Wellington city councillor Paul Eagle fears legislative changes will mean residents are kept in the dark abut neighbourhood developments.

The truck delivering a show home at 3am was the first notice residents in a quiet Wellington street were given of a new development being built.

Now, a city councillor is worried the lack of notice for neighbours could be a sign of things to come as more special housing areas are planned for the city.

Residents around Princess Tce in Newtown say they had no idea a new 34 home development was being built off their quiet cul-de-sac until the show home arrived.

But, the developers say they went through all necessary resource consent processes and informed residents once the project was underway.

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Wellington City Council granted non-notified resource consent for the project in June last year. A council spokesman said while it was built in an area that was recommended as a special housing area, it was consented separate from it.

The consent said the project's effects "will be no more than minor and no parties will be adversely affected".

The council also sold a block of land to the developers that had been put aside for social housing but was never built on.

A neighbour to the development, who would not be named, said a show home arrived on the back of a house-moving truck at 3am in the middle of 2015 "and that was the first we knew of it".

Residents complained to the council that they had no idea what was going on.

"We were told by someone at council, 'you can complain but it won't help'."

Another affected resident said she had complained about workers using machinery at the site on Sundays and Good Friday.

"The last few weeks it was like we have had 10 people hammering all day."

Councillor Paul Eagle said the development was recommended to become designated under the 2013 Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act (HASHA), that was intended to increase housing affordability and availability and to streamline the consent process.

But the developers decided it would be faster to go through a non-notified consent.

"I wonder what it would have been like if we had gone through the HASHA, where residents have less rights ... if this is a sign of things to come, then communities around Wellington aren't going to have a lot of say in what is going to be built.

"This doesn't let council off the hook when it comes to enforcement and compliance, which the council has been a bit sloppy of in this case."

He had received multiple complaints from residents unhappy with the level of consultation and noise.

Stratum Group director Craig Stewart, the developer, said his company had gone through the full resource consent process with the council.

A letter was delivered to neighbours informing them of the project's timeline after the show home was put in place, and a follow up was sent to immediate neighbours ahead of the project starting, he said.

All 34 homes had been sold ahead of completion, mostly to first home buyers, and the houses were built to a high quality with weatherboard cladding, he said.

He was not aware of workers working beyond consented hours of 7.30am to 6pm Monday to Saturday - an allegation made by neighbours.

The old earthquake-prone buildings that were torn down to make room did nothing to "add to the neighbourhood", he said.

"At the end of the day there's a really good example of how you can change quite a big area of the city to a real positive use."

Completion of the first 25 homes was expected in a few weeks.

Councillor Andy Foster, chair of the Transport and Urban Development committee, said "it's always a good thing to tell people what is going on rather than surprise them at 3am" even if they had no legal right to object.

Under the 2013 housing act, councils could only legally notify immediate neighbours, infrastructure suppliers, some agencies, and land owners though was not obliged to.

"You can't notify people on the next street."

Wellington was in serious need of new houses and Newtown was a prime spot with good transport and services, he said.