Looking at how Auckland will develop

It is said that the government and the Auckland council agree on 95% of what was in the Auckland Plan but the problem though is that some of the things they didn’t agree on are the big bits like the CRL or perhaps even more importantly how the city develops over the coming decades. In particular views about whether we should accommodate future population growth within our existing city boundaries or whether we should allow for much more greenfield development seem to be largely driven by ideology and emotion rather than evidence. There was work done by the former Auckland Regional Council that was incorporated by the new Auckland Council on the environmental and social costs of different development options but I think some people viewed that as justifying an existing ideological position.

That’s why it was interesting to read an announcement while I was away that went largely unnoticed about a government funded research project to look into the issue of how we should develop our cities.

The Government is spending $9 million on a research project that will try to work out the best way for cities to develop.

The Otago University-led project received one of the largest grants in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s $133 million funding round announced this week.

Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman, director of the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities which is leading the project, said the research “basically pulls together everyone working on the issue in New Zealand”.

“Very, very” little work had been done in this country on urban issues such as whether urban limits should be imposed or whether infill housing should be built, she said.

“This research will make a big difference to the way our cities will look in future, we hope.”

Otago University said the project – called Resilient Urban Futures and awarded $9.2 million over four years – linked the universities of Otago, Victoria, Auckland, Massey and Canterbury, Niwa and the Motu Public Policy Research Group, with councils, government, iwi groups, developers and community groups.

Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Kapiti, Wellington and Christchurch cities would be involved, with the research comparing  the broad costs and benefits and qualities of two possible urban development paths.

The first path emphasised more compact development within existing urban areas, while the other focused on further greenfield development on the outskirts of cities.

The research would enable government, developers and iwi to have a clear idea of the broad future consequences of different urban investment decisions, Prof Howden-Chapman said.

“We’re very excited about the impact this can have on the lives we all live in cities.”

While the project would provide much better information for making decisions about regulations, its aim was not to look at what laws should be changed, rather it was about understanding how cities worked.

The agenda for the research came from four years of consultation with councils and central government, Prof Howden-Chapman said.

The researchers would be looking at many different models for cities.

For example, a polycentric model being followed by many new cities in China had clusters of housing linked by public transport routes, rather than having a central core.

“We’re interested in the advantages and disadvantages of doing things in different ways,” she said.

Development was usually driven by what had worked in the past, but that had led to some pretty spectacular failures.

While the Government was concerned about the costs or regulation, costs could also be incurred without regulation, as happened with leaky buildings.

“It’s obviously a balance.”

Part of the research also involves analysing the impact of ultra-fast broadband, and possible transport link efficiencies between the ports in Auckland, Tauranga and Whangarei, and the proposed inland port at Hamilton.

Prof Howden-Chapman said people could be a bit parochial about the ports, but there was a need to think about them together and look for efficiencies.

This will be quite interesting research and with so many organisations working together there should be quite a bit of knowledge that can be drawn upon. The research is meant to take four years so it is probably going to take a while for us to see any results from it but at the end of it there will at least be some good widely accepted information that can be used to base decisions on, providing that people are willing to listen to it.

Also on the topic of how cities develop, one of the things I have been thinking about is just what kind of urban density Auckland will have in 30 years at the completion of the Auckland plan. One of the big myths that has existed over the last 50+ years is that Auckland is one of the most spread out cities on the planet. Our previous admin looked into this quite some time ago to show that it was simply not the case as there are many different ways of calculating density. One way is to look at just the urban density which compares the urban population with the urban area rather than regional or municipality boundaries. Demographia (who normally use their research to push for a more auto dependant future) have done some interesting work looking at urban densities around the world and describe the urban area as:

An urban area is best thought of as the “urban footprint” — the lighted area that can be observed from an airplane (or satellite) on a clear night.

Based on that definition they currently calculate the Auckland urban area at 544 km² with an urban population of around 1.3m with the remaining ~200k being in the rural parts of Auckland. That gives us an urban density of around 2400 people per km² which makes Auckland not only the most dense city in New Zealand (I found it interesting that Hamilton is second at 2200) but it is also more dense than any of the Australian cities with the closest being Sydney with an average of 2100 per km².

So what would Auckland be like as a result of the Auckland plan? The aim is for 70% of new development to be within the existing urban limits (note: some of that is still greenfield land at the moment) but that planning should take place for a worst case scenario of 60% within the existing limits. The MUL was last changed in 2010 where it was extended around the areas of Westgate and is shown in the map below. By my calculation it covers approximately 570 km².

As mentioned earlier the Auckland plan aims for around 60-70% of development to occur within the 2010 MUL and that up to another 1 million people will call Auckland home over that period. Choosing the midpoint of 65% within the existing MUL that would mean an additional 650,000 people living within that 570 km². That would mean that just under 2 million people will live within the existing MUL area giving it an average density of around 3400 people per km². That doesn’t take into account the what impact we will see from land that will be developed outside of the current boundaries but I would expect that it is likely to be done at a higher density than we have seen on the fringes in recent times, likely taking its queue from the research mentioned at the top of the post.

But how does that compare to international cities today. Here are a few cities with similar populations around that that level of density?

An nice mix of cities there and I think that at an average of around 3400 people per km² Auckland would have a very interesting mix of housing options along with some potentially great urban areas without feeling squashed in by massive buildings but I’m interested to hear what you think.

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