Auckland Plan = Step Backwards

The Mayor Len Brown said it all this morning on National Radio as he talked up the economic growth targets of the Auckland Plan. Describing the Plan itself he said, "frankly, this is the easy bit, now we have to achieve it...". Radio New Zealand commentary this morning noted that, "Central Government supports most of the Auckland Plan...." It's not hard to see why:

• The Metropolitan Urban Limit - which has largely held firm since 1998 and which still contains substantial developable land - has been relaxed significantly, opening up development opportunities and quick profits for those holding land at the edges whose advocates were very squeaky wheels during submissions;
• The challenge of meeting the need for affordable housing within existing city communities has thus been side-stepped (they can live in new houses in greenfields and form new markets for greenfield developers with new infrastructure costs heavily subsidised by existing ratepayers);
• Despite setting a significant increase in passenger transport targets, the Auckland Plan strongly emphasises investment in roading infrastructure for cars.

Central Government has made no secret of its support for these initiatives, and has Auckland Council's arm up its back by with-holding financial support for major public transport projects backed by Council and the wider Auckland community.

The Auckland Plan could be described as a balance. But that would be charitable.

It was always open for Auckland Council to seize the Compact City baton, and develop a set of grunty policy tools, support frameworks and incentives that would deliver the vision on the ground. There was room for that in the Spatial Plan specification enshrined in legislation by Central Government. Instead Auckland Council has fallen into step with central government's policy direction that New Zealand's economic development be led by urbanisation catalysed by motorway building and roading, as well as port expansion. And so history repeats. Auckland's embryonic plans for more responsible and self-sufficient development are stymied again, (though I am relieved that following well organised and effective public reaction, Auckland Port Expansion Plans are on ice pending a review....)

I understand that the finished Auckland Plan looks very beautiful. No expense spared. But then most development prospectus documents look and feel like that. Glossy. Thick paper. The very best photographs. Endlessly edited. Give confidence to investors. Let the market deliver growth and prosperity to all of Auckland.

We've tried that. It doesn't work for large parts of the Auckland population who live in crowded houses, have to drive long distances to work, shop, go to school, whose energy costs are increasing ahead of inflation, and whose children and parents have few options to own their own homes in the neighbourhood. The market is not interested in developing the self-sufficient communities that are central to delivering a compact and efficient city.

Supporters of the Auckland Plan argue that the old urban limits and plans to contain 75% of new population within existing boundaries "are not achievable", and that even maintaining population growth within the relaxed target of 60% (plus I hasten to add some 1400 hectares of new greenfield land for business), "might not be achievable".

Of course it won't be achievable. Especially if Auckland Council does not take its planning responsibilities seriously, and if it leaves these sorts of planning outcomes to the development market.

You only have to look at the latest piece of Auckland greenfield development that is happening at Hobsonville, North West Auckland to see what happens when the market takes over. The original vision for this inner harbour community was of a mixed development with employment, village centre, and an integrated mix of state housing and high quality private development. That was the plan the Auckland Regional Council was presented with when I was on that Council, and when we had the job of signing off the relevant District Plans. I was one of those arguing that development needed to be staged to ensure the mixed vision was in fact steadily implemented on the ground. With triggers before the next stage could proceed. Man oh man did Waitakere City Council and assorted developers kick back against that idea.

Trust us they said. Don't constrain the market.

What has happened? First up Central Government walked away from funding any State Housing there. Next up Super City had the job of finalising various appeals outstanding. No such thing as Chinese Walls now. The self-sufficient community vision for Hobsonville has now been reduced to an expensive coastal development with big box shopping - like you see at Westgate and Albany Mega Centre. These are not communities. These are development opportunities.

These are the future communities that will be permitted under the Auckland Plan.

Does Auckland Really Need to be Unleashed?

I went along to Auckland Unleashed last week. Big crowd there. I thought the workshops were good. I attended the infrastructure one (there were 5 workshops: can't recall what their names all were now - Infrastructure; Community; Funding & Implementation....) What was good about the infrastructure workshop was the strong thread from most tables about the need for resilience. This partly was driven by Christchurch earthquake, but was also informed by concerns about other global forces like fossil fuel prices and such-like. The upshot was that there was strong support for a poly-centric approach to Auckland's development. ie not put all our eggs in one basket called the Auckland CBD. There was a strong call for "contained communities", "complete communities" (like the Vancouver strategy), and with this was a majority call for distributed and de-centralised networks. One of the issues raised here was the need to reduce the need to travel long distances to work, school, play and essential services. This runs counter to the Dr Arthur Grimes vision of a major effort at building Auckland CBD - almost at the exclusion of the rest of the region (let alone the rest of the country). So. I felt good about that expression from that workshop. Gave me some optimism. Hope it survives the process. Which will be a challenge I think. You don't have to look further than the title of the plan, and its widely criticised economic growth aspirations which are right outside the direct influence of Auckland Council. No matter how super. Auckland Unleashed. Gives me the heebie jeebies, because I think the root cause of Auckland's current disfunction is the fact that developers and development has been unleashed and rampant as a mad dog for two decades now. The light-handed approach to Auckland's development over that time has led to the mess that we are in now. Very inefficient transport systems because land use has not been well planned. It's been ad hoc. The market has ruled. Why would you want to unleash it more? Surely Auckland development needs to be better contained and managed - in the best interests of public and commercial interests. You only need to do a couple of word counts of the 226 page Auckland Unleashed document to see where it's coming from.... Quality + International + Vision = 352 Implementation + Delivery + Funding = 134 With that sort of word count, you can see the emphasis of the document. Long on aspiration - as often the most fluffy Council plans are - and short on implementation. And then there is this comparison. It's where the rubber hits the road in my opinion, because while Auckland might have an economic problem or two (which are not directly within Council control), it has a massive housing affordability problem, a growing carbon/fossil fuel dependency problem, and increasing stress on local ecologies (all of which are core business for Council)...

Development+Economy+World = 421 Affordable Housing+Carbon+Ecosystems = 23 That word count gives a good impression of what Auckland Unleashed is really about. It is so far off the mark of what Auckland needs from Auckland Council right now.