It won’t be enough for the council to just say where it would like development for the expected growth of Auckland to take place will be, it will have to actively facilitate growth to take place in the most desirable areas. How could it do this? Well it could do a lot worse than by starting here:
This is an award winning analysis of how to accommodate Melbourne’s expected growth along transit corridors by Professor Rob Adams. It is well worth reading the whole document, it is not overly technical, well illustrated, and short!
Melbourne faces the same issues as Auckland, only more so; expecting to double it’s population from 4 million to 8 million by 2050. The stresses of this are enormous. This study expands on earlier work based around the rail corridors so therefore is only focussed on the road corridors, however the principles are the same; build along the transit corridors and preserve the character of the existing dormitory suburbs. It concludes that it is possible to accommodate 2.4 million extra people on about 6% of the city’s land. It starts by considering the additional costs of continuing to spread:
The need for change there as here is obvious:
The authors identify the areas where it is appropriate to facilitate growth:
And areas to maintain the current quality:
And importantly the scale of development is firmly controlled in the areas of stability but higher density building is actively facilitated in the proscribed areas:
There is a great deal of detail around where and how to achieve this in the study. The scale of the problem in Auckland is smaller, but so is the available land. Wouldn’t it be great to see if this approach is possible here? Of course we’ll also have improve the standard, reach, frequency, and quality of the city’s public transport as well.
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To support this, here’s a report on work on combining transport costs with dwelling prices to get to a more accurate understanding of housing affordability in the US, via Atlantic cities: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2012/02/how-more-expensive-housing-can-actually-cost-you-less/1347/
The US is increasingly suffering from the ‘suburbanisation of poverty’ as a result of the ‘No Transit: No Job’ phenomenon both expressions from this doc from the Brookings Institute: http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/0512_jobs_and_transit.aspx
What’s interesting is to see the very small proportion of the city that is required to achieve a vast increase in intensification. How does that marry up with what “Industry Insider” is saying in another thread about the reluctance of many owners to sell?
The one problem I had with that document is the heritage issue. The linear tram corridors proposed for redevelopment as 4-6 story blocks correspond almost 1-1 with extensive lengths of historic shop frontage. The author has very cheekily picked out a couple of study areas with open sites or non heritage buildings, and ignored the fact that 90% of the corridor is untouchable.
It would be like showing a picture of Mitre 10 Mt Roskill, then declaring all of Dominion Rd can be bulldozed and rebuilt to six stories.
I not saying this can work, but it’s not nearly as easy as picking out our busy street transit routes and laying charges.
Good point. Kingsland is an example of a street frontage that is well preserved, but I would argue that there is still a lot of low value building on Ponsonby Rd that should be replaced, for example, and no one will miss the car yards of Gt North Rd…
Patrick- If you mean destroy Video Ezy, Mini Garage and the ASB at 3 Lamps- I’m with you. Most of the rest of Ponsonby Rd are beautiful Heritage buildings though so realistically that’s not going to happen.
Agree with you on GNR- should all be (quality, non drab, non cramped etc) apartments, but in reality that’s not happening!
Between Colin Gilmour (insert luxury brand here) and John Andrew (insert less luxurious brand here) it’s becoming Greenlane Boulevarde of cars.
I thought Council was trying to move it the other way…
I do mean all that late 20th century crap. But then I don’t agree that everything old is always beautiful, and I completely disagree with you about replicas. I want authentic 21st century buildings in the gaps not some bogus Disney make believe of an Edwardian street that was never there.
Authenticity, variety and quality; and at a density to support a real vibrant street life. And vitally no more car infrastructure, especially parking.
Trams?
I’m out of my depth on this blog, but what good is protecting heritage if it adds nothing to the quality of the environment?
Dominion Road is mostly an eyesore. With considerate and innovative design, we could preserve some heritage features whist adding something that, in 100 years time, will be considered ‘heritage’ itself.
Obviously this attitude does not apply everywhere. Paris, for example, but Auckland is crying out for something interesting. The Art Gallery is a good place to start.
You’re not out of your depth at all, I agree, what is future heritage if it isn’t the best contemporary building? And of course not only should we not just keep everything cos it’s old, but we must re make old things so they still have a life and purpose. The Art Gallery is a perfect example.
Interested in the tensions between urbanisation and heritage? Go here: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/306992/20120229/wang-shu-pritzker-prize-architecture-china-urbanization.htm
Thanks for that article. Very interesting. On a slightly unrelated note, there’s a section of K road between Edinburgh and Cobden St that is old, 4-5 story blocks that are crying out for a new lease of life. I imagine they’re also a good example of the kind of density Auckland will need.
Oriel- The famous red brick “K/S/C/R” buildings at the top of Howe St? They’re only 3 storeys but they are a great example of medium density, built well 80-90 years ago and still looking good today.
Compare that with slightly along the road (same side) at the corner of K Rd and Newton and you’ll see why some people have very little faith in most of the new stuff.
As Wang Shu says in Patrick’s link- “(Hangzhou) looked like Paris. Now it looks like Singapore”.
This book – “Visualising Density” looks like it could be pretty useful in helping discussions around density. http://www.amazon.com/Visualizing-Density-Julie-Campoli/dp/1558441719/ref=pd_ys_ir_all_76
Some of the examples given in the Melbourne document are quite interesting in that they highlight you don’t need to go high-rise to have high-density. It would be great to see something like the “So-Hole” used as an exemplar urban redevelopment – but aren’t the latest plans to just turn it into a supermarket? Gosh what a wasted opportunity that would be.
Peter- About half of Sohole is about to become the biggest supermarket in Australasia.
The quarter along Crummer Rd is to be filled in and sold off as either bare land sections or maybe pre-built structures.
The other quarter- no one I know knows. If hideous stuff is planned for here it will most likely be in this section.
Waiting with baited breath to see whether anything good comes from it. Maybe call Progressive Enterprises and ask?
Sure the old plans were a debacle, but a large countdown sounds like traffic disaster for this area to me. Selling off land in house-lots to fringe what I imagine will be a big and ugly box sounds a bit like the Disneyland development Patrick alluded to above…
Yeah a bog standard supermarket sounds way worse than what was proposed. For goodness sake this is one of the last remaining large unbuilt sites in central Auckland. We need to do something special with it. I quite liked the old proposal.