Should Auckland Council have a Spatial Plan?

My preliminary planner's answer to this question is an overwhelming yes.
But there is a debate here, in Auckland, across Auckland, within the existing councils, the ARC, and within the Auckland Transition Authority. I will be writing much more about this as the discussion unfolds.

Several major points:
- The present wholesale restructuring of Auckland local government was originally (at any rate) driven by a perceived need to improve and empower regional planning (ie not to weaken it).
- Auckland's current planning environment - largely driven by RMA - is an effects based planning environment. We plan for what we don't want (want to avoid, remedy, mitigate). We don't plan for what we do want - and we need to. Now.
- It took several years for Auckland to adopt the Auckland Region Growth Strategy, and a decade later, Auckland is still finding it a challenge to implement it. Regional planning frameworks and priorities take a while to develop, gain acceptance, and get implemented.
- Government decisions to incorporate major infrastructure services (water, wastewater, transport, waterfront development, stadia, property development etc) into arms length entities requires Auckland Council to plan for Auckland's future, in a way that sets the priorities and directions for those entities

Bill 3 contains a suite of provisions for a Spatial Plan which range from the sublime ("...to state policies, priorities, programmes, and land allocations that will implement the strategic direction and to specify resources that will be provided to implement the strategic direction....") to the even more sublime ("...to visually illustrate how Auckland may develop in the future, including how growth may be sequenced and how infrastructure may be provided...").

But the Bill does not require Auckland Council's substantive entities (Watercare and Auckland Transport), to "give effect" to this Spatial Plan. Nor does the Bill say when the Spatial Plan should be built. Nor does it indicate how frequently it should be updated.

To say that these Spatial Plan provisions is "disconnected" would be an understatement. Clearly they are disconnected from what Auckland Council should be expected to control (eg transport and water services). But they are also disconnected from other regional plans.

Auckland Council will inherit various plans, some works in progress, some complete. These include 7 District Plans, 1 Regional Policy Statement (halfway through a major review), 8 Long Term Council Community Plans (LTCCPs), a partially reviewed Regional Transport Strategy, plus other plans like the half-baked "One Plan", a Business Land Strategy, a Regional Parks Management Strategy .... and I can imagine a whole heap of Economic Development Strategies.

These plans will all be based on, or supported by, a cluster of data sets, maps, and council specific GIS systems. Different systems. Different software. All needing to be integrated. So there is a common information base upon which to build a technically competent and reliable Spatial Plan. Though something a little higher level could preceed this....

The ARC has been advised that, in preparing Bill 3, Cabinet considered various options for Regional Planning that included the idea of a Spatial Plan, and these included:

1) Status Quo (we all need to await the Second Round of RMA reforms - which are likely to include - horror of horrors - abolition of controls like Metropolitan Urban Limits);
2) Changes to the LGA 2002 so that the LTCCP would contain the Spatial Plan;
3) A statutory Spatial Plan that replaces other existing strategic plans;
4) A statutory Spatial Plan with strengthened legislative linkages. so that the Spatial Plan influences planning under other legislation (LGA 2002, RMA and LTMA planning frameworks);
5) A statutory Spatial Plan with no additional or strengthened legislative linkages, with changes to be considered later through the RMA reform process....

It appears that option 5 has been chosen.
But there is little justification for that choice.

The ARC's draft submission re Spatial Plan provisions, suggests that either:

1. The Government proceeds with (4) - ie sorts out the linkages (connexions) with other planning frameworks and legislations - and then brings in legislation requiring a Spatial Plan; or
2. Deletes the (half-baked) Spatial Plan provisions in the Bill, until work on the RMA is complete, when the Government could make a change then to LGA 2002, or to the Auckland Council Act, to require a statutory Spatial Plan.

So. Very hairy.

My take on this, whichever of the ARC options are recommended (and there may well be other positions taken by other parties), it is essential that Auckland Council is in the position to adopt strategies and priorities and directions very soon after being formed that have the effect of directing the activities of the plethora of CCOs that will exist in Auckland.

This would be an interim set of strategies and priorities. Maybe covering the first 24 months or 36 months. Terse and to the point. A controlling document for the region.

You only have to look at the very brief and punchy directions that Government adopts in respect of the SOE's that it controls, to get some idea of what Auckland Council should be in a position to quickly develop and adopt and require giving effect to, when it takes office.

More on this later. Actually sooner than later....