Unitary Plan Pros & Cons

She did a good job. Penny Pirrit. Manager Regional and Local Planning for Auckland Council. Presenting Auckland Council's current ideas about consolidating all of Auckland's RMA planning documents into one plan, one Unitary Plan, at the University of Auckland "Fast Forward 2011" lecture on August 17th. In this posting I will report from my notes of the lecture, interspersed with a few comments and questions that occurred to me as the lecture unfolded.... The lecture began with the Mayor's Vision - that Auckland become the world's "most liveable city". Comment: I decided I'd look up "liveable" in Google. One of those words that drive me nuts because I don't know what they mean. Try it. Google first of all asks you if you mean "loveable". When I insisted on liveable, it gave me this meaning: "fit or suitable to live in or with" and added: "Familiarity information: LIVEABLE used as an adjective is very rare...."

This isn't the graphic that came up in Penny's presentation, but it more or less is. The planning structure has the Auckland Plan at the top - as I understand it that is essentially the Spatial Plan required by legislation. The Implementation Plans include such things as the Regional Transport Plan. To the right is the LTCCP or Long Term Plan required by the Local Government Act. The subject of this lecture was the Unitary Plan which is the term used to describe what will happen to Auckland's current set of Resource Management Act (RMA) planning documents - which include the 7 District Plans (prepared by Franklin, Papakura, Manukau, Auckland, Waitakere, North Shore, Rodney Councils) and the Auckland Regional Policy Statement. I presume they also include plans like the Air, Land and Water Plan. We were advised there would be 3 scales of integrated planning, making up the Auckland Plan. There would be the Auckland Spatial Plan at the top of this hierarchy of documents, then Area Plans, then Precinct Plans. Comment: The definition of the regional Spatial Plan is clearly geographic - rather than issue led. As such it is of the type of Spatial Plan favoured in Europe a decade or so ago. Penny advised there will be 21 Area Plans - one for each Local Board area. These would be integrated land use and infrastructure plans for each Board area, and be "place-based". Interestingly it appears that the plans already prepared by Auckland City Council for Auckland Isthmus will not be redone, "because they were recently completed..." This part of the presentation was accompanied by a predictable picture of how high the pile of RMA planning documents stands (about 2 metres high), and commentary to the effect that some of the plans were past were past their use-by dates (some are past their review-by dates - for example North Shore City Council). Comment: This did make me wonder about the stormwater and wastewater network discharge consent work that has been done by Councils, and also the Integrated Catchment Management Plans. Where will all that fit? It appears Auckland council has considered a range of approaches to preparing the Unitary Plan. various options were considered. Apparently Council wants, "the whole kahuna". That everything should be put into one RMA plan. Though it appears that the Gulf Islands RMA plans will be excluded "because they are recent". Another Auckland exception. The goal is to notify the draft Unitary Plan in the early part of 2013.

Penny explained that that it is anticipated that the Auckland Plan will be finished early in 2012, and that there would be pressure to implement it through plan changes and private plan changes, unless Auckland Council can get the Unitary Plan finished qucikly enough... Comment: Man oh man. Quick intake of breath here. For the Auckland Plan to cut the mustard it really needs to be based upon the 21 Area Plans. Is there a cat's chance in hell of getting those done in the next 6 months, to build the Auckland Plan upon? Unlikely. More likely is the Auckland Plan will be done first, and later, much later, it will be divided up into 21 Local Board Plans. The Auckland Plan alone is a very big ask for a new organisation.... We were advised there were three big challenges to getting the Unitary Plan done: the RMA itself, the 3 year political cycle, and expectations. The RMA issues were interesting. The RMA is not about outcomes, it is about effects. The Unitary Plan needs to be about positives, not just about negatives. Penny explained that the Unitary Plan needed to be defensible. Her guidance is that the RMA needs to be "set aside" in order for the new Auckland Council to be able to produce a defensible plan. Identify areas of the Unitary Plan that disagree with the RMA. And then negotiate with Government and MfE to change the RMA. Comment: Wow. Big call. About time. Not sure what Dr Smith will make of this though. Penny advocated strongly "we need to stick our neck out, take the risk, and what we do might need to be tested in the Environment Court..." Comment: This is another big call. It's a bit like what Auckland Regional Council needed to do in defending the MUL, the Metropolitan Urban Limit, as a method that was appropriate in terms of the RMA in enabling integrated management of natural resources... We were advised that Auckland Council has already put submissions in to Central Government to remove RMA appeal rights to plan changes, and new plans - because those changes represent strategic statements of the Council. Another big call. I can't imagine various land owners agreeing to this. They will want to protect their property rights till the cows come home. But I agree. How can a Council control natural resource use, when it's going to be dragged into the Environment Court where some notion of "balance" and a "judge's weighing of issues" can put at risk a broader call." The next part of Penny's presentation was a bit irritating. And Penny did say her tongue was a little in her cheek as she spoke to us. There are four lots of expectations: 1) Developers want certainty 2) The community wants involvement in all applications - except their own 3) Interest groups are quite prepared to waive private property rights in the public interest, and "are the hardest groups to deal with" 4) Designers who want flexibility in process to do what they think is best and not be fettered by rules... Comment: Where do you go with this Penny? It has always been this way. And as the public learns more and expects more, then more involvement and participation will be required. It's one of the reasons for those parts of the RMA. Which are steadily being eroded - by the way. Land use planning has been, and always will be, a contest. Whether it is between short term and long term interests, whether it's private property rights vs the common good, whether it's central government forcing the hand of local communities. You cannot short-cut these processes - unless you want revolt... And we know the political cycle is short, making it hard to take councillors along. Penny then went on to talk about another layer of Unitary Plan working issues: - certainty vs flexibility (includes process vs outcome, rules vs criteria) - level of intervention (lessons from the past, doing it right for the right reasons) - integration of regional and district (RMA reqs, remove duplication, ensure env protection) At this point Penny digressed a little and stated that "the market approach does not work", in the context of learning from the past. Comment: I agree. The market is mainly interested in making a profit. There are plenty of examples of market failure in RMA planning. But how do you rate the chances of Central Government changing the RMA to provide for more Council certainty and intervention in land use planning and resource management? And there are more issues: - affordable development (over 300,000 homes are needed, these need to be safe, warm, healthy and affordable, "whether they are designed by an architect is irrelevant to many...." - public good vs private rights (impact on private rights, heritage and character debate, what sort of tools are needed to relieve burden on private interests carrying public interest) - capacity to deliver (Penny's view: we must deliver a planning process that can be delivered without undue cost. She was very critical of those who are arguing that the Unitary Plan review must be "design led...") Comment: I agree here. What does "design-led" actually mean anyway? It's another example of no-speak. A bit like sloppy use of words like "sustainability", "amenity", and even "planning".... if planning means everything then perhaps it means nothing... Why do I say this? Ok: Every leaky home was designed. Architecture is a design-led process. Some wonderfully design-led homes are leaking homes. What went wrong? The hopes behind the words "design-led" are another example of hope over experience. Here we need concrete experience to lead the unitary plan work. Not some undefined design. Penny ended with a list of principles for the Unitary Plan. The Unitary Plan needs to: 1) give effect to the Auckland Plan; 2) be innovative; 3) be user friendly; 4) be outcome focussed; 5) have minimum repetition; 6) use illustrations and diagrams; 7) ensure planning gain outweighs planning pain. Comment: The main question I was left with: "Is simple necessarily good? and for whom?". I feel that the pressure to harmonise (remove duplication) risks bland planning ironing over diversity in urban landscapes. As if one size fits all. That's what we see in Brisbane after 80 years or so of uniform regional planning. I can understand why councillors might yearn for simplicity - the whole kahuna - but there's a big risk here of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Think where the calls are coming from for simplicity and unformity. Think what's broke and fix that. Don't repeat the whole mistake of regional amalgamation (where we lost a lot) and do the same again with District Plans. In my experience the devil is in the detail in land use planning. Many fine-grained rules are there to protect the living quality of different residential and commercial environments in different parts of the region. If you really want a "liveable city", think of that definition of the Mayor's vision: fit or suitable to live in.... That is what those plans and rules were built over time to protect. Don't destroy them just because they seem complicated. Life is complicated. And it doesn't get easier by throwing out the rule book.