This
think-piece draws on ideas about waterfront regeneration in a globalised world,
and focuses on what is happening in Auckland – especially around the future of
the Ports of Auckland.
Few weeks
ago I returned from visiting regenerating waterfronts in Dublin,
Newscastle/Gateshead, and Greenwich London. A few years ago I checked out other
waterfront projects at Malmo and Roskilde, Copenhagen, Canary Wharf and
Hamburg. My plan was to learn from them. Originally my objective was to be able
to engage on an informed basis with Auckland’s waterfront as a Councillor,
though now my work is as a planning adviser with a continuing waterfront
planning research focus at University of Auckland.
Yesterday’s
debate at Auckland Council over POAL’s latest set of expansion plans ranged
between two very different points of view. One was espoused by Michael Barnett,
CEO of Auckland Chamber of Commerce, and the other by Chris Darby who Chairs
the Takapuna-Devonport Local Board.
Barnett
berated the Heart of the City organization which has advocated against ports
expansion plans and for more work to be done on relocation. Barnett said, “the
Port is the heart of Auckland”. Darby argued that Auckland was changing, that
it was becoming more of a “Harbour Edge City” than one with sprawling
reclamations into its harbour. In my opinion, both statements have elements of
truth in them.
The problem
with Barnett’s statement, and point of view however, is that it harks back to a
time of steam engines, coal fired train networks, railway sidings, steam ships,
coal reserves, and waterside gasworks. The essence of the industrial revolution
on the waterfront – where shipping routes met railways met factories and
delivered the coal to power all of them, and to make the gas that warmed the
homes and cooked the food of the employees who found work there.
The world
has moved on since then, and cities all round the world from Baltimore to
Singapore, from Hamburg to Sydney have all engaged in massive waterfront
regeneration shaped and defined by two major forces.
The first
of these is that cities are no longer places for industrial production. Instead
they are places of consumption and places for play and there is a global
competition to be high on the list of the best by being unique and creating
great places to be.
The second
of these is that the smoke-stack vision of the city port is obsolete. As is its
presence in the modern city landscape which today is more defined by buildings,
infrastructure and services driven by the new information and communication
technologies. Containerisation has also radically transformed ports from
concentrations of finger wharves and truck movements and railway sidings, to
large areas of land generally far removed from the heart of the city, and
reliant on good warehousing and fast rapid rail for delivery and dispatch.
If we are
to consider the market – even the global market - and what it needs, the first
of these is good connectivity. But that does not require physical proximity. It
does require good accessibility. That’s what inland ports are about. It’s also
why Marsden and Ports of Tauranga and even Wellington work well – alongside
their respective cities – but not ruining their hearts.
We can
learn from them, and also integrate better with them, so that heavy freight
goes through those ports, rather than through Auckland’s heart.
In New
Zealand the lions share of export tonnage is primary produce and derivatives
which are not grown in Auckland. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to
appreciate that a growing port in Auckland, will require a growing number of
truck and trailer and train movements across Auckland, right through its very
heart, to get this heavy freight between ship and land destination or origin.
Equally,
you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that reclaiming more of
Waitemata Harbour to create more space to store and unload containers and other
freight, will inevitably reduce the amount of recreational and scenic
waterspace within Waitemata Harbour. Yet nowhere do I see the “highest and best
use” economic benefit-cost calculation applied to that loss of waterspace. If
we look at almost any other city of dreams around the world, one that is
regenerating its waterfront, we will see that the jewel that is most precious
is its waterspace, and access to, recreation on, and views of that waterspace.
I accept
there is a nostalgic appeal with a working port. It adds to the character of a
waterfront. The marinecraft industry at Wynyard Quarter will be an asset in the
future as an attraction. But it’s not a cuckoo that is threatening to get
bigger than its nest.
Right now,
the Port of Auckland, backed by its smoke-stack champions, are on a path,
unless the community disagrees, that will break the hearts of Aucklanders when
the full reality is unleashed, and when permitted and planned reclamations go
ahead.
There is
scope for restructuring of existing port and marine industrial uses, and
packaging them, and representing them to fit better with the overall objective
of building a better city, and one that fits the city of sails vision. And I’m
afraid I don’t hold out much hope of that sort of thinking if the consultation
over the options for the future of the port is left to the Ports of Auckland.
Auckland might
like to remain a little backwater fondly regurgitating its coal-fired
waterfront history, and repeating it, but the rest of the world is changing and
new technologies are changing the way cities work and what makes them
successful. The questions that I would like to see debated by Auckland Council
include: who manages Auckland’s waterfront spaces and places? Who will balance
the cultural, social and economic functions of those waterfront spaces and
places understanding the opportunities that are here? And what will make
Auckland’s waterfront more culturally and socially attractive for us all?
Thinking
about those questions is needed in Auckland now.
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