Phil McDermott: Breaking Through and Moving on: Beginnings of a New Plan for Auckland

The Break Through
After years of pushing the compact city fallacy and ignoring the obvious approach to solving Auckland’s particular growth problems, the city and its planners have at last begun to water down their dearly held but doomed compact city plan.  

The New Zealand Herald revealed that “the council's planning committee will consider a report to allow for 120,000 new homes at six main locations in the north, north-west and south of the city.” A range of smaller rural settlements has also been identified for further development, spread over 130km from north to south. 

Phil McDermott: Planning to Fail - Wrong Assumptions, Wrong Policies

This article was first published on Phil's Cities Matter blog on Friday, November 27, 2015

A Complex and Contested Plan

Deficiencies in the vision for a compact city promoted in the Auckland Plan are apparent in the contested nature of the statutory document intended to implement it.  The Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) has attracted 13,000 submissions and is subject to extensive hearings by an independent panel.

Phil McDermott: Just Another Stake in the Sand - Planning, Demographics, and Uncertainty

Another million or another myth?

The Mayor, Len Brown, reiterated the Council view that Auckland is facing an increase of around one million people over the next 30 years, and that planning for this level of growth is the prudent thing to do.  I cannot be so sure. 

The Mayor is pretty bullish about growth, though.  He even claimed that “our actual rate of population growth has been well above the highest projection” since 1999.