — we handle that next step too.
Total project cost depends heavily on site, yield, and infrastructure. Council fees alone for a bundled land use + subdivision consent start around $12,000. Our design and planning fee is quoted per project after a feasibility review — we won't quote blind. Auckland-wide, total consent-phase costs for residential subdivisions typically run $150,000–$300,000+ including all professional input.
Fixed scope, fixed fee, agreed upfront. We don't hourly-bill the consent phase. If the scope changes (council requests something genuinely new), we'll quote the variation before doing the work — never after.
Get in touch. We sometimes take over council coordination on projects that have stalled — usually after a couple of RFI rounds with no clear path forward. We'll review what's been lodged, what council's asking for, and tell you honestly whether we can move it forward.
Start your project
Got a site? Let's see what it can do.
A 30-minute feasibility check tells you whether your site is worth developing, what yield is realistic, and what timeline you're looking at. No pitch deck. No commitment. Just a useful conversation.