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By Matt L, on May 16th, 2013 Last week the Government announced it had reached a housing accord with the Auckland Council in a bid to get more houses built and ease issues over housing affordability.
The legislation, to be introduced to Parliament as part of Budget 2013, will enable Special Housing Areas to be created by the Auckland Council with approval of Government. In these areas it will be possible to override restrictions on housing put in place by Auckland’s eight predecessor Councils, like the Metropolitan Urban Limit.
Qualifying developments in these Special Housing Areas will be able to be streamlined, providing they are consistent with Auckland’s Unitary Plan, once it is notified, expected in September this year. New greenfield developments of more than 50 dwellings will be able to be approved in six months as compared to the current average of three years and brownfield developments in three months as compared to the current average of one year. The streamlined process will not be available for high rise developments that will need to be considered under existing rules until the Unitary Plan has been finalised in 2016.
“This is a three year agreement to address these housing supply issues in the interim until Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan becomes fully operative and the Government’s Resource Management Act reforms for planning processes take effect.
“The Government respects in this Accord that it is for Auckland to decide where and how it wishes to grow. The Government is giving new powers for council to get some pace around new housing development and is agreeing on aspirational targets to ensure Auckland’s housing supply and affordability issues are addressed.
Overall the accord seemed straight forward enough and fairly sensible. At a high level the council would decide on a number of Special Housing Areas. Qualifying developments within these areas are able to use a fast tracked process to get consent and would have to comply with the rules in the Unitary Plan when it is formally notified later this year.
To me the accord seemed fairly positive as it would make it quite easy for medium density developments – the kind that will likely be the majority of intensification that occurs – to happen in any brownfield areas selected. This was especially the case as a site only needs capacity for 5 dwellings to qualify. There was one issue though, while the council would be able to select the special housing areas, the government had to approve them. That leaves the question of what happened if the council and government couldn’t agree on where the special housing areas should be.
Today it seems we have our answer. Along with the budget, the government has introduced the legislation to enable the special housing areas to be designated. Nick Smith has also issued a press release about it which includes this.
“If an accord cannot be reached in an area of severe housing unaffordability, the Government can intervene by establishing special housing areas and issuing consents for developments.”
Budget 2013 includes $7.2 million over four years to help the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment fund the initiative.
The legislation will go through its first reading as part of Budget 2013 before being sent to a select committee for a shortened six-week timetable for urgent consideration and progress.
“This legislation is an immediate and short-term response to housing pressures in areas facing severe housing affordability problems,” Dr Smith says.
“This provides time for the Government’s substantive changes to resource management reforms and the subsequent council planning processes to bear fruit and address these land and housing supply issues in the longer term.”
In other words, if the council and government can’t come to an agreement on the locations for the special housing areas, the government will simply override the council and do what they want. It makes a complete mockery of the announcement that the government and council made last week. It turns out that this is not a case of both sides compromising but one of the government twisting the councils arm behind its back to get their way while also forcing the council to smile at the camera and pretend everything is good.
Len Brown has obviously also been surprised by this as he has already come out with the statement below.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown has welcomed the introduction of legislation for housing accords, but says he will be seeking clarification on a number of points to ensure the final legislation is consistent with the draft Auckland Housing Accord.
“There are clauses in the bill introduced today that appear to be inconsistent with the Auckland Housing Accord,” says Len Brown.
“My expectation is that the Select Committee process will provide an opportunity to clear up these inconsistencies.
“Clearly, in relation to the accord, the point of the legislation is to give effect to the agreements we reached.
“The accord still needs to be considered and agreed by the Auckland Council’s Governing Body. Before we can do this we need to be certain that the legislation is consistent with the agreements in the accord.
Len Brown said he would be writing to Housing Minister Nick Smith to raise questions about the consistency of the accord and the current bill.
The Housing Accord is an agreement between Auckland Mayor Len Brown and the Minister of Housing aimed at tackling issues of housing affordability and supply in Auckland.
It is subject to agreement by Auckland Council.
The streamlined consenting process outlined in the accord can only take effect once the council’s draft Unitary Plan is adopted for notification – expected to be September this year.
It would also be interesting to see how the government determine housing unaffordability, my guess would be the flawed Demographia study as it is something that the government have pointed to in the past.
By Matt L, on May 10th, 2013 Back in March and just before the council released the Unitary Plan, Nick Smith hit headlines by saying that he was going to smash Aucklands Metropolitan Urban Limit in a bid to make housing more affordable but it appeared he was primarily focused on enabling the city to sprawl faster. Over the ensuring weeks a lot of claims and counter claims flying between the council and the government over the best solution. The government seemed to just want the current urban limits removed and for the development process to start. The council suggested that the fastest way for that to happen was actually through implementing the Unitary Plan sooner as that is intended to open up new land and that elements within it would result in better overall developments.
Eventually both parties decided to take the arguing behind closed doors to try and work things out. Today both parties have announced that they have come to an agreement over the issue in the form of the Auckland Housing Accord. Here is the governments take on it.
An Auckland Housing Accord has been agreed today by Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown to urgently increase the supply and affordability of housing in Auckland.
“This Accord will help deliver thousands of new homes for Auckland by streamlining the planning and consenting process and getting Government and Council working more closely together on housing development,” Dr Smith said.
“This balanced and pragmatic agreement addresses the economic risks to New Zealand’s economy of an over-heated and supply constrained Auckland housing market. It is good news for Auckland families wanting access to more affordable houses to buy and rent.”
The legislation, to be introduced to Parliament as part of Budget 2013, will enable Special Housing Areas to be created by the Auckland Council with approval of Government. In these areas it will be possible to override restrictions on housing put in place by Auckland’s eight predecessor Councils, like the Metropolitan Urban Limit.
Qualifying developments in these Special Housing Areas will be able to be streamlined, providing they are consistent with Auckland’s Unitary Plan, once it is notified, expected in September this year. New greenfield developments of more than 50 dwellings will be able to be approved in six months as compared to the current average of three years and brownfield developments in three months as compared to the current average of one year. The streamlined process will not be available for high rise developments that will need to be considered under existing rules until the Unitary Plan has been finalised in 2016.
“This is a three year agreement to address these housing supply issues in the interim until Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan becomes fully operative and the Government’s Resource Management Act reforms for planning processes take effect.
“The Government respects in this Accord that it is for Auckland to decide where and how it wishes to grow. The Government is giving new powers for council to get some pace around new housing development and is agreeing on aspirational targets to ensure Auckland’s housing supply and affordability issues are addressed.
“The Accord sets a target of 9,000 additional residential houses being consented for in Year 1, 13,000 in Year 2, and 17,000 in Year 3. This is a huge boost on the average 3,600 homes that have been consented each year over the past four years and the 7,400 a year over the past 20 years.
“The Accord is a sensible solution to the problem of ensuring a robust process for submissions and hearings on Auckland’s 30 year Unitary Plan, while ensuring progress is made now on Auckland’s housing supply and affordability issues. It is about getting on and building the least contentious 39,000 houses of the 400,000 identified in the draft Unitary Plan.
“This agreement will also enable the Government and Council to make progress on other housing issues. There is a commitment to an inquiry into building material and construction costs, a better coordination on delivering core infrastructure to support new housing and a feasibility study on the development of New Zealand’s first online building consent process in Auckland. There are also significant developments at Tāmaki, Hobsonville, Papakura and Weymouth and across Housing New Zealand’s Auckland housing stock to improve the quality and quantity of Auckland homes.
“This Accord is the product of six weeks of intense discussions with Auckland Mayor Len Brown, his deputy Penny Hulse, and many council and government officials. I wish to publicly thank them for their willingness to engage and to help find this constructive way forward.”
The Auckland Housing Accord is subject to agreement by the Auckland Council and legislation being passed by Parliament. The Accord and legislation will expire when the new Auckland Unitary Plan becomes fully operative, expected in 2016.
At first glance it seems like a fairly decent comprise solution however as always, the devil is in the detail. The way I read things, the council will nominate a series of greenfield and brownfield special housing areas in which the less controversial elements of the unitary plan will take effect straight away. That means that for the rest of Auckland, the unitary plan won’t come into effect until it has been through the Board of Inquiry process set out by Amy Adams earlier this year (or late last year). Allowing the council to decide on the areas that will be subject to this seems like a good idea.
The area of the announcement that most caught my attention was the comments that the streamlined processes will not apply to high rise developments, after all, just what is deemed high rise? The factsheet provided goes someway to answering that.
Overall the accord seems like a decent compromise between the government and council, it will however be interesting to see what areas get selected as special housing zones. Here is the accord itself, the factsheet and the Q&As that go with it.
Also here is Len Browns take on it with the most interesting part being that he suggests that in return for faster consenting in these special housing areas, including affordable housing components in them will likely be a council requirement.
By Mr Anderson, on April 1st, 2013 The NZ Herald reports:
In a surprise announcement, Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee yesterday asked the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) to commence investigations into a motorway between Panmure and Downtown: along a very similar route to the alignment of the Eastern Highway that cost John Banks the Auckland City mayoralty back in 2004.
Mr Brownlee confirmed that the need to investigate this project further was the most significant outcome of a four-month review of the ‘City Centre Future Access Study’ by Ministry of Transport officials.
“In December last year the Auckland Council released the City Centre Future Access Study. At the time I highlighted some concerns that this study had not reviewed a wide enough series of options to deal with future access problems to downtown Auckland and I also highlighted some doubts over the extremely optimistic assumptions made by that study. Today’s announcement vindicates my concerns,” said Mr Brownlee at a media conference at Orakei point, where the six lane motorway is planned to pass through.
“The Future Access Study’s findings showed that while the CBD Rail Loop performed the best of the options considered, by 2021 and especially by 2041, congestion for private vehicles travelling into downtown Auckland at peak times would be significantly worse than it is today – even with the rail loop built. This is an unacceptable outcome, which is why I requested by officials to look into other options.”
In plans released today by the Ministry, a series of roading improvements are scheduled for construction over the next six years across Auckland – with the main goal being to alleviate congestion. These plans include construction of a six lane motorway from Parnell Rise at the bottom of Grafton Gully through to Panmure where the road will connect to the AMETI project, already under construction by Auckland Transport. To save on costs, the motorway will be built at grade rather than in a tunnel, an option previously considered when the Eastern Highway was being promoted by Auckland City Council last decade.
Other projects proposed for construction include a second level on State Highway 1 between the central motorway junction and Mt Wellington, as well as the Northwest motorway between Waterview and the city.
The Ministry’s report offers only a preliminary analysis of the costs of these projects, noting a likely ‘turn out’ cost of between nine and thirteen billion dollars. “We believe this is a small price to pay to rid Auckland of the daily scourge of congestion” stated Mr Brownlee.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown did not attend the media conference, but later released a statement saying that he was “outraged” the government seemed to be “taking over” the planning of transport in Auckland. However, Mr Brown also noted that he strongly supported all the findings in the report.
“Auckland’s population is due to grow by a million people in the next five years, so we need to invest in Auckland’s future. Today’s announcement is a huge step forward for the City Rail Link project.”
Government sources confirmed that today’s announcements are seen as an alternative to the rail loop project, not in addition to it. When this was put to the mayor, he was heard muttering “incompetent fools” before shrugging his shoulders, sighing loudly and stating that he would “continue to work constructively with the government on transport issues in Auckland”.
Auckland Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Michael Barnett stated that he “strongly supported” today’s announcement. “Congestion costs Auckland businesses $5 billion a year and finally there is an agreed plan to tackle this problem. Our only criticism is that the current plan is to have the Eastern Motorway completed by 2017 and a second level on the southern and northwest motorways by 2019. We think that both projects simply must be completed by 2015 at the absolute latest!”
NZ Council for Infrastructure Development Chief Executive Stephen Selwood also noted his strong support for the transport package announced today. “We’ve been working closely with the Ministry of Transport over the past four months to come up with a solution to Auckland’s traffic problems that can be implemented in a way that most benefits our members, I mean most benefits the Auckland public,” said Mr Selwood, from his desk at the Ministry of Transport’s offices in Auckland.
The announcement was not met with total support however, local resident Anthony Pearce said that he had thought the Eastern Highway was “dead and buried” after it cost Mr Banks the 2004 Auckland mayoralty. “Little did I know that much of the designation was never removed!” wailed Mr Pearce. “At least they’ll never be able to get consent for a six lane motorway through the Purewa Valley and across Hobson Bay!”
Environment Minister Amy Adam confirmed that, with the current changes proposed to the Resource Management Act, consenting for the project would be “not a problem”.
Construction of the motorway causeway is set to begin in June.
By Mr Anderson, on March 13th, 2013 The question of how many available sections there are in Auckland for development has yet again raised its head in the last couple of days, with much debate over whether there are 15,000 or 2,000 or some number in between of sections available to build houses on. This from yesterday’s NZ Herald:
Auckland has 2000 new sections ready to build houses on, says Mayor Len Brown, who last month claimed there was enough land for 15,000 homes.
As debate grows about housing and land supply in Auckland, Mr Brown is no longer claiming the city has enough new land to build 15,000 houses “right now”.
Instead, he is saying there is capacity for 15,000 homes on ready-to-go greenfield land in areas such as Flat Bush, Takanini and Hobsonville, but only 2000 sections have reached the building stage.
“The remainder require subdivision and internal servicing by private sector developers to create sections,” Mr Brown said.
Much of the debate seems to be around semantics – what constitutes ‘ready to go’ land? What is the role of Council in delivering land to that point? What is greenfield land?
Clearly there’s a process that developers go through to turn what starts out as countryside into urbanised housing. I’m not really an expert but it seems like it probably goes along these lines:
- Land is highlighted as suitable for future urban growth (i.e. placed inside the urban growth boundary). Usually this land seems to get a ‘future urban’ zone or something similar to prevent further subdivision that would make it difficult for that land to be comprehensively redeveloped in the future.
- Structure planning occurs to highlights where roads, parks, schools and other facilities should go as well as which areas should be zoned for what activities/intensities in the future.
- Rezoning occurs to enable redevelopment. Bulk infrastructure (water mains, arterial roads etc.) is provided.
- Land is subdivided down to section sizes and internal roads and pipes, electricity and phone lines are provided to each site.
- House is built and then occupied.
At some point (between steps three and four it would seem) the job of council is done. The main roads have been built, the land has been rezoned, the bulk water supply, wastewater pipes and so forth have been put in. Unless the Council is fulfilling the role of land developer, which in some cases they might well be (like Flat Bush town centre, which I think the Council owns) then it’s hard to lay too much blame at Council for not forcing developers into the final processes of subdividing and building on their land. Ironically one of the biggest greenfield developments on the go at the moment is at Hobsonville – where the government is effectively ‘the developer’. Maybe they need to tell themselves to hurry up and develop that land a bit quicker?
So it seems to me as though something is clearly going wrong between the ‘rezoning’ step and the actual land subdivision step – the difference between the 15,000 figure (which is quite a lot of capacity) and the 2,000 figure (which really isn’t that much). Some developers are sitting on land that has been rezoned and has been provided with bulk infrastructure yet for some reason they’re not subdividing it down to urban sized lots and either building the houses themselves or getting someone else to build the houses. It would be really great to get a better understanding of what’s needed in that process and what’s going wrong at the moment.
Of course Housing Minister Nick Smith’s proposal to get rid of the urban limits doesn’t do anything about resolving the issues that are clearly holding back the supply of sections in current greenfield areas. It’s way back at step one – vastly increasing the amount of land highlighted as potentially suitable for future urban development. Not too dissimilar from seems to already be happening actually.
Dr Smith vowed to break the “stranglehold” of the council’s policy of containing urban sprawl – a policy he says is “killing the dreams of Aucklanders” by driving up house prices.
The minister wants to open up more land outside the existing metropolitan urban limit to peg back land prices which, he said, were the biggest factor putting home ownership out of reach of many.
Mr Brown hit back, saying Dr Smith was advocating a flawed Los Angeles model of “suburban sprawl” going back to the 1940s and 1950s.
The mayor said the new unitary plan – a draft is being released on Friday – provided for a balanced approach of intensification of existing land and releasing new land to house a further million people in Auckland over the next 30 years.
Ironically of course the government’s process for the Auckland Unitary Plan means that no new greenfield land highlighted in the Plan will actually become rezoned for development (i.e. step three) until quite a few years from now – as pointed out by Phil Twyford in parliament today and by Brian Rudman in the NZ Herald last week.
Hopefully the release of the draft Unitary Plan at the end of this week will start to shed some light on all these issues.
By Mr Anderson, on March 9th, 2013 There’s been a lot of discussion after Auckland’s roading network completely collapsed on Thursday due to a crash on the Newmarket viaduct, which caused huge delays.
More than two hours later, traffic on almost all of the city’s arterial routes was gridlocked, with buses backed up in city streets and motorists reporting speeds of less than 10km/h.
Journeys that normally took 15 minutes were taking more than an hour.
Automobile Association traffic spokesman Phil Allen said he had never seen traffic so bad in central Auckland.
The association launched traffic-mapping technology on its site 18 months ago. Routes marked in black show where traffic is moving at under 25 per cent of the speed limit. “I have never seen so much black in the CBD. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Having the Newmarket viaduct blocked off just before rush hour during the busiest week of the year for traffic (March madness) is pretty much a “perfect storm” in terms of things that can go wrong. Interestingly the train system ran just fine throughout the event because of its fundamental separation from the roading network – whereas most bus route in the area got completely nailed by the delays as they spread from the motorway network onto the local roads.
Len Brown’s comments in the Herald highlighted that while events such as what happened on Thursday are incredibly difficult to plan around, the ‘fragility’ of Auckland’s transport network to events like this is a really big issue and something improved public transport would help reduce:
Mayor Len Brown said the gridlock showed “why we need to invest in an integrated transport system including trains, ferries and buses”.
“Only through initiatives such as integrated ticketing, our new electric train fleet and the City Rail Link, can we unclog our roads and unlock the potential of Auckland.”
Cameron Brewer’s comments are, unsurprisingly, less sensible:
Auckland Councillor Cameron Brewer said he had to miss the Orakei Local Board meeting because of the traffic. He left the Town Hall at 5pm, spent 40 minutes on Hobson St, opted to take the Northwestern Motorway, got off at St Lukes and made his way across town to his home in Ellerslie, arriving an hour and 45 minutes later.
“When the airport western ring road to Waterview is complete that will take some pressure off SH1, but what that one accident shows is just how reliant almost all of us are on cars, and that’s not going to change much in the foreseeable future.
“It should be a real wake-up call to the mayor as to where the real problems and frustrations lie for most Aucklanders – that is in traffic jams.”
Mr Brewer said he’d like more improvements to the motorway network and more bus lanes, ferry terminals and cycle and walkways, rather than the CBD rail tunnel.
While the Waterview Connection is a project that would help a lot in situations like this – by providing that much needed “alternative route” – unless Mr Brewer is advocating for a return of the Eastern Motorway project I can’t quite see how further motorway improvements would change what happened on Thursday. And he should have just taken the train to the Local Board meeting as it was held not too far from the Meadowbank train station.
And it seems like the chaos has continued today – not helped by Auckland Transport’s stupidity in not running anything better than hourly trains across much of the rail network even though there are a huge number of events on in Auckland.
By Matt L, on February 3rd, 2013 I had the opportunity to go to the opening of the Beach Haven and Hobsonville ferry wharfs today. While readers my know I have had my doubts on the services, primarily due to the limited sailings and steep prices, I do think that the infrastructure put in place does look good and of course cruising up the harbour on a ferry can be a pretty nice way to get to/from work. Our first stop on the ferry was at Beach haven for a quick ribbon cutting ceremony. Local board chair Lindsay Waugh gave a short speech about the project and at one point got a cheer when she said that the ferry will enable people to get to town and connect to the rest of Auckland using the CRL.
 Beach Haven wharf with Hobsonville in the background  The Beach Haven wharf waiting area After that it was time for a quick hop across to Hobsonville to open that wharf. We did get a little delayed though after having to turn back to Beach Haven due to leaving Len Brown behind. The Hobsonville wharf is quite nice, the waiting area is similar to above, albeit a bit larger. It is reached by a wonderful walkway which is lined with boards that talking about the areas natural and human history.
 Hobsonville Wharf walkway  One thing I quite like is there is a bus stop just behind where I was standing meaning it is only a short transfer to the ferry.  Lots of people turned up for the opening After the ribbon cutting it was time for more speeches which actually turned out to be interesting and a little bit insightful. First up we had Auckland Transports new chairman Lester Levy who gave a superb speech. He talked about the terminal but also how AT had to become better at customer service. He also covered off something I have been thinking about (and have mentioned in a few places), talking about how much of a change is happening to transport over the next few years. He is from a medical background and so used some medical examples, he said we weren’t just having a cosmetic peel that would make the skin look better for a while but that would eventually end up looking just the same, instead he said we were having major re-constructive surgery that will profoundly improve the quality of our lives. Some people may just think this is just talk but I have now met Lester a few times and I do think he is genuinely wants to improve transport in Auckland which is excellent and just what we need.
Next up was John Key who along with Len Brown opened the wharf. Perhaps the most interesting thing he talked about, and he mentioned this over at Beach Haven too, was how his son was starting at Auckland Uni this year. He mentioned about how there isn’t a heap of parking at the uni which makes it fairly expensive to park there. He said any student who drives in will soon become a very poor student due to those parking charges so it is important that options like PT still enable connectivity. It was good to hear him say this but I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t just another take on the old attitude that PT is just for students, poor people or the elderly. Lets just hope that his son becomes enlightened on urban issues and is able to pass his thoughts on to his father.
 Bit hard to get a good photo due to the light sorry Len Brown spoke next and most of the stuff he talked about is probably similar to stuff he has said before so I’m not really going cover it in this post. Last up we had Adrienne Young-Cooper who is the chair of the Hobsonville Land Company, the organisation doing the development of the area. Perhaps the key thing she talked about was about how they hoped the development would enable people to live with one less car. She talked about how the costs of owning a car can easily be more than $8,000 per year and how enabling people to have one car instead or two, or two instead of three is something that can really help improve affordability. That is something this blog really supports and something I think is a key reason why we need to improve our PT system. Hopefully she is also pushing that same message to some of the other boards she is on as amongst others, she is currently also on the board of the NZTA.
All up it was a really good day and there was quite a large number of people that turned up from the local community. If we could get even a quarter of them using the services then it will be a pretty outstanding success.
By Peter M, on December 27th, 2012 Matt is putting together a fairly comprehensive post which reviews the big transport stories of 2012, so I won’t go there for now. Instead I’m looking forward to what might be the big issues of 2013 and obviously a really big event will be the next Auckland Council elections, which take place in October/November next year. The Council elections are really the next big hurdle for the City Rail Link project to get past, as if there’s a change in central government in 2014 (something that looks increasingly likely) the current difficulties from Wellington should disappear in terms of the project happening. It would be a horrible irony if a change in Mayor and Council meant that Auckland “no longer wanted” the project.
There are two key aspects of next year’s Council election: who wins the mayoralty and what changes to the composition of the Council as a whole there are. I’ll get back to the mayoralty in a minute, but the composition of the Council is perhaps even more important as at the end of the day it’s a Council vote on Long Term Plans and Annual Plans which will decide whether sufficient money is set aside for the CRL and other key transport projects. At the moment it seems the Council is split into roughly three camps: those firmly “centre left”, those firmly “centre right” and those who seem to end up following whatever the Mayor’s lead on issues turns out to be. Len Brown has been fairly clever to get people like Penny Webster into “his camp”, which means that most critical votes on whether the mayor’s proposals are supported or not seem to pass.
In terms of support for key projects like the CRL, I think there would need to be a pretty massive change in the Council’s make up for those opposing the project to outnumber those in support. Key councillors like Christine Fletcher and Penny Webster have repeated that they support CRL on many occasions, while those who oppose the project like Dick Quax and George Wood are a very small minority. It’s hard to know what will happen in terms of which Councillors are most likely to be reelected, but I feel there will be interesting battles in the Albany Ward (current councillors Michael Goudie & Wayne Walker), in the North Shore Ward (current councillors Ann Hartley and George Wood) and in the Albert-Eden-Roskill Ward (current councillors Cathy Casey and Christine Fletcher). Even if there is change in those key wards (note the key importance of the North Shore?), I sense that support for the CRL is probably safe within the council as a whole.
The question of whether Len Brown will be reelected or not is an interesting one, particularly because at the moment we have no idea who will run against him. It is surprising that Cameron Brewer, Christine Fletcher or George Wood haven’t stuck their hands up yet, which suggests that internally each of them may perhaps be struggling for the necessary level of support to go for the job. Perhaps someone (celebrity non-politicians?) might be lured into challenging Len Brown but once again you would have thought that they’d at least be making noises about the idea already.
Getting reelected as Mayor will be a tough job, even though I think Len Brown is a great mayor for Auckland due to his relentless optimism and the vision for Auckland as the world’s most liveable city that he has promoted. Under Auckland’s local government system the rates increases (even though they’re much less than the old councils planned) seem to be perceived as being owned by the mayor rather than the Council as a whole. And bringing together all the rates systems has inevitably created a number of losers, who unsurprisingly have been very vocal.
So a few questions to finish:
- Who do you think will run against Len Brown and why?
- Do you think Len Brown will be reelected as Mayor?
- What changes to the Council seem likely?
- What are the implications of all this in terms of future support for projects like the City Rail Link?
I suppose on that last note, the strong support for CRL coming from the Auckland business establishment in recent releases by Michael Barnett and Kim Campbell suggest that it may be difficult for a mayoral candidate to oppose CRL.
By Matt L, on December 14th, 2012 Following on from my post yesterday, Radio NZ had a number of discussion about the CCFAS yesterday including a chat with Gerry Brownlee and Len Brown about the response. Here is Brownlee:
Or listen to it here.
Most telling is at 1:25 when after being questioned if his officials don’t agree with the report responds with “Well they certainly agree with the position I’ve taken today”. That to me sounds like the minister has dictated to them the response he wants. And here is Lens response to that.
Or listen to it here.
They also talked to Alex Sweeney from Heart Of The City
Or listen to it here.
And lastly we have a general report on the issue
Or listen to it here.
Also if anyone from any government agency would like to comment off the record, or perhaps even provide some leaked information that would be relevant then you can do so anonymously. My details are in the contact us section.
By Patrick Reynolds, on November 7th, 2012 Matt’s recent post on running patterns for the Manukau Branch line uncovered a fairly polarised set of views on operating this new station. So I thought it might be useful to a look at the situation in wider context and ask- Why is Manukau such a problem?
Manukau City was planned and begun in the 1960s as a greenfields urban centre on the auto-dependant dispersed city model as the best and most modern way to meet Auckland’s postwar growth. It’s location and form is the result of thinking that we still hear today, sometimes in the comments stream on this blog, that instead of bothering to improve existing city centres we should actively spread employment and habitation out across ‘empty’ farmland. This is not an easy thing to do; at least not well and on the cheap. It is generally accepted [although less so during this period] that the best urban places are accretive, are the result of accident and evolution, gain a complexity through growth over time; having in their forms signs of the forces that founded and sustain them. Through cycles of triumph, decline, and stasis.
Well here’s what we got when we tried pretty hard to invent a new urban centre somewhere whose only discernible feature was a nascent but ever growing motorway. Nonetheless everything was done to make it work; in particular local government moved there, even all sorts of central government departments were sent to try to make it happen. Which is how there came to those self-consciously out scale buildings popping up in the paddocks [somehow seeming both too tall and too squat]:
 MCC Admin Building 1976 photo: Larry Purdy_Manukau Research Library The big idea was to escape what was considered the dreadful constriction of the old city and be nice and handy by car to new low density suburbia. It was classic Modernist planning; build an ideal place from scratch, not quite a Brasilia or Canberra of course; it was to be much smaller and had to be much cheaper. And of course nothing on the scale or ambition that has subsequently been done in China. Although there were attempts at the heroic architecture all the same; especially the white Council buildings by 1970s star Neville Price, with their cool Clockwork Orange vibe. Manukau City Centre didn’t exactly boom despite this top down help. But slowly the paddocks were emptied of cows and filled with carparking:
 Housing Corp Building 1981 photo: Gwen Anderson_Manukau Research Library The only supported movement system was road based, the Centre was carefully sited away from the already existing rail line, unlike the earlier more organically arising south Auckland centres like Manurewa and Papakura [among the busiest stations now, after Britomart and Newmarket]. The construction of ever more driving and parking amenity has been constant in Manukau and continues today. The new Manukau City Council enthusiastically promoted this philosophy, this is still apparent today in the total lack of any transit corridors within the old MCC boundaries as far as I know, with the possible exception of the planted median of Te Irirangi Drive, and why the area is host to the busiest non state Highway road in the country- the unlovely six lane Pakuranga highway.
It is also why Auckland Transport has just built this:
 Ronwood Ave carpark 2012 Yes that’s right, a multi level car parking building set in a sea of at grade car parking amid the broad sweeping roads [note street angle parking too]. They built it because they inherited this project from the old MCC, who wanted it why? The same Manukau Council who voted against the train station actually reaching the Centre itself, instead leaving it perched on the edge, for cost reasons they said. Of course, everything is going to park and circulate those cars, the most inefficient and expensive way to order movement in a city [“Transit based cities spend around 5% to 8% of their wealth on transportation but auto-dependent ones range from 12% to19%” Resillient Cities 2009 Neuman, Beatley, + Boyer ]. Here it is:
 AT’s new carpark site, red, and the train station, blue There is a lot to see on this aerial. The sheer quantity of parking, the massive, ongoing, and land gobbling roadworks. The the only decent green space [Hayman Park- named after Manukau Council's first Planner!] is completely severed from the Centre itself and is still diminishing, including encroachment by the Train Station with the Tertiary Centre on top. The next biggest greenspace is a triangle kindly left over from the massive traffic engineering of the motorway interchange, dutifully mown and of no use to anyone. So this is the new ideal world that the car made….
But back to our new 680 space, 14 million dollar investment. Of course it’s empty:
 The Ronwood Ave Car Park And it is absolutely wrong as an urban building in almost every detail: It is setback in own lake of asphalt, greeting the windswept footpath with a high security fence, so no shops or other civilising amenity at street level. Really can we believe that there is the commercial demand here to fill this thing. Remember all the other buildings provide their legal supply of car parking due to the Council’s own Minimum Parking Regulations. There are a couple of apartment buildings nearby, but they have their own floors of parking. In fact walking around, it is pretty clear that parking is the one thing that Manukau does to any degree of thoroughness. Outside of the mall itself it’s a very lonely place for the pedestrian. Dreary.
 Manukau City streetscape Perhaps a little less than proud of this thing AT don’t mention it on their website’s list of completed projects. I did find some quotes from AT’s major projects manager Rick Walden in a Manukau Courier article about the need for this thing:
“The carpark is in a strategic location and future development of the site will attract a mixed use of commercial and retail business to the area.”
Furthermore:
“It will also free up ground level land currently leased for parking, allowing the sites to be developed.”
 Manukau City
Really? I wonder how much we will have to subsidise any move into the building for these parkers to bother? And don’t forget all that angle parking we [AT] also provide on the newly upgraded roads above, with cheap to free rates.
The Courier also notes:
The new tertiary campus, Manukau rail link and workers in the area will also benefit, Mr Walden says.
The work will include an upgrade to the nearby Ronwood Ave intersection to ease traffic movement through the area.
Park-and-ride options for the new Manukau station and other sites are still under consideration.
It really does make you wonder…. even AT seem to think we need to drive to a train station in an urban centre to use it! Are they mad? We didn’t build Manukau Station to host fun rides for the kiddies. It’s for getting to and from a place- it’s transport. Isn’t the whole idea that Manukau City is actually a destination, a place in itself, not just a distant carpark for the CBD? Yet here they seem to be half trying to think of it as a park’n'ride peripheral. Maybe if the parking was so cheap and train so cheap it might be worth driving here to get to the city but that looks like a pretty poor idea on so many levels, not least of which is the poor land use, low quality of place attributes, and appalling waste of our money so desperately needed elsewhere.
I’m sure the statements above are just a bunch of half baked post-justifications for a project they somehow had to do after it was dreamed up by some Manukau City traffic planners. Nothing from those perennial complainers Quax and Brewer I note. Of course; it’s a car park. And no doubt Quax voted for it, as he voted against the Train Station.
What is especially galling is that wide areas of asphalt parking do at least retain flexibility for potentially valuable fuutre uses, like apartment blocks or offices but to waste one on this building when there is clearly no demand and to design it in such an anti-social and place-denying way is a disaster.
 Get your cheap deal; I bet they’re flexible. So in order to answer my own question above: How to solve a problem place like Manukau? Here’s a start: STOP OVER-BUILDING DRIVING AND PARKING AMENITY. Remember; what you feed grows. And that goes for the rest of the city too.
And we really need to think long and hard about where we rush off and sprawl to next, on existing Transit corridors is a good place to start; as well as filling some existing and poorly occupied parts of the city rather than freshly ruining more productive farmland.
Postscript: It could be even worse; there was going to be another one, even bigger; with 2000 spaces [plus an option to add 500 more!], costing $24 million, this time eating up more of the Mr Hayman’s Park: And expressly planned to be a park’n'ride. Len does not come well out of the Herald report on this:
Auckland Mayor and former Manukau Mayor Len Brown, who has made improving public transport his top priority, supports the carpark.
In a statement, he said it was part of the Manukau transport hub, which combines rail, park and ride, commercial and retail facilities, and a campus for the Manukau Institute of Technology.
“It’s the kind of integrated development we need in our region and will help transform the Manukau community,” he said.
It looks like another case of the Mayor trying to please everybody, like how he seems to support all the massive plans of the road lobby that are frankly incompatible with his aim to transform Auckland’s away from total auto-dependency. Mike Lee does better:
Auckland Council transport committee chairman Mike Lee said he had been given no information about the carpark and was puzzled why it was costing so much.
Mr Lee, who is also on the Auckland Transport board, was unsure why the carpark was needed with the Manukau train station about to open.
Since this article sanity has prevailed and this project has quietly been halted. The Herald also dryly notes:
The city of Manukau has developed largely around the private motor car and has been slow to adopt public transport. For example, it has 3km of bus lanes compared with Auckland City’s 36km network of bus lanes.
Of course these two things are not unconnected: As we have observed on this site many times it matters enormously what you don’t build as well as what you do, not only because we can not afford to build everything but because what is invested in incentivises behaviour and shapes our world.
Manukau City was conceived and built in another age and only for the car, it’s going to take quite a while to rework its anti-human qualities. The tentative arrival of the Train Station, along with its soon to be connecting bus routes are a start, but we are really going to have to get more serious about kicking the old car subsidising habits too to really improve the commercial and social intensity here.
 Manukau City 1985 photo Barry Moore
By Peter M, on July 17th, 2012 The Council issued a press release today highlighting that it’s shifting to the next phase of analysing ways in which to bridge the $10-15 billion funding gap between the projects that are (supposedly) required over the next 30 years and the amount of money available under traditional funding schemes. Here are the details:
Alternative options for funding critical transport projects such as the additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing, City Rail Link, Penlink, rail to the Airport and the East-West Link will be considered by Auckland Council on Thursday.
“If and when these projects proceed, Auckland will be required to fund part of the cost alongside government contributions.”
“Auckland Council is considering a number of funding options which can be used instead of loading all the burden on to Aucklanders’ rates bill,” says Len Brown.
“While the proposal does not rule out other funding mechanisms such as tolls or fare charges, it does identify three options that need additional work, as a result of public feedback. The proposal is for council to consider doing further work around regional fuel taxes, congestion and network charging and additional car parking charges.”
“I remain open-minded to a number of funding options. What is certain, however, is that Council must consider new ways to fund these major transport projects in a way which is affordable and fair for Aucklanders.”
The report follows a discussion document released earlier this year entitled “Getting Auckland Moving”. Eighty-five per cent of submitters felt additional funding was required to address the region’s transport infrastructure challenges.
“Alternative funding options are required because we face a $10-15 billion funding gap between Auckland’s future transport needs and what rates and taxes can cover. Auckland’s congestion will significantly worsen as the region’s population continues to surge. Auckland and the government need to invest in a mix of road and rail projects to provide the region with a transport system which will cope with a population of two million plus.”
The five most popular options were tolling on new roads, regional fuel taxes, congestion charging, development contributions and additional car parking charges. As tolling of new roads and development contributions are permissible under existing legislation, it was felt they did not require the same level of investigation.
The report proposes that further investigation of the three funding mechanisms take place with the aim of taking a funding proposal to government in 12 months recommending relevant legislation be changed. A consultative working group comprising council, government, community organisations, business and transport groups will be set up to consider and develop the proposals.
“The citizens of Auckland will be given the chance to have their say before any final decisions are made. It is important that we develop fair and affordable funding options for further consideration,” says the Mayor.
Further detail is in a report going to the Council on Thursday, which includes quite a lot of information around the feedback received on the discussion document.
This will be an interesting discussion to be had – particularly around the issue of regional fuel taxes and congestion/network charging – where Central Government has made it quite clear they’re not a fan of either way to raise additional revenue for transport projects. A few months back I highlighted that I think tolling existing motorway onramps (generally known as network charging, although it’s debatable whether that’s the appropriate phrase) was a dumb idea because it would shift traffic from motorways onto local roads. A regional fuel tax was almost introduced in 2008 before the incoming National government canned it, and the idea of road pricing & congestion charging seems to raise almost everyone’s heckles. It seems like additional parking charges might be the easy one out of the lot, although it won’t necessarily raise much cash.
However, I disagree with Mayor (and it seems around 85% of submitters) in that I’m not convinced whether significant additional funding is required to sort out Auckland’s transport woes. While many of the expensive projects on the Council’s wishlist are justified (like the CRL), a large number quite possibly aren’t, plus I think we shouldn’t necessarily consider all these large projects as over and above “business as usual” funding. Much of “business as usual” might not end up being particularly high quality spending (like building heaps of new roads to service growing urban sprawl) plus there should be ways to improve the efficiency of much of our operational spending – like getting better bang for our buck around how we operate public transport – to generate savings that can be reinvested.
Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that congestion charging, parking charges, tolling new roads or a regional fuel tax aren’t justifiable – or aren’t good ideas. In fact I think all of them might have some merit – though generally through their ability to promote behavioural change and modeshift. But maybe we don’t need to squeeze as much money out of them as previously thought if we’re tougher about which projects make the cut, or perhaps we can offset the money raised through lowering rates as a way of getting public support to implement something like congestion charging.
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