The Auckland Council have announced just how much feedback they received about the Unitary Plan.
Thousands of Aucklanders have taken the opportunity to have their say on the draft Auckland Unitary Plan.
Around 22,700 pieces of feedback have been received via forms, emails and letters, as well as an additional 6,540 comments and posts gathered from social media and the Shape Auckland website.
Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse says council chose to release the plan as a draft ‘draft’ so Aucklanders could help shape the proposed rules in the plan before it goes out for notification.
“The numbers clearly show our communities have embraced the opportunity to be involved at this early stage. Their views, comments and feedback will all be used to ensure the plan we notify for formal consultation is the best plan possible,” said Penny Hulse.
“Over the coming weeks we will be working through the feedback to identify what topics in the plan need further work and where changes need to be made to ensure that we get the balance right.”
The Auckland Unitary Plan is due to be notified later this year. This is when formal consultation will begin starting with formal submissions.
Wow, 22700 pieces of feedback and over 6500 comments gathered from social media is an absolutely massive number. I actually feel sorry for the council staff who are now having to wade through it all, although I imagine much of it will be pro forma submissions like form the likes of the opposition group Auckland 2040. Our friends from Generation Zero who made an excellent online form have said that more than 1300 people used it.
While there is still a lot of noise in the media about the plan, we have purposefully been trying to avoid covering it too much but that will obviously change as more details start emerging as to what changes might be made to the plan. It will also be interesting to see if the council sticks to its current time frame and notifies the plan before the local body elections or if they wait till after them. There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages for both options but I will leave those to discuss at a later date. To put things in perspective, the council has frequently said that they received around 15,000 pieces of feedback for the entire Auckland Plan process which covered both the first draft and the notified plan.
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one of my points of submission was that the views of young submitters should be given greater weight than grey haired submitters, it’s their future!
Ah. But those with the power tend not to want to relinquish it!
SteveC, as a grey hair I totally agree with you. I have no problem with a compact city; I currently live in a fairly high density area (7b) close to transport, shops, restaurants etc and love it. I’m both too old and too young for apartment living though. But maybe one day…
DaveB, what makes you think we oldies have any power? We may have accumulated some assets, that’s pretty well impossible to avoid unless one is extremely profligate, but power – no.
I mean the grey haired politicians and policy-makers.
On sorry, I must be a bit sensitive about my lack of power/influence! But see also my comment below about balance. I would be extremely concerned if government solely comprised those under, say, 40 (not parliament, but government). The age range 20-35 (approx.) is when you push back against the establishment, and rightly so. Beyond that age most (apart from a few entrenched activists) begin to realise that oldies are not quite as stupid as you once thought.
Absolutely agree Jonno1 – but that is on the basis that the older generation will always be focussed on making things better for the next generation. I saw that in the WWII generation of my grandparents, I dont see it so much in the post-WWII Baby Boomer generation. It seems to me more “what can my country do for me”.
I would expect there will be an overwhelming number of submissions against a compact city. Many of which will come from the grey-haired brigade. I would not want to generalise, there are many who think to the future but it will be from those who are not concerned for the future, only the short to medium term impact on themselves. This has always been a problem for New Zealand, we don’t plan for the future like grown-up countries. Geez I’m going to get some flak for this.
Totally agree with you. NZ often seems to be planning for the short term. Just look at Nationals transport policies…
no, I think there’s a real generational divide on this one and the gray hairs are pretty much on the wrong side of what we really need
Ah, the gray hairs, don’t know about them. But we grey hairs are OK.
On a slightly more serious note, don’t overlook the fact that age brings wisdom and knowledge, not always of course but don’t knock it. In my profession I work with a lot of people much younger than me, and it’s great. They’re highly skilled, imaginative, energetic, don’t know what can’t be done etc (just like I was at their age), and I learn daily from them. OTOH, they have told me they appreciate the real-world experience of older mentors/colleagues such as myself and others (just as I did). It’s a matter of balance.
But back to your original comment, I really do agree that the views of the younger generation should have greater weighting, although I would not be impressed with form submissions such as has been advocated, sorry. By all means share concepts, but someone who can’t be bothered with a personal submission in their own words doesn’t deserve much consideration in my view.
very good comment. I wish there was not such a generational divide on this issue. I also suspect that there’s many “grey hairs” out there who would benefit from more compact accommodation, but those people are likely to be somewhat older and more disconnected and hence not participate so much in democratic processes.
The ‘grey hairs’ (read: baby boomers) are a larger demographic than us younger folk, are usually more politically active and pay more money in taxes and rates, which means in political and social discourse they tend to get more attention. No disrespect to the baby boomers, but a lot of them aren’t going to be alive in 2040 to deal with the very issues they’re complaining about, and I hope that any review of the submissions takes that into account.
Every time I hear baby boomers talking about the perils of intensification whilst failing to grasp the basic realities of growth in Auckland, I’m reminded of the cringe-inducing speech Steven Joyce gave where he compared the internet to Skynet from ‘Terminator’, and another (I forget who) MP declaring that file-sharing is illegal.
That was Jonathan Young, not Steven Joyce, btw.
Hi Steve ,
All the people I talk to are grey hairs and they are not against a compact city. Same thing as saying all young people think the same. Those who are in opposition to a compact city are a minority and dare I say it are greedy developers and their political cronies. I suggest making it a generational issue is not productive.I know of at least one of the hosts of this blog is a grey hair So Steve grow up and play the issues not the people.
Robert, I’m closer to 60 than I am to 50, so I’m talking about my own generation.
We do live in a single story house on a 1/4 acre section, but since leaving home my daughter has generally lived in apartments in buildings of three stories or more. There are exceptions, but broadly I think that there is a generational divide of lifestyle expectations that has an effect on how people want to live and a greater willingness on the behalf of younger people to accept apartment living.
The opposition to a compact city may well be in a minority (do you have evidence to back up your claim?), but whether they are a minority of submitters is another matter.
I started going grey in my teens… Hair colour does not accurately indicate age or wisdom. I wish the debate wasn’t continually framed as a generational thing. Personally I am for a model that creates a modern, exciting and pleasant city that my children will want to continue to live in when they are adults. I do quite like having them around.
As someone who used the Generation Zero submission form linked to by this site to make my submission, I’m not sure it’s entirely reasonable to be critical of “pro forma submissions”! Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I made any kind of submission (and that this site pointed me to it), but I’m not proud of the fact that I didn’t have time to do anything more than click a few yes/no options and make a brief comment!
Fair enough David O, and by adding a comment you personalised it anyway – I note the form didn’t allow space for that. In essence all the form said was “I agree with the draft draft UP”, so it wasn’t exactly revolutionary.
there was a comment section on the Gen 0 form , and it was mandatory. That is because if they are personalised they have to be read individually, pro-forma’s with no comments get put together as one.
All the supossed mart business acumen behind those other groups and they were stuck with word or pdf documents.
Doesn’t say much for NZ business innovation.
That’s interesting to know – I wasn’t aware that the obligatory comment made it individual. Smart thinking. And like I said, I’m grateful that the form made it possible for me to comment at all – without it I would not have found the time.
Ha, that’s clever that is! Nice stuff Gen Zero.
From the photo I presume Gen Zeros’ HQ is a computer lab in the UoA’s Kate Edger building on Symonds Street?
Pretty much yes.
We’re essentially a no overheads operation – always looking for support though
we support you! In kind at least 🙂
Oh sorry, I only saw p1 as posted on this site, so didn’t see the comments section which presumably was on another sheet. So I stand corrected on that and agree that personalisation is essential if a submission is to be counted individually – not that numbers are key, rather the ideas expressed. Submitters will by definition only be those with an interest, vested or altruistic, in the process anyway.
I presume it was an editable pdf that you can also sign digitally if you wish. This is pretty common in business so if other pressure groups failed to use the technology available then that was their loss.
One hopes there was no misuse of taxpayer assets.
PS My comment below was supposed to be under Luke C’s one. I hope the nesting works this time (I’m replying to Stu).
This is intended to follow Stu’s 8.51am comment but I’m having problems with nesting today.
Stu I agree, and will no doubt end up in an apartment myself at some point (or in an old folks’ home or village, or whatever is the current PC terminology – the block in James Cook Cres recently featured on this blog looks nice). The disconnect of which you speak is no doubt true but may well be a “don’t care” position. By that I don’t mean “couldn’t care less” in an attitudinal sense but rather prioritising their energies towards enjoyment of their remaining years (eg of grand-children etc; even at my youthful old age that’s a major factor) rather than fighting for or against something that will not affect them personally. That is why I theoretically support younger people’s views carrying greater weight in this area, even though that is not a democratic position.
Hopefully the feedback will encourage the polis to take charge of the plan and do a bit of horse trading…
There are some very easy things they could do to get a huge amount of people onside. Being an election year- this will almost certainly happen…
I hope that the new homes built and will be affordable. It would also be great if that the people who created the unitary plan make provisions for a city’s greenery, as most traditional NZ people love their gardens. I would like to see parks and gardens with fruit trees and vegetables grown. There is simply nothing better to eat than home grown goods.