Bryan Leyland: Things you know that ain't so - Auckland airport must have rapid transport

Things you know that ain't so - Auckland airport must have rapid transport.

At the moment, the politicians are going all out with promises of rapid transport – Winston Peters favours heavy rail, while Jacinda promises light rail within a few years.

Michael Coote: Iwi plans push tribal supremacy

In its draft Unitary Plan (UP), Auckland Council slips in mention that it will, “Require [land] subdivision, use and development … to incorporate the outcomes articulated by mana whenua through consultation and within iwi planning documents.”

This statement would ordinarily be a recitation of basic legal obligations on Auckland Council under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), except that the UP is proposing an entirely political commitment to privilege and facilitate the interests of Auckland’s Maori tribes over the rest of the community.

Michael Coote: Submission on the Auckland Unitary Plan

May 2013

Draft Auckland Unitary Plan Feedback from an Auckland Ratepayer and Resident

To whom it may concern,

I write concerning the Draft Auckland Unitary Plan (“D-AUP”) as it relates to policy concerning Maori and Mana Whenua [The people of the land who have mana or customary authority – their historical, cultural and genealogical heritage are attached to the land and sea].

Frank Newman: RMA a failure

The Resource management Act is about to get another makeover, the 21^st since the legislation became law in 1991. The new changes are to be announced within the new few weeks and expected to take up to three years to put into effect. Twenty-one changes in 22 years is a clear admission that the Act is not working, and never has.

Phil McDermott: The Unravelling of the Auckland Plan

Getting the housing equation wrong
The failure of the Auckland Plan to reflect the simple aspirations of Aucklanders for home ownership and predominantly low-rise suburban lifestyles and promote instead the lofty compact city vision held by its planners and policy-makers made its unravelling inevitable.  And now it’s started. Rationing land to squeeze the city upward was always going to create problems.

Bryan Leyland: Auckland will be liveable only if it is affordable

The Auckland plan ignores the potential for modern technology to solve our transport and other problems and, instead, pushes expensive and inappropriate 19th and 20th century solutions. They plan to spend about $3 billion on a rail tunnel that, like all tunneling projects will cost much more and will demand huge subsidies for every passenger. The tunnel is needed only because the plan decrees that people and employment must be crowded into the city centre.

Phil McDermott: Out Might Just be Better than Up - the Housing Density Debate is Not Over

The fall-back position - let's not be LA

New Minister of Housing Dr Nick Smith is determined to “smash the city limits”, so that Auckland grows out, as well as up.  The Mayor of Auckland responded with the claim that allowing the city to expand outward is tantamount to advocating a “flawed Los Angeles model of suburban sprawl and unbridled land availability", and that it would be a throwback to the 1940s and 1950s.

Phil McDermott: Congestion, Density, and Transit– Have we got the mix all wrong?

The compact city/transit answer to the urban sustainability question

Expensive – and usually loss-making – public transit is enjoying a resurgence in the face of uncertainty over the supply and price of oil, concerns about the proliferation of private vehicles and greenhouse gas emissions, and  questions over the sustainability of our cities.

Phil McDermott: Redesigning a City - Planning an Affordable Future for Auckland

At last some urgency ... The Government has responded to the analysis of housing affordability by largely adopting the multifaceted approach proposed by the New Zealand Productivity Commission.

My interest is in what it says about boosting the supply of houses, a necessary but not sufficient condition to improve affordability and sustain the liveability of our two largest cities.  The government response acknowledges the urgent need to boost dwelling numbers in Auckland and Christchurch, and to do so by providing for sufficient brownfield and greenfield land accessible to the market in a regulatory environment that no longer unduly impedes development. 

Phil McDermott: Irresponsible inner city behaviour

The latest in urban design - new public spaces for the dispossessed

In my last blog I raised the question of whether purchasing land for a possible rail link through the city would reduce the attractiveness of the inner city living by laying waste to a corridor cutting through it – shades of the motorway madness of the 1950s and 60s.  I suggested that this will increase the anti-social behaviour after dark that so worries CBD residents and visitors.

So it was interesting to see in the New Zealand Herald today the concern over the use of vacant city sites as places of refuge for people deemed anti-social and particularly as sites for binge drinking.

Phil McDermott: Getting past the words

The Draft Auckland Plan is a daunting document – both in ambition and in presentation.  It covers a range of fields.  In what started out as a spatial planning exercise, Auckland Council boldly sets thirty year priorities for central government in areas like transport, health, and education; spells out what industry might do and how it might perform;  and promulgates its own long-term agenda in the areas of land use, urban design, and infrastructure.

So when we get past the vision, the photos, the charts, the the strategies, the principles, and directives, what does it all boil down to?

Owen McShane: Let’s Get Close to the Water.

In his seminal work of 1996 “The Mythical Conception of Rail Transit in Los Angeles”, Jonathan Richmond explained that the powerful myths and symbols surrounding rail allow convictions to displace rational analysis. Once rail is adopted as a solution to urban problems any proposal that appears to promote the viability of rail will also be adopted. Unfortunately, these downstream policies are almost always destructive to the general urban economy.

 Randal O’Toole’s 2004 book “Great Rail Disasters – the Impact of Rail Transit on Urban Liveability” argues that such rail-supportive policies have damaged the larger urban economies and that contrary to the mythology, recent heavy investments in rail have reduced the urban “liveability” of New World Cities.

Owen McShane: Let's build on Auckland's brand

The Auckland Policy Office, led by the Ministry of Economic Development, has released the nine reports generated by its three-year research programme on Auckland’s social and economic development.

These reports openly challenge many of the assumptions behind the discussion document “Auckland Unleashed” and provide substantial data in support of the Ministry of Transport’s skeptical response to the current proposal for a mono-centric, high-density, public transport dependent, Auckland Council.

Owen McShane: Auckland Spatial Plan

The battle lines are being drawn.

The Government legislation that created the Auckland Council included a requirement for an “evidence-based” Spatial Plan as a general planning framework for the region to be governed by the new Auckland Council. Government has recently presented a set of position papers establishing its preferences for an approach based on rigorous analysis of existing patterns and trends rather than utopian and coercive visions. The position papers flag the reasonable position that Government will not ask the taxpayers to fund major projects focused on the Auckland CBD unless they are supported by rigorous analysis, including costs and benefits.

Owen McShane: Can the Auckland Council Survive

Len Brown, of the ‘Centre Left’, will soon be the first Mayor of the Auckland Council. Mega-amalgamations inevitably generate tension between the conflicting interests of the central urban area and the outer municipalities. Mayoral candidates from the business-focused central area will be seen to be more “right” than politicians from the surrounding communities. Consequently, the outer electorates favour their candidates over those from the central area. This geographic preference leads to the election of Mayors from the Centre Left rather than the Centre Right. London’s "Red Ken" was a famous example.

Owen McShane: How High Speed Broadband gets People out of their Cars

Urban economies are now driven by their network connectivity more than by their size.

The combination of the internet, cellular computing-telephony, underpinned by High Speed Broadband, will drive the economic performance of cities through the 21st century mainly by hugely increasing the integration of urban enterprises with skilled labor markets throughout the region, and elsewhere in the world.

Owen McShane: If I was going there, I wouldn't start from here.

Many people are hoping the creation of the Auckland Super City will launch a new and better
Auckland – more affordable, more liveable, and more efficient.

Unfortunately, such improvements are unlikely while so many are so misinformed about Auckland’s environment today. If we don’t know where we are we cannot properly plan where to go.

Owen McShane: No Access Ramps between Orewa and Warkworth

The proposed Puhoi to Wellsford Highway should greatly enhance the connectivity of the Auckland and Northland economies. We are learning that networks are now more important in establishing urban primacy than size alone. But the potential benefits of this new element in the roading network are seriously compromised by the decision to have no access or exit ramps between the Orewa roundabout and Warkworth. This is not an engineering decision but is based on the Auckland Regional Growth Strategy which has determined that there shall be no growth between these two access points and hence there is no need for ramps.

Owen McShane: What is a Spatial Plan ... and whose is it?

The race is now on for the Mayor and Councillors of the Auckland Council – a critical stage in the process of creating the new Super City for the Auckland Region. We must all hope that this new Local Authority will contribute to the growth and development of the Auckland Region. After all, if Auckland is unable to perform to expectations we can hardly expect the nation to do any better.