Planning for Auckland Planning

The Planning School at University of Auckland gave me the job this year of teaching Resource Management Act District Plan writing to Year 2 Bachelors in Planning students. The images here show the first slides of the main lectures I prepared for the course. This was an interesting experience. It made me reflect on the work that planners actually do - especially in councils - and it required me to critically consider how the university is preparing students for that task. During the first studio session almost all students indicated they expected their first job would be in a Council....

The approach I took to begin with, was a bottom up approach. The house next door was a good place to start - mainly because I was aware that none of my students actually owned property. Most lived at home. Hard to engage them on issues of concern to home owners, let alone property developers, and let alone what the RMA is all about...

I should confess here, that in parallel with my teaching, I was also studying as a final year student for my Masters in Planning Practice degree. I was taking the Plan 725 Course. This is a studio course where students build chapters for a District Plan for a fictitious Ponsonby & Grey Lynn Borough Council. The same studio exercise is used for B Plan students in their final year....

Consistent with my grassroots approach to teaching RMA planning, I took students through the economics and logistics of three water planning in an urban environment, and showed where the RMA has a regulatory impact. Students have no idea how much water costs, where wastewater goes, what happens to stormwater. No criticism intended here. But I think practical planning requires an understanding of material basics.

The same for transport. I was able to use chunks of North Shore City Council's District Plan to show how it provides for minimum standards for transport infrastructure when land is subdivided. It was also an opportunity to explore my hobby horse of pavements vs road crossings, and show how Wellington City Council deals with that conflict with an Urban Design guideline approach to RMA infrastructure planning...

Auckland's waterfront development is rich in examples that demonstrate how - despite great words and intentions - Auckland can get a Princes Wharf type disaster under the RMA. But get fairly good outcomes at Wynyard Quarter through a good RMA process.

This lecture enabled me to explore - with students - how RMA planning in Christchurch had somehow managed to bypass, minimise, and essentially ignore seismic realities. A great example of where garbage into a plan has resulted in garbage planning outcomes.

Auckland's experience with medium density housing, intensification, and how District Plans provide for good amenity - or not - is illuminating for students. It is where more sophisticated planning approaches that include "plans for what you want" must sit alongside "plans for what you don't want".

The Long Bay Structure Plan is a rich case study for explaining how difficult it is - under the market knows best RMA approach - to deliver a District Plan that can be assured of delivering good public realm outcomes as well as good private amenity outcomes. In the back of my mind - as I prepared these lectures - I am keenly aware that the Government has essentially parked the RMA on the sidelines by requiring Auckland Council to build a Spatial Plan. To plan for what it wants... The jury is very much out how that will integrate with a Unitary District Plan for Auckland...

The great thing about the RMA and District Plan writing of course, is that, provided you accept unquestioningly the RMA's premise that the market will deliver all that's great and good, then there is a wonderful logic to the RMA. The cascade of Issues, Objectives, Policies, Methods and Environmental Results Expected. Great to teach because it's all so logical. But many students are aware that the RMA operates in a sort of policy silo.... that there are an increasing number of examples of where the market is failing...

The ultimate in RMA planning logic though is the s.32 analysis. Within the silo this is great, satisfying, rigorous in appearance. However I find it disturbing that the educational crescendo of BPlan and MPlan degrees is the preparation of District Plan chapters for a fictional Ponsonby & Grey Lynn Borough Council. Especially when other planning instruments - particularly the Long Term Council Plan, the Spatial Plan (incorporating Waterfront Development Plan, Transport Plan, Economic Development Plan) are so important. Perhaps this tendency will change with the shift in emphasis that is indicated in the change from "Masters in Planning Practice" to the new "Masters in Urban Planning". That change in name suggests a change in the University's educational emphasis from RMA planning-to-avoid-what-we-don't-want, to a more integrated and rounded approach, one which is less driven by market forces and more driven by quadruple bottom line outcomes and processes.

As my lectures developed, and I heard more from students in the studio, I became aware of their hunger for practical understanding and knowledge of how development occurs, who pays, where the money comes from, what Councils actually do to stimulate development, and how Councils can function to drive the delivery of community outcomes as well as environmental outcomes. This hunger signals the desire for an Urban Planning education, not just the narrow tick the resource consent application boxes education. And if you've got this far, and you are involved in Auckland planning, look around your office, and ask yourself this: "how many of the senior planners and senior policy people received their planning education at Auckland University?"