Ports of Auckland: Enough Already

In a few weeks time Auckland Council will be debating - again - how to provide for Ports of Auckland reclamation expansion plans in the Unitary Plan. Council's decision about that was deferred after the debate that took place at a meeting on 16th April this year - and which triggered this post.

This post looks at Big Picture issues.

But first a brief reminder of what has happened recently. The key findings of the Price Waterhouse study that was commissioned by the Upper North Island ports are, as summarised by Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL):

• The Upper North Island needs all of its existing ports 
• The best way to meet future demand is to grow those ports 
• Growth = efficiency + expansion 
• Auckland ports must substantially improve efficiency 
• Auckland ports may needs to expand, but less than thought 
• Auckland must retain options, given forecasting uncertainty

The POAL summary also suggested that any congestion on Auckland transport corridors would not be caused by POAL's expansion. Hard to agree with that!

It is important to note that the work required for the North Island port study was in two stages. The Stage 2 study has not been done yet. Let's remind ourselves what the Stage 2 study should explore.... 

A good place to start is to report what other Councils reported after receiving the first PWC report. (The other councils involved were Whangarei District Council, Northland Regional Council and Tauranga City Council. These Councils may have a conflict of interest, but nonetheless, they have a good idea of the public policy issues around Port expansion.) These councils support the case for the next stage of the study, and argue that what is missing so far in the Stage 1 study includes:

• there is no investment case 
• it was not meant to make specific recommendations on how future freight demand should be met
• it does not consider what is best for NZ Inc
• the external pressures on waterfront space are not addressed.

I am aware that other matters not addressed in Stage 1 include the impact of expansion (from say 800,000 container movements/annum to almost 3,000,000 container movements/annum) on Auckland's existing infrastructure, its urban fabric, and the Harbour Edge urban environment itself.

This work has not been done, either by PWC or Council officers. If it has, it has not been reported.

There have been suggestions by some, that elements of such work could be undertaken later,eg when a resource consent might be applied for (for expansion), but in my opinion that is a totally inappropriate time for such a study. The study required now is one that would satisfy the Auckland Plan.

It is an investigation that needs to be undertaken by the Auckland Council. It needs to address broad and far-reaching Auckland Plan issues. These matters should not be left in the hands of POAL, POAL consultants, Environment Court judges or commissioners.

There are significant matters of public policy which need to be addressed. They are not purely environmental matters - to be left to RMA processes. These are fundamentally about costs and benefits. For example Economic Consultancy Covec have examined development options along the Eastern Railway Line, and conclude “Overall, in our view it is unlikely that the net welfare benefits of the expansion scenario [of the port] will be positive for the Auckland region.” (Covec, Discussion Paper: Future Scenarios for the Port of Auckland, 2012).

Auckland developed and was colonised as a Port City. The Port was then the heart of the city. That was then. Today the port threatens to be the cuckoo that has outgrown its nest. By continuing to suck on the resources of the city - its roads and rail, its harbour edge, its Waitemata Harbour space - Ports of Auckland is outgrowing its house. By pushing for expansion it will force Auckland to tip it out of its nest. Time to cut the coat to suit the cloth.

The relationship between Auckland and its Port is tipping away from the port benefiting the city to a port that is costing the city. Port expansion puts at risk plans for an economic future for Auckland that emphasises tourism. Waitemata Harbour increasingly defines Auckland as a Harbour Edge City - not as an industrialised Port City.

The Ports of Auckland Ltd Company has inherited some of the "sense of entitlement" behaviours that were characteristic of the old Auckland Harbour Board (AHB). The AHB built its futuristic Headquarters building where Princes Wharf meets Quay Street in 1985. They claimed the building was needed as a symbolic gateway to Auckland - despite the fact that passenger ship traffic had declined to record lows - and that most visitors to Auckland increasingly saw the control tower at Auckland International Airport as the gateway. AHB won the planning permit for that building by claiming it would only be used for AHB staff.

A few short years later the building was let as commercial office space, and it prepared the way for the development of the rest of Princes Wharf. Revenue from the sale of related development leases were about the same as the cost of developing the space-age HQ building. Questions were asked about the spending. Was it the best use of public money?

Today I understand POAL is preparing plans for a new headquarters building on reclaimed land at the container port. I imagine the building will be deemed a port use. A controlled activity. A waterfront development that can avoid public notification and obtain a resource consent without going through the hoops that other developments are subject to.

It is this sense of entitlement, this steady pursuit of expansion and development without public scrutiny that is fundamentally in the interests of Ports of Auckland Ltd - rather than Auckland Inc or New Zealand Inc - that needs to be curtailed.

I don't think that Auckland Council should be providing for more Ports expansion and reclamation in the Unitary Plan. Certainly not without the work being done on what is the highest and best use of the Waitemata Harbour spaces.

And that is important.

But the Big Picture here is the question of who controls the port, and who manages its activities so they are better integrated into the whole of Auckland's waterfront, and so the port facilities across the whole country are rationally planned, and not regulated so that the costs of market failure are born by ratepayers and taxpayers alike.

Today POAL is governed and managed as an asset by Auckland Council's property CCO. POAL is a publicly owned waterfront activity. It should be governed and managed by the Waterfront Development Agency CCO. That way some sort of joined up governance and management would be possible.

But the really big picture is at national level. Container loads of cash are being wasted because Councils and other entities across the country are forced into competition with each other, to provide bigger and better and cheaper container handling facilities - both at the waterfront and on land transport systems - in order to get shipping contracts. Pragmatic Central Government intervention is required. This is not efficient and it is unproductive. Time for a New Zealand Ports Policy.

Does it take an earthquake?

Enough Reclamation Enough Port Enough Already.