Heritage Restoration's Hollow Ring

Devonport's Masonic Lodge. The site of much heritage angst and district scheme heritage protection controversy over plans to redevelop the historic site into luxury apartments.

Here's the development site today. Shrouded in plastic - if not in secrecy.

But wait, there's a hole in the plastic Dear Liza, Dear Liza, a hole. So I sent my little camera up for a look-see...

A void. Avoid. You can't help wondering about a heritage and historic conservation policy that allows, and does not abhor, such a vacuum. Devonport residents calmly walk past. The community runs its tongue over the teeth in its street and finds it all good. No gaps. A convenient plastic cap popped over the cavity so it all somehow feels normal. Can pretend nothing has really changed. And when the shroud is removed, the building revealed will be better than what was there, in the bone of the street, a crown no less. A gleaming shiny crown. To confirm that feeling, reinforce it. Life is good. Continues as before. All change, but no change. Not a scrap of what was there exists inside the hollow. Like a funeral without the pyre.    

There's talk of the fad of facadism in heritage - keep the facade - but remove everything behind it. But there's not even a facade here. A comment on society and what keeps us all sane and in a straight line.

A metaphor of urban neoliberalism maybe. All form and no content. All GDP and no civilisation. All economic activity for today and no long term memories of yesterday. Maybe that's what they really mean when thy speak of the post-political. But then, if that was true, no-one would've spoken out about what would be lost and what the effect would be on community with the changes to the Masonic. It's not just a building. It was a way of life. Public pubs and clubs are as much at the heart of community and civic life as are public parks and squares. And while their very existence is under threat because they are regarded as private development opportunities and because many institutions now prioritise that activity, it won't always be that way. Because people are naturally communal and have adapted over millenia to function best for the common good together. You might take the public out of the urban, but you can't take the public out of the people.

Mangawhai loses in Court of Appeal

Well I guess it's Christmas and not everything that comes in the stocking is the present we were expecting. On the 17th December 2015 Harrison, Miller and Cooper JJ delivered their decision on the various matters that had been put in front of them by the Mangawhai Ratepayers and Residents Association (MRRA) relating to the PPP EcoCare wastewater scheme.

The decision is lengthy - 69 pages - and very detailed. Much of it concentrates on Bill of Rights Act matters. Justice Miller prepared the main decision. In their follow up decisions, Cooper and Harrison generally agree with Miller's findings and decision, though their reasons are not all the same.

My summary here of the decision should not be taken as gospel, but the guts, as I see it from a couple of readings are essentially these:

• when Parliament enacted the Local Government Act with the late addition of Protected Transactions provisions, it was to deliver the option of lower cost loans to Councils. The interest rates charged would be lower essentially in exchange for ratepayers having limited powers to challenge loans taken by their council, and therefore banks would be subject to fewer risks and costs.
• while residents had rights to challenge these loans through judicial review, Parliament always had the power to validate loans and loan processes later, and it had the power to do that despite Bill of Rights Act provisions which grant the right of judicial review - but those rights extend to process only (council compliance with the local government act duties to consult for example), and not substantive matters (ie the loan still has to be paid).
• Mangawhai ratepayers and residents got all the vindication they were ever going to get from the findings in the High Court judicial review that Kaipara District Council had acted against the law in whole variety of ways. There is the hint of a suggestion that MRRA might have gone further in getting its pound of flesh from the perpetrators. And there is an impression that perhaps MRRA should have pursued the Office of the Auditor General for its failings - but then the Auditor General got a prize this year didn't she - for a job well done.
• while there were process illegalities associated with the loan, which were validated by Parliament, Parliament always intended that ratepayers should still pay for those debts, and not the taxpayer.

There were some complexities in the decision relating to the fact that MRRA' membership did not include all Mangawhai ratepayers - which raised questions about precisely which persons would materially benefit from a favourable CoA finding - and an order for costs against MRRA, I believe the above pretty much sums up the decision of Miller, and likely concludes an unfortunate example of poor local governance compounded by failures in the Audit Office and the Office of the Auditor General.

Miller has cited speeches from Hansard given by Phil Twyford (for Labour) and Eugenie Sage (for the Greens) in respect to an effort by Andrew Williams (for NZ First), to explicitly exclude from the Validation Bill, provisions in respect to the outstanding debt. William's efforts did not attract the support needed in Parliament, suggesting - without really nailing it - that Parliament always intended that ratepayers would have to carry the can for their council's decisions - and that nobody else would. That is one interpretation of what Parliament did. I don't think Parliament - in respect of individual MPs - explicitly accepted that what they were doing with the validation bill was washing their hands of every aspect of this institutional failure.

I wrote some time ago about the law being an ass in respect of what happened at Mangawhai. Unsure now.

Expert, Social engineer, Critical Expert or Smuggler?

AESOP's BEST PUBLISHED PAPER AWARD 2015 goes to Mee Kam Ng for the paper: Intellectuals and the Production of Space in the Urban Renewal Process in Hong Kong and Taipei published in Planning Theory and Practice, 2014, 15(1) 77-92.

I came across it last week while I was doing a bit of research.

The abstract grabbed my attention:

Through two concrete urban renewal cases in Asia, this paper develops a schema of “social engineers-smugglers-experts-critical experts” to differentiate the roles of system-maintaining and system-transforming intellectuals in the production of space. While pro-establishment “social engineers” and “experts” use their “epistemic authority” to produce top-down renewal plans to promote exchange values, “critical experts” outside the government and “smugglers” within the bureaucracy play significant roles in “de-coding” the use values of people’s lived spaces. The cases highlight the important roles of system-transforming intellectuals in reproblematizing urban renewal issues and experimenting with alternative policies and plans to restructure space that sustains community building.

A bit of a mouthful - but it's Christmas, it's tasty, chew well. You can always spit it out. But you might just swallow it. Another extract:

The two case studies to be discussed in this paper highlight the roles of “intellectuals” in the course of spatial restructuring in the two cities. In Taipei, if it were not for the advocacy of students and professors from the National Taiwan University (NTU), the Organization of Urban Res (OURs) (a civil society organization), and the “progressive bureaucrats” in the newly established Cultural Affairs Bureau (CAB), the squatter settlements in Treasure Hill would have been demolished to make way for a park. Similarly in Hong Kong, were it not for the educated social activists and “artivists” in the community and “enlightened” individuals within the Urban Renewal Authority (URA), the 150-year old market streets in Graham and Peel Street would have disappeared with the redevelopment of the surrounding buildings. This paper aims to examine the roles of these “intellectuals” in the production of space in these two cases.

The author presents this straight-forward tabulation:



Here is an extract from the conclusion:

The two stories accentuate the importance of the system-transforming intellectuals in exercising their conscience and capacity to utilize and synthesize personified knowledge. In both cases, the local communities did not really object to the government-led abstract plans. Hence, the intellectuals could easily side with those in power, rationalizing their decisions to erase the two communities. However, the system-transforming “critical experts” in both cities, following the time-honoured tradition of Chinese intellectuals, chose to speak truth to their counterparts in the established system to conserve something that they believed to be important for the future of the two cities. These “critical experts” are of crucial importance in highlighting the essence and meaning of the two settlements, allowing their lived spaces to be appreciated by the wider community and hence succeeding in “re-problematizing” and “re-writing” the storylines. Coupled with “smugglers” within the bureaucracy, different cityscapes were produced. 

However, there is no place for complacency in the two cases. Whether the Graham and Peel Street Market in Hong Kong will survive the phased redevelopment is still unknown and, in the face of competition with global cities, especially those on the China mainland, neo-liberalism has overtaken idealism as one of the main policy concerns in Taipei (Huang and Hsu, 2011). Nevertheless, the two stories appeal to “intellectuals” especially those in Asia, emphasizing the importance of their continuous vigilance in counteracting renewal plans made in the thick of neoliberal rhetoric to promote economic growth and city competitiveness. This can be done through thorough understanding, analysing and documenting the use values of people’s lived spaces and reviewing the inadequacies of top-down plans made by “social engineers” – so that, given the opportunities and the inside activism of “smugglers”, alternative renewal plans and processes can be formulated, experimented with and revised continuously, to speak to the daily needs of local communities – creating soul-nourishing spaces and urban forms.

Because it has won the AESOP award the paper has been made publicly available.
You can download it here. What sort of intellectual are you in the work that you do?

Better Auckland Pedestrian Comfort Assessment

In the quote below, (from a best practice report prepared recently for Melbourne) imagine that "Auckland" is substituted in place of "Melbourne" in this text:

In the light of urban growth, Melbourne needs to address the rising numbers of pedestrians in the central city. Walking is the main mode of transport (86%, figure 12, p. 10) and tram stops, pedestrian crossings and sidewalks get increasingly crowded at peak hours. The principal aim of the new pedestrian strategy, conducted by City of Melbourne’s strategic transport planners, is to get people to walk more by providing a suitable urban environment to walk in – a street network capable of facilitating current as well as future levels of pedestrians. This research looks at pedestrian crowding, and how it is measured and analysed in cities around the world. It reviews two specific tools, pedestrian level of service (LOS) and pedestrian trip generation. It studies London, New York and Copenhagen in more detail, and the work and experience of Gehl Architects in Copenhagen.  

It commences a discussion of how these methodologies are relevant to Melbourne and whether they are applicable and/or can form inspiration in the development of Melbourne’s pedestrian analysis. The study has found that although many cities work to improve pedestrian conditions, there is no generally adopted methodology or standard for pedestrian LOS or trip generation. Pedestrian trip generation calculations are novel and relatively unexplored....  

A majority of cities analysing pedestrian LOS use the Fruin scale from the 1970s. This method analyses quantitatively the number of people walking in a street, but ignores several important factors relating to walkability. Gehl Architects has led the way in elaborating a different and more comprehensive methodology, based on over 30 years experience. They have identified a general street crowding capacity of 13 people per meter per minute, a figure applied by London in their Pedestrian Comfort Level (PCL) assessments. The London framework combines Fruin’s crowding scale with Gehl’s experiences and sets up a comprehensive implementation guide based on area types, street features and pedestrian counts. PCL is calculated for both sidewalks and pedestrian crossings. Melbourne could implement this framework directly, if more and better counting sensors are installed, data collected from the relevant sites and area types analysed in terms of crowding acceptance.....

I've already posted information here and here about what Dr John Fruin has to say in the 1970's about the safe capacity of a pedestrian corridor or laneway. This is a summary of Gehl's more recent findings:

Gehl Architects have assessed walkability in cities all around the world, including Melbourne. Gehl defines crowding as more than 13 people per minute per meter footway width. This is based on long experience. The Architecture School in Copenhagen collected data in public spaces in Copenhagen between 1968 and 1996. They found through this research that the main pedestrian street, Stroget, in Copenhagen reached its capacity at 13 people per meter per minute. Once this level of activity was reached, pedestrians started to move along parallel streets to avoid congestion. 

Recommended pedestrian capacity:
13 person/minute/meter footway width x available footway width = no. of pedestrians/minute 

Henritte Vamberg at Gehl Architects says: ‘The comfort level drops the more pedestrians you have. The above parameter is looking at when pedestrians start walking in “lines”, when you get crushed, when you can’t maneuver a wheelchair through etc.’. What is different with this methodology is that it is based on levels of quality and comfort rather than quantity – conventional LOS methods (mentioned by Fruin) deal only with how many people a street can carry (Gehl Architects, 2004, p. 34).

Using the Gehl walkability metric for a 5 metre wide laneway:  13 x 5 x 60 = 3,900 pedestrians/hour.

This is a conservative - perhaps Scandanavian - approach. The Pedestrian Guidance Manual for London takes Gehl and Fruin and observations to produce a set of guidelines related to Pedestrian Comfort Levels in London. It contains two useful graphics, and ppmm (pedestrian per metre width per minute) advice, which are applicable to office, retail and mass transit pathways.....

Taking the "D" Pedestrian Comfort Level established by London Transport (assume 30 people/clear pathway width metre/minute), and applying it to the proposed downtown laneway, what carrying capacity does a 5 metre pathway have - at this "Very Uncomfortable" service level?

Carrying capacity = 30 x 5 x 60 = 9,000 people/hour

Which is less than the 10,000 average capacity claimed by Auckland Council, and much less than the peak capacity claimed in evidence to hearing commissioners of 16,000 people/hour, and makes a mockery of the 24,000 people/hour claimed by Auckland Council in further information provided to commissioners.

The London advice provides a useful tabulation of pedestrian comfort levels for different types of pedestrian environments, including mass transit pathways. This relates to the A to E comfort level carrying capacities tabulated above.

You can see there that London Transport's advice is that a service level of C+ to C is deemed "acceptable" and that planning for higher throughput means that pedestrian comfort is assessed as "at risk".

Using the "C" grade of personal comfort, gives the carrying capacity of a 5 metre wide laneway as:

23 x 5 x 60 = 6,900 pedestrians/hour

If Auckland wants to build toward its claim as "most liveable city", surely it is about time it adopted pedestrian comfort standards that are recommended in other great cities.


Gehl Architects, 2004, ‘Towards a Fine City for People – Public Spaces and Public Life – London 2004’, DM 7460245