Submission Kaipara District Council Plan Change 78 Mangawhai Central

According to Kaipara District Council website information:

Private Plan Change 78 (PPC78) was lodged on 3 December 2019 by Mangawhai Central Limited. PPC78 seeks to rezone 130ha of land contained within the Estuary Estates Structure Plan of the operative Kaipara District Plan 2013 (the District Plan), PPC78 area comprises of 83 Molesworth Drive, and Lots 1 and 4 DP 314200 Old Waipu Road, Mangawhai.

This blog posting contains some information about this plan change, public concerns, and my submission. This image is taken from latest issue of Mangawhai Focus.....

Preamble

There's a lot of history to this story. Very briefly, about ten years ago, Chapter 16 which provides for Mangawhai Central development was written into the Kaipara District Plan. Thus the proposed development had its own zoning controls built into the District Plan. Those provisions would have enabled the development of a new piece of town located on about 130 hectares of rural land situated on Molesworth Drive between the towns of Mangawhai Heads and Mangawhai Village. The development proposed then included about 500 residential lots (up to about 1000 square metres), 17,000 square metres of commercial development including a supermarket, and a retirement village. Various resource consents would be needed for earthworks and suchlike. Simmering concerns within the community related to the impact on the road network, the wastewater system, surrounding estuary environment, and the aquifer because of proposals to take bore water.

Fast forward to 2019, when the development company (Virandah Partners) lodged a private plan change whose purpose was basically to double the development potential of the site - to provide for 1000 residential sites and 34,000 square metres of commercial development. The application is accompanied by substantial technical documentation. On the face of it, careful urban design, green space, walking networks, on site streetscape plans, will provide for a well functioning new town with a population of around 5,000 where previously there were paddocks. (5,000 is more than the current population of Mangawhai Heads and Mangawhai Village combined.)

The concerns of existing communities and residents relate to what effects this new town will have on surrounding environment - particularly the transport and wastewater infrastructure and freshwater. 

  

Mangawhai communities are mobilising again in the face of growth pressures and planning processes that persist in rocking the boat. You can get a feel for these concerns at the campaign website run by Clive Boonham.  

I have written a submission which is here....

Twenty Years Ago

Twenty years ago I was invited to help the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association (MRRA) make submissions on a pro-development plan change (Plan Change 9) that was notified by Kaipara District Council.  MRRA approached me because of my experience working with North Shore City Council on its wastewater network and system, and because of research I'd done abroad on alternative community wastewater systems. At that time Kaipara District Council came under pressure from the Regional Council to clean up the Mangawhai Estuary, and from developers keen to follow the Cooks Beach example and get intensive subdivision development underway. KDC pushed ahead with a proposed $16 million sewage scheme. Kaipara District Council decided they could not fund the project and instructed Beca’s to put the whole project out to private tender. Quoting from my submissions at the time:

"MRRA are particularly concerned that Mangawhai residents themselves have been insufficiently consulted over the implications and consequences of PC9. The consultation with the community over the infrastructure study, what should be done, what options to pursue, how a possible community sewage scheme should be funded, how it should be built and owned, are all severely deficient – given the huge issues for the community....

"We have even more of an issue with what is proposed for wastewater, and how that has been shared with the community. The MRRA recognise that how we tackle wastewater is fundamental to the proposed zonings in PC9. Many of the proposed changes cannot go ahead – or at least cannot be made to happen in real life - without the proposed community waste water system. The huge increase in urban intensification envisaged by PC9 for Mangawhai can only occur with a reticulated sanitation system. We believe there is a gap in the council's communication over this. It is hugely controversial, building something as expensive as a community sewage scheme, and involving the private sector in the manner proposed. It represents a major political shift in service provision. I am not aware that the community has really much of an inkling as to the possible impact of what is proposed - in terms of costs, changes in accountability, what their options are - and indeed whether they have been asked whether this is what they want for their community....

"We are of course aware that PC9 does not explicitly mention any costs for the proposed Community Sewage System. PC9 is explicit about financial contributions required for stormwater and roads, but is silent when it comes to wastewater. Documents we have sighted suggest the capital cost of the sort of system which seems to be preferred by Kaipara District Council and its consultants – Beca – is $16,000,000. There are 1200 affected lots in Mangawhai Township now, and PC9 envisages a further 535 – giving a total of 1735. If we all paid equally for this sewage system, it would cost each ratepayer $9221. But PC9 is silent about this huge sum of money….

There are many parallels between this plan change (twenty years ago) and the way Private Plan Change 78 is being mishandled and miscommunicated by Kaipara District Council. The quoted figure of $16 million for the EcoCare wastewater system is of course woefully short of the actual cost which was in the vicinity of $80 million. Unless we learn from this history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Auditor General Enquiry into Mangawhai Community Wastewater Scheme

In November 2013, after an immense and drawn out public campaign, and much anxiety and cost distributed throughout the Mangawhai Community, the Office of the Auditor General published its 400 page report into what had happened. Of critical importance to the present plan change proposal, are the OAG findings. And here I quote from the report’s overview:

"After 20 months of carefully collecting and analysing evidence, this inquiry has made some clear findings about what happened. The positive findings are that:

• the decision that Mangawhai needed a reticulated wastewater scheme was well founded; and

• the wastewater scheme that has been built works effectively and has appropriate capacity for population growth.  (NB: The OAG report was prepared in 2013 – when population growth forecasts would have included at max a half sized Mangawhai Central proposal.)

"The other findings are more sobering. Overall, KDC has ended up with a wastewater scheme that works, but it has come at a significant cost. The fact that we cannot put a precise figure on that cost is indicative of KDC’s poor management. KDC’s records did not contain good or systematic information on the total amount spent. However, our best estimate is that the total cost was about $63.3 million. The overall costs are not just financial. They include a failed council, councillors who have been replaced with commissioners, the departure of a chief executive, a severely damaged relationship between the council and community, an organisation that has needed to be rebuilt, and much more….

"KDC’s decision-making processes were also poor throughout the entire 16 years of the wastewater project. KDC relied too heavily on its professional advisers and had a practice of receiving briefings and effectively making decisions in informal workshops. The governance and management arrangements put in place specifically for the project were also inadequate. In our view, these underlying problems made it harder for KDC to deal with the problems that emerged as the project progressed.

"KDC decided that it wanted to explore a public private partnership (PPP) approach, to keep the debt “off the balance sheet” and to put as much risk as possible on to the private sector provider. In my view, this decision took KDC out of its depth. It followed all the right basic steps when it initially went to the market for advisers and put the project to tender, but it did not fully understand the complexity of what it was doing. The early decision to use a PPP approach put too much emphasis on achieving a certain accounting outcome and the transfer of risk, and not enough on value for money and affordability. KDC’s decision-making about the PPP was not consistent with the good practice guidance that was available at the time….

"I am also concerned that KDC does not appear to have regarded the disciplines and checks in the contract about the construction and handover process as particularly important. In my view, the relatively relaxed approach that was taken to some of these protections, such as the approval processes involved in commercial acceptance and handover of the asset, exposed KDC to unnecessary risk…..

"For these and other reasons, the costs of the project increased steadily. KDC assessed affordability by considering the annual cost to ratepayers. It decided to increase the number of estimated ratepayers that would be covered by the scheme and contribute to funding it. KDC increased the scope of the project to cover more properties and adopted new growth projections that assumed more properties would be developed. We have criticised these decisions on the grounds that they were not based on good information and did not take adequate account of the risk of slower growth. KDC’s focus on the annual cost to the ratepayer as a measure of affordability was unfortunate: it meant that it did not fully appreciate the significant increase in capital costs and the effect on the project’s overall affordability…..

I have quoted selectively here, but not taken any of the matters out of context. It appears that much of this criticism is at risk of being laid at the feet of the Kaipara District Council again.  

While not strictly a PPP, the current plan change arrangement will clearly be of direct benefit to the developer (because of the increased development potential of the land) and to the Kaipara District Council (not least because of increased rate revenues).

The way the costs and capacities of roading, wastewater and the receiving natural environment are being handled in the plan change application has forced existing residents and property owners to defend themselves, their interests, and the surrounding environment in much the same way as they had to twenty years ago.    

National Policy Statement on Urban Development Capacity 2016

This NPS was enacted in 2016. Its objectives apply to all decision-makers when making planning decisions that affect an urban environment. The objectives relate to outcomes; evidence & monitoring; responsiveness and coordination. In particular there are objectives requiring coordinated planning evidence and decision-making in “Urban environments where land use, development, development infrastructure and other infrastructure are integrated with each other.”

In terms of outcomes for planning decisions, the NPS imposes duties on the relevant local authority:

The preamble to the NPS gives direction on how infrastructure planning is a critical part of the provision of development capacity:

Development capacity must be provided for in plans and also supported by infrastructure. Urban development is dependent on infrastructure, and decisions about infrastructure can shape urban development. This national policy statement requires development capacity to be serviced with development infrastructure, with different expectations from this infrastructure in the short, medium and long-term. It encourages integration and coordination of land use and infrastructure planning. This will require a sustained effort from local authorities, council controlled organisations, and infrastructure providers (including central government) to align their intentions and resources.

It is my submission that KDC has not given effect to all of the relevant objectives of the NPS UDC in the way it has approached the community consultation on PPC78 because it has separated from the consultation facts and figures about infrastructure capacity, costs and who and how those matters will be provided for.  

There is no evidence that the planning for Mangawhai Central development is coordinated with infrastructure planning.

The plan change technical documentation is particularly deficient in the way it deals with traffic matters and their effects on Molesworth Drive, and almost silent on the way it deals with the community owned wastewater scheme and how the wastewater needs of the proposed development will be met and paid for.

In my opinion the infrastructure aspects of the plan change need to be reviewed.

Deficiencies in Private Plan Change 78 Process

The development and institutional context for this plan change inevitably influences perceptions and issues that arise for both the developer, the existing population, and the planners and other experts engaged to process the application.

To start with, the proposed development, when complete, will be a small town with a population of between 4000 and 4500 (assuming 1000 homes with 4 people each and a retirement complex), situated midway between two existing small towns: Mangawhai Heads whose population is about 2,500 (estimating from 2018 figures) and Mangawhai Village whose population is about 1,000, and adjacent to a moderate capacity arterial roadway (Molesworth Drive), drawing water from a common aquifer (at the proposed rate of about 100 cubic metres/day), and discharging its wastewater to the community owned and privately operated EcoCare wastewater system.    

The institutional context is a small District Council – Kaipara District Council – whose recent history includes the Ecocare fiasco (described above) and associated debt. This private plan change, any public consequences, management of the public interest and any public infrastructure and amenity effects, and the implementation, evaluation and monitoring of the development plan and any conditions falls to this small council to manage.

It is of critical importance to all concerned =- not least the existing residential population - that all of these processes are managed and resourced properly.

To date the public has every reason to be concerned. Council media (eg Peter Wethey in Mangawhai Focus) have stated that due process provides that the plan change be notified, submissions received, and hearings about the Plan Change held. This has been the process with many growth-related plan changes across New Zealand, which have generally focused on environmental effects, and not included as part of the plan change consideration, the costs and budgets related to supporting infrastructure. Development levies have gone some way to meeting this concern, but they are often not coordinated with plan changes, and often out of synch with infrastructure needs.

While the main thrust of the NPS UDC was to ensure that local authorities provided land capacity for residential and business growth, the national direction also recognised the need to plan and provide for growth outcomes in an integrated, coordinated and spatial way. The NPS UDC includes guidance which is available on MfE’s website for all Councils, including KDC, particularly where rapid growth is being experienced. Quoting from the NPS UDC:

Future development strategies:

·         provide certainty to the community and stakeholders about where and when future urban development is likely to occur

·         are responsive to changing circumstances

·         inform decision-making by local authorities and infrastructure providers

·         demonstrate that there will be sufficient development capacity opportunities enabled through local authorities’ district plans, Long Term Plans and infrastructure strategies.

Development and content of future development strategies

Future development strategies should be developed:

·         collaboratively by all local authorities that share jurisdiction over the geographical area of focus

·         in consultation with infrastructure providers, other stakeholders, and the community.

The content of a future development strategy includes descriptions of:

·         minimum targets for sufficient, feasible development capacity for housing

·         evidence underpinning the strategy

·         the location, timing and sequence of development capacity, using maps and tables

·         the infrastructure and implementation actions required to support development capacity

·         how the strategy will respond to changes in demand or land owners’ intentions

·         how consultation was carried out.

There is no evidence that this has occurred in accordance with this guidance in Mangawhai to date, despite the growth pressures that are being experienced, and despite the fact that Mangawhai Central has been foreshadowed for more than ten years.

No future development strategy for Mangawhai has “been developed in consultation with infrastructure providers, other stakeholders, and the community”.  And of critical importance to PPC78, this means that there has been no community consultation worth its salt about:

·         the location, timing and sequence of development capacity, using maps and tables

·         the infrastructure and implementation actions required to support development capacity

·         how consultation was carried out

The absence of the properly resourced coordinated planning, and future development planning, required by the NPS UDC lies behind the amount of public concern that is being expressed throughout the community, and the volume of submissions in opposition.

In my opinion PPC78 requires supporting infrastructure and financing plans organised in accordance with the NPS UDC and prepared with community and stakeholder participation. These should also provide for triggers and staging of development implementation, linked with the staged provision of infrastructure and resources including bore water, to avoid the risks and adverse effects of uncontrolled growth.  

I wish to be heard in support of my submission. 

NZ's Covid-19 Truth is Hiding Behind Numbers

Science and Sensibility

Long ago, in my post graduate studies and my London based operations research working career I did a lot of computer modelling of scientific systems, and built computer models. The study of Pandemics relies heavily on computer modelling. I've done some reading and produced this piece which is a contribution to New Zealand's Covid-19 public policy debate....

Each day since the start of our Covid-19 pandemic New Zealanders are given the day’s numbers at the top of the news – how many new cases, and how many deaths and recoveries. We’re also advised how many cases are in hospital and how many are critically ill. Increasingly we get information about how much has been spent subsidising workers wages, supporting businesses, and what’s needed to support the economy.

Counting and numbers is comforting science. It can be a way of confronting an onslaught as we gradually get our heads around what’s happening, and at the same time bundling it away as if it’s all under control. But what exactly are we being told each time the latest figures are announced, rising consistently, dropping slightly, increasing again? As we do what we’re told, and we wait.

Scientific analysis of an epidemic typically divides the population into three groups of people: Susceptible, Infectious and Recovered. It’s a useful way for us all to understand what’s happening. Computer models of how a pandemic progresses through a population calculate, one day at a time, how many to subtract from the Susceptible and add to the Infectious, and how many to add to the Recovered. How many die each day is also predicted. Assumptions include the average number of contacts each person has per day, the probability contact with an infected person results in infection, what proportion of the Infectious population recover, and what proportion die.

Significantly, the model shows how the Susceptible population reduces over time as the pandemic works its way through the population because people who have Recovered are assumed to be immune (the jury is still out on that assumption with Covid-19). The chance of someone getting infected after social contact drops over time because fewer people are susceptible. Most models assume that as more of the population become immune through having been infected and recovered, major outbreaks happen less and less frequently then stop, and the pandemic is said to have run its course.

Modelling is an essential tool in forming policy to guide national and global responses to a threat like Covid-19. Fine tuning of pandemic model assumptions has been enabled by data from the direct experience of frontline health workers in Wuhan, Italy and New York.

The teams that have been advising the UK government have published descriptions of their models. These are typically structured as above, but provide for more stages in the progression of an infection, divide the population into age groups and geographic areas, and model the capacity of the health system to cope – including the number of intensive care units available (ICU).

Such models have played a critical role in shaping the UK government’s response which has shifted from mitigation to suppression since the pandemic started. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) model predicted that, if nothing was done to mitigate the effects of the epidemic in the UK, 85 per cent of the population would be infected, there would be 24 million clinical cases and 370,000 deaths. At its peak, 220,000 ICU beds would be required whereas only 4122 were available.

All of the UK models examined options for mitigation including case isolation, voluntary home quarantine, social distancing of the over-seventies, social distancing for everyone, and school and university closures. But modelling indicated mitigation would still lead to more than 200,000 deaths. UK researchers generally argued the only alternative options to mitigation were suppression strategies, partly because China showed they were possible, and as a reaction against the huge death toll in Italy.

The LSHTM group modelled the use of repeated lockdowns, each triggered when the number of ICU beds occupied by Covid-19 patients reached a particular number. If the threshold was set at a thousand ICU beds, the number of infections could be kept to four million and the number of deaths to 51,000. The downside of the strategy would be that 73 per cent of the time between now and December 2021 would be spent in lockdown, by which time only 11 million people would have been infected and, unless a vaccine had been found, the epidemic would still be far from over.

So far in New Zealand the number that we are not talking about is the size of our Susceptible population. That’s because it’s just about all of us, and instead we talk about elimination or eradication of the virus. However, the Covid-19 virus is alive and well all round the world and despite the best disinfection and sanitising under the sun, it is certainly present in New Zealand. Those of us who haven’t been infected yet are susceptible to infection at any moment – though those moments are minimised while we are in lockdown – and it is assumed that testing and tracing will deal with the Covid-19 viruses already in our environment.

There has been some discussion in New Zealand of second and third waves of infections (as happened in the Spanish Flu epidemic 100 years ago) which are generally though to have been caused by mutants versions of the original virus. That is not the same as recognising that modelled suppression strategies being implemented in the UK and elsewhere show the need to provide for repeated lockdowns for the rest of this year and 2021 at least. Way before then in New Zealand, based on the present rate of Government subsidy spending and the effects of lockdowns on economic activity, the treasury cupboards will be well and truly bare. Before then very difficult public policy decisions will need to be made, which go well beyond the simplistic and comforting numbers we currently see on TV.

We need to have conversations about the cost of a death, and about social inequality.

More than 32,000 people died in New Zealand last year. Of these 353 were due to motor vehicle accidents and 685 were suicides. The largest cause of death - about 30% - were cancer deaths, 15% were from heart disease, and 7% due to brain conditions like stroke.

Of the 3,912 people in the UK who died of COVID-19 in March, 91% had at least one pre-existing condition (most common was heart disease), and on average they had 2.7. Many of those who died would likely have died from pre-existing conditions. This isn’t to say those deaths don’t matter, or to forget that although significantly fewer young people have died, they too have died in numbers that in normal times would be shocking.

We can always live in hope for a vaccine, but we also need to be prepared as a country to expect a very long wait. It is easy to say that “we” are all in this together, but already the gap between the have’s and the have not’s is a chasm. It is relatively easy to ride out long lockdown periods in a pandemic with a big back garden, protected income, and substantial retirement savings. Much harder if you’re unskilled, got a young family, aged parents in care, and a mortgage.

Deaths attributable to the economic consequences of lockdowns must also be anticipated. People will vary enormously in their reactions to being confined in their homes, without regular work. Domestic violence incidents are on the rise here, and US news reports of kilometre long queues for food parcels and people openly carrying guns are frequent.

Our Government says it has “provisioned $52 billion, if necessary, to use for cushioning New Zealanders against the impacts of the virus, positioning New Zealand for recovery, and helping us to reset and rebuild our economy to support long-term recovery.” This would be an enormous debt for the country to carry.

Our death-count due to Covid-19 is now 20. How many deaths have been avoided so far is difficult to know, but we are beginning to understand what the costs of the Government’s suppression strategy are and will be, to us and for the country.

The cost of a life is routinely used in justifying the cost of a new road in New Zealand. It’s set at somewhere between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000. If a new road can avoid enough fatal motor vehicle accidents public money gets invested in the road. The benefit in lives saved exceeds the cost of the new road. Who knows what investment might reduce youth suicide, or prolong the lives of those suffering from cancer?

Part of our preparation for the rest of 2020 and 2021 will require public conversations about how the suffering caused by the pandemic should be allocated and shared, and about the very future of our society.

** I have drawn from an article by Paul Taylor, titled "Susceptible, Infectious, Recovered" contained in the 7th May issue of London Review of Books.

Resilient Cities need Balanced Capital Investment

The impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic are still being understood, but it seems clear that this crisis will force changes in cities, physically and socially, that will echo for generations.

Central and Local Government institutions are rolling out short term economic relief packages across New Zealand. A strategy of road and rail “shovel ready” development projects is under consideration for the long term. While these approaches are an important part of a planned approach to recovery, they don’t engage with the fundamental need for change, nor the opportunity this disruption presents for the Government to implement its Living Standards Framework and rebalance New Zealand’s natural, human, and social capital, alongside its financial and physical capital.

How cities are planned has always been a reflection of cultural and technological trends, and major health crises. The cholera epidemics in the 19th century sparked the introduction of modern urban sanitation systems. Housing regulations around light and air were introduced as a measure against respiratory diseases in overcrowded European slums during industrialization. Mass transit and the automobile shape urban form, internet technology enabling working and shopping from home influences urban design priorities, and climate change pressure is forcing adaptation.

New Zealand’s pandemic response has been led by a brave and enlightened Government, and only a few outbreak clusters have occurred. But across the world, cities have been on the frontline with overwhelmed heath systems, and with daily wage earners and the urban poor suffering from lost income and a scarcity of city services and social safety nets to protect them.

Even before the current pandemic cities have needed to change significantly to meet the global goals outlined in the Paris Agreement, Sustainable Development Goals, or New Urban Agenda. To reach these goals will require major alterations to how we build, manage and live in cities – not just change, but transformational change. Such change has seemed beyond reach, but from energy to housing to mobility, sustainable, cost-effective, solutions are at hand. The challenge has been to change people’s understanding of what’s possible and the courage to make it happen at scale.

One of the unintended consequences of this crisis has been that we have seen, quite dramatically, that radical change to our everyday lives and systems is possible. Amidst fear and uncertainty, people are seeing fragments of what a future city could look like. People across the world are breathing better air than they have in decades due to a dramatic decline in vehicle traffic and factory output. People are unwittingly enjoying “car-free street days” on a daily basis, finding that walking and biking are also viable and even preferred. Cities like Bogotá, Berlin and Mexico City have already expanded pedestrianization efforts to encourage these activities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered urban life across New Zealand. Work from home is the new normal for many. So is walking, biking and enjoying nearby open spaces and parks. But the fate of thousands of small businesses and workers that make urban centers work is up in the air. These changes have sparked a debate about what is essential in a city, and perhaps more importantly, how cities can better respond to current and future crises. This pandemic is exposing fault lines with respect to physical infrastructure and inequalities in access to core urban services. It’s also raised questions about healthy density in cities. The most successful cities are able to achieve liveable density – a balance where benefits of agglomeration are significantly higher than the cost of congestion – as well as healthy density – a balance where the threat of a viral pandemic is built into its physical design and infrastructure.

It is the lack of access to essential service infrastructure such as water, housing, internet and health care, that has exacerbated the challenge of responding effectively to COVID-19 in modern cities.

We need to bring laser sharp focus on investing in essential infrastructure for better health, wellbeing and resilience for New Zealand’s urban populations. This involves identifying and investing in high-risk locations, including poor and under-resourced communities. It can also mean building infrastructure that is intentionally geared towards a low-carbon future.