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UPDATED 2.09pm: Appeals against more intensive housing in the Auckland Unitary Plan have been lost, affecting 29,000 homeowners.

The High Court has found the independent panel that heard submissions on the controversial plan acted lawfully, when it recommended allowing more intensive housing in suburban areas that were not flagged for intensification in the first draft of the plan.

The decision affects thousands of homeowners in suburbs including Grey Lynn, Parnell, Orakei, Glendowie and Blockhouse Bay.

Lawyer Richard Brabant, who represented Auckland 2040 and the Character Coalition in the appeal, said a special law governing the way the Unitary Plan was drawn up means further appeals are unlikely.

However, lawyers will still consider further judicial review.

Leroy Beckett of Generation Zero, which campaigned for intensification, welcomed the Court decision.

“I’m glad we have the unitary plan now,” he said. “I think everyone was acting on the basis that it was not going to be stopped, and now we can get on with fixing all the other problems.”

He said Generation Zero only ever saw relaxing the planning rules as one of the policies required to tackle Auckland’s housing crisis.

“Now we have to get on with building the houses, and we need to increase the number of trained builders, and we need to deal with social housing,” he said.

“We still have a huge housing deficit. This just allows us to solve a small part of the problem.”

Additional reporting by Simon Collins of the NZ Herald