How to Use Auckland Council's PC120 Map Viewer (and What It Won't Show You)

On 6 June 2026 Auckland Council published the official PC120 Map Viewer. It is free, it works at individual property level, and it is the authoritative place to see how Plan Change 120 proposes to treat any address in the region. If you own property in Auckland, or you are thinking about buying, it is worth ten minutes of your time.

It is also easy to misread. The viewer is built on a mapping platform designed for professionals, some layers only display at certain zoom levels, and one of the most consequential hazard datasets for hilly Auckland does not appear in it at all. This guide covers how to use the viewer properly, how to read the property summary, and four things it cannot tell you.

§ 1.0What the PC120 Map Viewer is

A quick recap for anyone arriving fresh. Plan Change 120 is Auckland Council's proposed update to the Auckland Unitary Plan, the region's planning rulebook. It does two things at once. It concentrates new housing capacity around centres and transport corridors, and it strengthens the rules for building in areas exposed to natural hazards. The natural hazard rules in Chapter E36 took legal effect when PC120 was notified on 3 November 2025. The zoning changes remain proposals.

The Map Viewer is the council's tool for seeing how the notified version of PC120 applies to a specific property. Click on a parcel and a property summary appears showing the proposed zone, any management layers, and any spatially identified qualifying matters that apply. The council has also published a short user guide, which is worth reading because the interface takes some getting used to.

One design point worth knowing up front. The zoning layers cover the whole region because the natural hazards side of PC120 applies everywhere. The rezoning and intensification side does not. So every Auckland property returns a summary, even where nothing about its zoning is proposed to change.

§ 2.0Before you start: this is a proposal, not the rulebook

The most important thing to hold in your head while using the viewer is its status. It shows what the council has notified, not what has been decided.

As at July 2026, PC120 is mid-process. After the government reduced Auckland's required housing capacity to a minimum of around 1.4 million homes in April 2026, the council's Policy, Planning and Development Committee endorsed two scenarios for potential changes. Scenario A would wind back much of the additional housing capacity outside the mandatory areas. Scenario B would keep the mandatory requirements and enable some additional capacity in walkable catchments. A second public submission round is expected around August 2026, with hearings to follow and final decisions expected in mid 2027.

Here is the practical reading. Under both scenarios, the council has stated the stronger natural hazard rules stay, including additional downzoning in the most vulnerable areas informed by updated flood modelling. So a hazard-related change you see in the viewer is likely to persist. A capacity increase you see is possible but not settled. If a purchase or a project depends on the extra height or density PC120 currently shows, treat that as a moving target until the process concludes.

§ 3.0How to check your property, step by step

Two traps to avoid, both flagged in the council's own user guide. First, not every layer displays at every scale. A layer can be ticked on and still be invisible until you zoom in further, so an empty-looking map does not always mean an empty answer. Second, the viewer shows PC120 information only. The current operative zoning lives in the separate Auckland Unitary Plan maps, so comparing before and after means having both tools open.

§ 4.0How to read the property summary

The summary box has three parts worth reading carefully. Here is what each one is telling you.

That last phrase, spatially identified, matters more than it looks, because the next section turns on it: some of the most important hazard information for Auckland is not spatially identified on the PC120 maps at all.

§ 5.0Four things the viewer will not show you

The viewer shows notified extents. Between now and an operative plan sit a second submission round, hearings, and council decisions expected in mid 2027. The hazard provisions have been signalled as staying. The capacity provisions may move. If your plans depend on a proposed height or density, treat it as provisional.

This is the significant one for Auckland's hill suburbs.

The property summary lists qualifying matters that are spatially identified. Landslide risk under PC120 works differently. It is managed through the rules in Chapter E36 and the assessment methodology in Appendix 24, which reference the council's region-wide landslide susceptibility maps rather than drawing a qualifying matter polygon onto the planning maps. The council's user guide itself notes that some qualifying matters sit in the chapters of PC120 rather than on the maps.

The practical consequence: a property can sit within a mapped Medium, High or Very High landslide susceptibility area, which may carry real obligations for what a future consent application needs to include, and the PC120 Map Viewer property summary will not mention it. To see the susceptibility layers you need GeoMaps, a separate council tool. Even there, the layers are regional-scale screening maps that stop displaying at close zoom by design, because the underlying study was not built to make parcel-scale claims.

Auckland Council's 2025 landslide susceptibility study was the first region-wide mapping of its kind in around 30 years, and it classifies the entire region across two layers, shallow and large-scale. If the property you are checking sits on or near sloping ground, the Map Viewer alone will not give you the landslide picture, and the landslide picture is often the one that matters most for consenting on Auckland's slopes.

The viewer shows where flood-related qualifying matters apply, typically as a single extent. What it does not show is the graduated flood layers underneath: the floodplain, flood prone areas, overland flow paths, coastal inundation and erosion layers, and the hazard categories that PC120's consenting rules are actually built around. Two properties inside the same qualifying matter extent can face quite different consenting contexts depending on which layers touch them and how.

The council publishes that detail in GeoMaps and the Flood Viewer, in separate tools with their own layer names. The council's own PC120 information sheet on flood hazard notes that the Map Viewer may not reflect all natural hazards over time and directs readers to GeoMaps for the flood hazard detail.

The summary tells you that a qualifying matter applies. It does not tell you what that may require if you want to renovate, extend, subdivide or build, what an application may need to demonstrate under the E36 risk framework, or which findings are worth raising with your lawyer, insurer or engineer. That is the difference between data and interpretation, and it is the gap every council mapping tool leaves by design. The council publishes the data. Working out what it means for your situation is left to you.

§ 6.0The free do-it-yourself workflow

If you want to assemble the full picture using only council tools, this is the honest version of the workflow.

It works, and plenty of people do it. Allow an hour or two, keep notes on what each tool shows for the address, and take care matching layer names between tools, because the same hazard can be labelled differently in different viewers. A Know Your Risk report does this cross-referencing in one pass for $49, with the seven hazard layers, the PC120 context for each finding, and plain-English explanations in a single PDF. Both routes get you to an informed position. One costs time, the other costs the price of a takeaway dinner.

§ 7.0If you are buying: what to do with what you find

The right response depends on what you are buying the property to do.

Buying an existing home to live in. The proposed zoning changes may matter less to you than the hazard side, because the E36 hazard rules already apply to consent applications. What you mainly want to know is which hazard layers touch the property, what they may mean for your insurance conversations, and what they may mean if you ever want to do work on the house. A qualifying matter or a hazard layer is not a defect finding. It is context for questions.

Buying to renovate, extend or develop. Both halves matter. The proposed zone shapes what may be possible on the site, and the hazard rules shape what an application may need to demonstrate. If the viewer shows a downzone, or GeoMaps shows Medium or higher landslide susceptibility, or multiple flood layers intersect the parcel, those findings may affect feasibility and are worth professional advice before you commit.

Either way, the Map Viewer is a starting point, not a conclusion. Check it, compare it with the current Unitary Plan zoning, check the hazard layers in GeoMaps, read the LIM when you get it, and bring in a planner or engineer where the findings warrant it.

This article summarises public council information in general terms. It is not planning, legal, engineering or insurance advice. PC120 is still progressing through submissions, hearings and decisions, and details may change. Check the latest council sources or seek professional advice before making property decisions.