Auckland CBD & Waterfront Regeneration

It is appropriate that Auckland Council is managing a design process for the Quay Street area. One that recognises there a number of interconnecting and inter-relating projects. One that will be public.

This posting has been prepared to inform the need to design and implement an effective institutional process and structure that can reliably deliver designs, visions and projects that will make up the regenerated and transformed Auckland downtown CBD (projects include: Quay Street; QE Square; Queens Wharf; The Seawall; Ferry Terminal(s); Bus Interchange(s); CRL; connecting transport infrastructure).

These projects are the trigger for major urban regeneration of downtown/waterfront Auckland.

Section A serves as an introduction to this posting, and reports on various UK regeneration models, and compares them with what is happening in Auckland, and what model is being pursued by its different agencies (leading to potential for conflict, and need for change).
Section B reports on findings about how regeneration needs to be managed over the 10 to 20 years in can take. This looks at agency culture, management style and ways of working that contribute or detract from regeneration success. It raises questions about what needs to happen in Auckland to build an effective partnership.
Section C reports on the relationship between sustainability and regeneration, and how the ideas and objectives of sustainability can be used to lever regeneration policies and strategies.
And there's a biref conclusion.

A.    Urban Regeneration (Urban Regeneration in the UK, Tallon)

What has happened in Auckland following the transfer into new ownership (Ngati-whatua and Council) of redundant Ports land and wharves, rail-sidings, and the central railway station, follows a similar pattern to the urban regeneration transformations that have been re-shaping UK, USA and European cities following de-industrialisation, containerisation and subsequent globalisation forces.  The literature explicitly acknowledges that regeneration patterns in OECD countries around the world more or less follow that same set of patterns, and experience the same problems.

First comes the creation of a new CBD fringe of development opportunities, then comes a sequence of regeneration projects. In the UK these have been implemented in different periods according to three models:

1)    Urban Renewal in the 1970’s was public sector driven and mainly concerned with large scale redevelopment of inner city slum areas;
2)    Urban Regeneration in the 1980’s focussed on economic growth and property development, and used public funds to lever in largely undirected market investment (exemplified by London Docklands);
3)    Urban Regeneration in the 2000’s seeks to combine private and public sectors in partnerships to achieve regeneration but with an emphasis on sustainability and community inclusion

In Auckland CBD we are mainly proceeding in accordance with model 2 under Auckland Council’s ‘One Plan’ direction, and on the waterfront at Wynyard, we are proceeding with a mix of models 2 and 3. There are different priority emphases evident between Auckland's public agencies.

Turok (2005) identifies three distinctive features of modern urban regeneration:
1)    It is intended to change the nature of a place and in the process to involve the community and other actors with a stake in its future;
2)    It embraces multiple objectives and activities that cut across the main functional responsibilities of local government and its agencies;
3)    It usually  involves some form of partnership working amongst different stakeholders, although the form of partnership can vary.

I would observe that these three features generally define and describe the behaviour and function of Waterfront Auckland today, but do not describe the behaviour and function of Auckland Transport.

In terms of the nature of modern urban regeneration actions and activities, Roberts (2000) describes it as:
1)    An interventionist activity;
2)    An activity that straddles the public, private and voluntary and community sectors;
3)    An activity that is likely to experience considerable changes in its institutional structures over time in response to changing economic, social, environmental and political circumstances;
4)    A means of mobilising collective effort and providing the basis for the negotiation of appropriate solutions;
5)    A means of determining policies and actions designed to improve the condition of urban areas and developing institutional structures necessary to support the preparation of specific proposals.

Again, we see that these actions and activities describe the former Sea+City organisation transforming into the current Waterfront Development Agency and evolving to manage the particular challenges presented by urban regeneration. But they do not describe Auckland Transport which has not adapted to the changing environment. It is still deeply enmeshed in industrial thinking.

Waterfront Auckland models the Post Industrial.

By the late 2000’s, internationally, three approaches to urban regeneration have become apparent. Each is related to different policy approaches and emphasis, and can be summarised as coming under: urban renaissance;  social inclusion and economic competitiveness umbrellas:

1)    The Urban Renaissance agenda (subsumed now within the idea of ‘sustainable communities’) is concerned with physical and environmental conditions, linked with brownfield redevelopments and issues surrounding greenfield development. It promotes high quality urban design, mixed use environments and sustainable cities.
2)    The Social Inclusion agenda is focussed more on social conditions within deprived neighbourhoods, and encourages the development of social cohesion, social capital, and community participation to bring about the regeneration of community and neighbourhood.
3)    The Economic Competitiveness agenda is concerned with improving economic performance and employment by increasing output, productivity and innovation.

It could be argued that agenda 3 is the prime objective of Auckland Council (though its supports the compact city elements of agenda 1), while agenda 1 is the prime objective of Waterfront Auckland (though it is interested in the employment and innovation elements of agenda 3).

B.    Management of Regeneration (Management of Regeneration: Choices, Challenges and Dilemmas by Diamond and Liddle)

The preface in this text emphasises the fact that experience with regeneration projects and initiatives has led to a blurring of relationships and boundaries between state, market and civil society. It states that multi-agency partnerships are seen as the norm, and that the managers of regeneration have to work within this new framework and make sense of new forms of governance. It emphasises that old forms of hierarchy and organisational forms embedded in old structures are no longer appropriate for the dynamic of regeneration.
It talks about how managers of regeneration need to engage in ‘partnership mapping’ – to aid understanding of the complex web of social, political and personal natures of networks that the work is enmeshed with. And that managers of regeneration themselves are involved in transforming received understanding of local government networks.

This book echoes the sentiment expressed earlier, that regeneration activities are associated with changes in institutional forms to better engage with the needs. It states that “…emerging forms of local governance are not fixed… themselves are the sites of struggle and contest over how power over decisions is to be exercised…”

I would observe that we are seeing this contest now with CCIG (City Centre Integration Group), and who does what, and who decides what. We see it also in the evolution of HED into CCIG, and in the transformation of Sea+City into WDA.

The preface introduces the point that managers of regeneration find themselves negotiating  and liaising with range of local networks and groups, and find that “….all these groups share a common set of assumptions that they will each seek to shape the regeneration project in their definition of what is needed and how it is to be delivered….”

Further, that managers of regeneration “…will be seeking to create the space where they can do their own work, and another space for where consensus can be achieved….”

The preface ends with the point that the challenges of regeneration: “…can lead to a capacity gap – or generational gap – where the skills developed over past 20 years of old style local government are no longer appropriate…..”

B1. Context Setting

This is a brief analysis of what made regeneration initiatives succeed or fail. Key learnings include:

·    a very real problem for managers of regeneration and residents is to develop a shared picture of what the neighbourhood could be like over a 10 – 20 year time frame…
·    suggests there is a need to understand how a renewal or regeneration program represents a break with the past…
·    reasons for regeneration failure include: resistance from professionals; lack of an analysis of power; lack of community participation

Much of the UK context material is about ‘partnership’ with local communities and with stakeholders. What works. I note here that we haven’t even got there yet with CBD stuff (QE Square for example), we are still figuring how to engage with family (AT, AC, WDA), let alone organisations like Heart of the City, the Local Board. Regeneration strategies deployed in the UK and the USA lately include:

1)    The redevelopment of the inner core to make it attractive for investment and innovation;
2)    The depoliticization of service delivery through separation of their activities from local government (eg CCO’s etc)
3)    The promotion of the partnership model;
4)    And emphasis on managerialism instead of local politics.

The text notes that in this context the place and role of local community groups was marginalised.  This appears to be the area of change and shift now, as local communities form their own networks and alliances to act as a political counter-point to the regeneration managerialists. They argue for example (Clarke, 2004) for the need to reclaim the public realm. It is a development in regeneration for a role of civic society in decision-making processes.

B2. New skills & competencies
This is about the new skills that managers of regeneration need to have/adopt. “…not only are they taking on roles as community champions or leading change processes, but the increased need to work in partnership with communities or partners beyond their own organisational boundaries, and stimulate cultural changes, have implications on how they perceive their roles…”

This area is also about the significance of leadership in engaging stakeholders, and the: “….messy and ambiguous settings lead managers to attempt to make sense and develop some order and clarity…”. Best practice in the modern public sector environment now demands:

1)    Citizen involvement
2)    Greater democratization
3)    The need to build capacities and improve quality and performance
4)    A requirement for skills mixes located in different people at different times
5)    An understanding that no one organisation or person possesses all the skills and competencies to undertake activities
6)    Effective performance by regeneration managers, who synthesise past experiences, skills, knowledge, behaviours and competencies within organisational, but increasingly in cross-boundary, settings

The most significant take-away from this chapter is that regeneration demands a different way of thinking and behaving from public officials, and that they also need to respond and change in a dynamic and changing environment. Emphasis is placed on the need for organisational and managerial behaviours that “learn”, and that “public learning” requires a systematic approach to:

1)    Involve the whole system, develop a shared understanding of current realities and collective vision for the future;
2)    Develop questions on gaps between current and desired state, in order to agree publicly with stakeholders on the way ahead;
3)    Develop a climate or culture in the parts of their own organisations to gain commitment and combat coercion;
4)    Challenge  rhetoric of competition with collaboration and partnership;
5)    Place a high value on learning in human resource processes and performance and appraisal;
6)    Develop and value a learning ethos, discourage action fixated behaviours;
7)    Reinforce learning, discourage competition and short-term target setting, and incorporate into pay and reward systems.

B3.  Partnerships
The central claim for partnership working is the belief that it ensures greater coordination of existing provision and that it facilitates a sharing of knowledge between different agencies, which allows them to have a greater positive impact than they would if they worked separately. There is a further claim, suggesting that partnership working has the potential to change the working policies or culture both within and between participating agencies – this claim starts from the premise that such change is necessary. In addition, because the nature of regeneration activities is multi-faceted and a mix of social, economic and environmental – making the mix a so-called wicked problem – it goes beyond the capacity of any one agency and therefore partnerships are seen as the most effective way of addressing it/them.

There are ideas about necessary pre-conditions for effective partnership working. These are seen as key for a partnership:

1)    To set out clearly their aims and objectives;
2)    To establish shared criteria;
3)    To identify agreed mechanisms to review and monitor their work;
4)    To think through mechanisms for securing trust between agencies;
5)    To reflect upon ways of delegated tasks to specific groups/agencies;
6)    To address the issue of which staff (and why) will be involved.

There are also views about the factors which can be influential for a successful working partnership:

1)    Commitment to the concept at senior, middle management and operation levels as a prerequisite;
2)    Clarity of roles and powers;
3)    Clearly defined short-term aims;
4)    Embedded changes in working practices;
5)    Independent ‘broker’ to co-ordinate different agencies;
6)    Successful co-ordination at operational level.

Where these factors exist, then inter-agency working can:

1)    Lead to agencies being less reactive to local context;
2)    Focus resources available more clearly;
3)    Lead to changes in the management of partner organisations.

And that when these factors are present, and partnership agencies are responding and developing to the new environment, then partnership working has the potential to:

1)    Ensure greater co-ordinations between agencies;
2)    Facilitate the sharing of knowledge between agencies;
3)    Change the working practices and culture of agencies;
4)    Target resources more effectively;
5)    Address the multi-faceted problems inherent in regeneration.

However, experience suggests that none of the above may be practically possible to achieve if partner agencies don’t see the need for change, don’t reflect on practices that can change to make partnership more effective, and in short remain fixed in old ways of undertaking activities. Because of this risk, it is suggested that before seeking to engage agencies in joint work and recognising the benefits of such an approach, it is helpful to make the case for change within the different agencies/professional interest groups engaged in regeneration initiatives. UK experience indicates that the attractiveness of partnership working has often failed to grasp the complexities involved in the process of the management of change. Rather than suggest existing arrangements will lead to failure, it is more constructive to think about ways of enhancing individual agency capacities to engage in self-reflection and continuous learning. This approach recognises the need to acknowledge the presence of an organisational ‘culture’ in agencies which may inhibit changes in working practice and thinking, and risk the effectiveness of the partnership.

The text suggest a number of ways of doing this:

1)    Using external facilitators to help identify barriers to change;
2)    Bringing in ‘critical friends’ for points of reference;
3)    Activity using the skills and expertise of evaluators to help influence strategic and operational management;
4)    Reducing the levels of decision making;
5)    Supporting and promoting the role of local managers;
6)    Enhancing the role and status of supervision;
7)    Promoting and supporting decision-making at a local or team level;
8)    Deliberately setting out a policy and practice of staff development through external secondment and training.

This is a reminder: if we do what we've always done, we'll get what we've always got. And that ain't the best.

C.    Sustainability and Regeneration (Citing Tallon)

The urban regeneration agenda linked to sustainable development includes areas such as housing, communities, governance, climate change, energy consumption, economics, construction, design, health, land-use planning, natural resources and environmental limits, waste, transport, education and young people. Sustainable development principles are increasingly apparent at neighbourhood, local, regional, national and international levels, and especially focus now on cities.

A generally accepted set of requirements (12) of sustainable communities which resonates with the urban regeneration agenda is:

1)    A flourishing local economy to provide jobs and wealth;
2)    Strong leadership to respond positively to change;
3)    Effective engagement and participation by local people, groups and businesses, especially in the planning, design and long-term stewardship of their community, and an active voluntary and community sector;
4)    A safe and healthy local environment with well-designed public and green space;
5)    Sufficient size, scale and density, and the right layout to support basic amenities in the neighbourhood and minimise the use of resources (including land);
6)    Good public transport and other transport infrastructure both within the community and linking it to urban and regional centres;
7)    Buildings – both individually and collectively – that can meet different needs over time and that minimise use of resources;
8)    A well-integrated mix of decent homes of different types and tenures to support a range of household sizes, ages and incomes;
9)    Good quality local public services, including education and training opportunities, health care and community facilities, especially for leisure;
10)    A diverse, vibrant and creative local culture, encouraging pride in the community and cohesion within it;
11)    A ‘sense of place’;
12)    Links with the wider regional, national and international community.

The emphasis within most urban regeneration policies has tended to be on economic rather than environmental or social regeneration (see earlier). However, the promotion of inner city living since the 1990’s (later here in Auckland) to meet environmental and social ‘sustainability’  aims, as well as supporting economic regeneration, has been a key strand of urban regeneration policies, and indicates how the two dimensions of regeneration and sustainability are closely interrelated.
When assessing the effects of regeneration it is increasingly common practice to measure ‘sustainability’ because of the links that exist between regeneration and sustainability.  Experts now suggest an approach to assessment that specifically includes the environmental sustainability of the scheme alongside aspects such as financial viability, and the contribution to economic regeneration, community spirit and social cohesion.

 The Sustainable Development Commission (Europe) in the first action point of a 2003 report, indicated that sustainable development principles should be at the heart of regeneration policy and practice. Thus, although energy efficiency measures are at the forefront of thinking, social, economic and environmental impacts are all emphasised.

Conclusion



This will be brief. It is good to proceed with a design oriented investigation into Quay Street and environs. But it is not sufficient. Auckland has a bad track record of preparing public visions that capture the public interest and imagination, and then failing miserably in the delivery of that vision. Public good, public amenity, public space quality falls through the cracks in implementation. Private interests win. Public interests lose. That has been Auckland's CBD and Waterfront history for too long. There are changes in this pattern that are visible at Wynyard Quarter.

Institutional attitude change is needed throughout Auckland local government.