My day began with wading through a pool of water to park my bike (thanks Auckland Uni!) which was a bit of a downer. But, really, I’m mainly feeling depressed by this article in the Herald yesterday.
It says Len Brown and Auckland Council are considering changing the Auckland Plan to allow more development on the outskirts of Auckland. They are thinking of a 60 (within Metropolitan Urban Limit or MUL) to 40 (outside MUL) split.
As you may remember, the original Auckland Plan was fairly strong in it’s preference for a more compact city form. They wanted to see 75% of Auckland’s future development within the MUL and only 25% outside.
This was a pretty strong push to make Auckland a city in which more people would live in medium or high density housing and travel shorter distances by bike or on foot to get to work, school, play etc. Having said that, the areas it allowed for development outside the city boundaries were still pretty large.
This image from the Auckland Plan shows the greenfield areas that were going to be re-developed under the 75/25 split – the yellow squares.
Auckland Plan - showing areas zoned for growth
In the context of the whole Auckland region the squares don’t look that big but, as Josh Arbury shows in this blogpost, if you shift them around you can see they take up almost the same area as the entire isthmus – from Mt Roskill to Grafton to Point England to Onehunga.
The 60/40 split the council are now considering will, obviously, mean almost twice as much land on the fringes of Auckland will get developed. But, even more worryingly, they are saying most of this greenfields development (i.e., outside the MUL) will happen over the next 10 years.
This is a major cop out because greenfields development is the kind that is easiest in Auckland right now – our planning laws make medium and high density development harder and less attractive. So if the council allows a lot of greenfield development to go ahead in the next 10 years without changing those incentives then, inevitably, this is pretty much the only type of development that will happen.
Then in 2018, when all we have built is greenfields development for 6 years, some future council will say “Oh dear, clearly this goal of having a 60/40 split which we put into the Auckland Plan in 2012 is impossible” – let’s revise the plan and make it say 50/50.” And so we will go on until Auckland stretches from Wainui to Pokeno.
The main reason for cyclists to be concerned about this is that we want to lift cycling rates in Auckland we need to encourage people to live closer to where they work, study and play. This is much easier to achieve in higher density areas. Here’s a nice table from Keith Hall at the NZ Planning institute which shows the relationship between active (walking/cycling) mode share and density in Auckland.
I don’t really blame Len Brown or the council for softening on this issue because they’ve come under huge pressure from property developers. There has been a concerted lobbying effort to convince Aucklanders that having a more compact urban form will increase house prices, destroy our heritage, be physically impossible etc etc. On the other side, there’s been almost no public advocacy, at least as far as I’m aware, for the benefits of a more compact urban form or any discussion of measures we can put in place to keep housing affordable while containing urban sprawl.
This is possibly not surprising because there are a lot of very well off property developers who stand to gain a huge amount from Auckland Council freeing up more land on the fringes of the city for development. Most of the people involved who want a more compact urban form are probably volunteers trying to grapple with these issues in their spare time or they’re planners and civil servants whose jobs depends on them staying apolitical and not publicly commenting on these issues.
Anyway, according to a post I read by Cathy Casey yesterday, the council hasn’t definitely decided on a 60/40 split. They are still weighing up their options. So, if you agree that a more compact urban form is important, please, do email your local councillor and ask them to keep at least a 70/30 split for new development within and out the MUL. There isn’t much time left and it is probably worth it. In my experience local councillors don’t get as much feedback as MPs so they are slightly more likely to take your comments on board.
Writing a letter to the Herald would be good too.
“I don’t really blame Len Brown or the council for softening on this issue”
Actually, I do. Len has to be careful not to be seen as soft on things. If he gets a reputation as a guy who caves in, they can use this to attack him both ways.
I actually think this, in combination with the word we are hearing on the East-West Nielson St motorway link built mostly for trucks, will impact on Len Brown and does give the impression that he is weak and having grand plans does not count for much if you cannot follow through or hold the course.
Yeah, but spare a thought for what it’s like to be a local body politician in Auckland right now. I don’t know any of the councillors well but my impression is they’re hideously overworked and they’re constantly being asked to digest a huge amount of information. Most of them are not professional planners/architects/engineers themselves, and (unlike MPs) they don’t have access to staff who work directly for them to do research and help them to reach an informed position on the issues.
Most of the sympathetic councillors are smart and work extremely hard and have a very detailed knowledge of local govt issues in their local area but at the same time they’re getting emails and submissions, often from “experts”, saying the plan was unrealistic in terms of the 75/25 split. There have also been constant articles in the media pushing a pro-expansion stance.
Len also doesn’t have a majority on council. He has 6 fairly left-green councillors who support him, about 6 who he can sometimes get on his side, and 8 who are firmly, firmly against him on most sustainable transport and compact city issues (Cit-Rats mainly).
So i’m not saying that what they’re planning to do is good – but I think it would be a lot easier for some of them to stand firm if they could cite a bit more support from the public for their position.
I agree – while Len caving in on things would be sad, an even worse outcome is him very visibly LOSING on a key matter of the new Auckland Plan. So he has to triangulate a position that he can win.
Sigh – democracy. The worst form of government except for all the other ones we have tried so far.