Go to Instagram. Search posts tagged with Auckland. You’ll be flooded with:
- photos of the Skytower
- photos taken from the top of Mt Eden
- photos of the Skytower taken from the top of Mt Eden.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that the residents of Tāmaki Makaurau deeply value our maunga.
This is enshrined in the “volcanic viewshafts overlay” — a city planning instrument that restricts heights where development would block views of the cones we hold so dear.
The Mount Eden Viewshafts
You may have read Geoff Cooper’s account of the costs and benefit of viewshaft “E10”. If you have not, you should.
If you have, you know how destructive this particular viewshaft is. But did you know that Mt Eden is “protected” by 19 others?
Unlike E10, most of these viewshafts haven’t been much of an issue as in most places, the zoned height limit is lower than the effective height limit that the viewshaft imposes.
Indeed, most of Auckland is zoned for 2 storey development, and an exemption is made for 2 storey development.
This is changing.
As Auckland moves to build more centrally-located apartments, these viewshafts will increasingly frustrate development over time.
Let’s run through a quick tour of “the good, the bad, & the ugly” of the Mt Eden viewshafts:
The Ugly
Most of the viewshafts are somewhat mundane.
Maungawhau is often not the centre of attention, and it’s not particularly clear that Maungawhau is creating more visual delight than well-architected towers would.
To choose to suppress the construction of potentially thousands of homes, you’d expect that the aesthetic gains would be greater than this:
E14
E11
The Bad
E13
Looking Westward from Ngapipi, you get an excellent view of some nascent pōhutukawa. You do not, however, get to see Maungawhau.
E15
Ngapipi is not the only one with this problem. The lovely street trees of Mount St also prohibit views of the Mount. Not that that’s bad, they’re lovely trees!
E9
However the most absurd viewshaft starts at Mt Albert Road. Like those above, this one is completely obscured. Unlike them, this did not happen recently. The villa interfering with Maungawhau action was built in the 1870s, a hundred years before the viewshaft was placed here. This has no value to the public, only serving Alberton, which is run as a tourist item and venue hire.
The Good
Looking straight down the barrel of Mt Eden road, Maungawhau appears looming over you, drawing your eye:
What should we drop?
The existing viewshafts are fine for people driving around admiring the mount from various highways, but as evidenced by our little Instagram dive, this isn’t actually how people relate to the mighty maunga.
Most people walk up them!
The most important lines to protect would be views from the mountain, not of the mountain.
Swapping out the bad & the ugly for viewshafts which actually protect the views people like so much they wanna snap & share it would be a bargain most people would accept.
Being able to stand on the peak and see the Skytower, the Harbour Bridge, Rangitoto, and the many other peaks of our city would seem much more valuable than the status quo.
Sitting higher, these would also allow much more development beneath them than we permit today.
What should we keep?
The good ones have the following interesting features: the road leads your eye to the mountain, buildings on either side frame it, and these views emerge around a corner.
This is similar to the concept of miegakure (“hide and reveal”) as deployed in traditional Japanese gardens. Japanese gardens frame objects with entryways to create a false sense of depth, to make the subject seem more imposing and vast.
This should be our guiding principle for viewshafts: dense, linear corridors that frame and exaggerate items of cultural significance, like our maunga.
This is the approach taken by London with viewshafts protecting St Paul’s cathedral — one of the inspirations behind our system, and most successful examples of viewshafts.
Unlike Auckland’s wide viewshafts which attempt to make sure the object can be seen from essentially anywhere, London’s are razor-thin:
Covering a much smaller area, not only do these enhance views of the cathedral, but they also suppress much less new housing than our approach!
Conclusion
To balance housing needs with preserving our cherished views, we must rethink our viewshafts. By focusing on the perspectives that truly matter—those from the peaks—we can celebrate our maunga while accommodating development!
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Common sense prevails! Thank-you. One of my biggest bug-bears of Auckland’s planning is the viewshafts. They simply haven’t responded to the needs of today’s (and the future form of) Tamaki Makaurau Auckland. By all means, protect the essential views, particularly using things such as existing road corridors as noted. But the blanket approach – yeah, nah.
Yes, agreed, we need some common sense on this.
Viewshafts and Special Character, the tag team of development failures
Imagine the stupidity of protecting the view of Mt Eden for people stopped to pay the toll on the harbour bridge. Now imagine how stupid it would be to keep that protection decades after the toll has gone.
Inertia is one of the strongest forces affecting civilisation…
“We’ve always done it like that”.
On an unrelated note: Anyone know whether there have been any successes to consent yourself out of respecting a viewshaft? In the development space, SOOOO many things can get consented away (after you provide two or three truckloads of assessment and some mitigation) – but does any of this happen at all re viewshafts? Surely with some of the examples (viewshafts already blocked etc) you’d have some good arguments under the RMA?
I guess it’s too expensive, because you have to go the whole hog, and if you get knocked back, there’s no practical way to salvage the application, everything (including financial case) has to be redone….
The Right Honourable Sir Edmund Thomas KC and bar got a viewshaft in the old district Plan to protect the view of his home from the waterfront. Of course it just happened to protect his view of the waterfront from his home.
If you want a view of the sea, you can easily access the sea. If you want a view of a hill, you can easily access this too. These are publicly accessible for everybody. If my apartment is in your view, take the elevator downstairs, and walk in the sometimes fresh air.
Unfortunately in the central city, we have the “infinite pyramid”, the unfinished Seascape that would have partnered the Pasifica next door, as two modern apartment blocks on our shoreline.
Perhaps we do not need forty five level skyscratchers, but we could definitely use some twenty five level, excellently designed apartment complexes, to complement some ten level, and those strange house persons who are probably holding onto their car keys too.
Sight lines are what my father, an engineer with a love of architecture, has always appreciated, but he is of generation house, generation private vehicle, and finally retiring, eight years late. Our current mayor is much later in enjoying his future retirement.
Your question is very correct. The mayor of Paris is a woman, and she has to deal with the realities of an expansive, cosmopolitan city, in Europe. Men do not have the capacity to take care of a city, that is why the Deputy Mayor is the major spokesperson for Auckland.
Disclosure of conflict: I am a man.
bah humbug
I think the viewshaft of Maungwhau from the northern motorway is excellent, it frames what makes TMA absolutely unique in the world and is a world class view across the water to the central city and the looming volcano beyond.
There’s plenty of ~6 storey development opportunities on the western side of Queen St which will leave the viewshaft intact and make walkable neighbourhoods. There’s plenty of much higher development opportunities over the rail yards to the east which will allow us to continue to progress as a ‘big little city’.
Enjoy what makes TMA special.
Scott, the Museum viewshaft comes into play as you head east towards the railways site….can’t get away from the ______ things.
World Class views whilst driving on a busy motorway…make it make sense.
This post is severely lacking in embedded posts from said Instagram Girlies ( xD ) for those of us who can’t be arsed with instagram!
The whole viewshaft idea is fascinating, most people would have never heard of them before.
Personally I’d be happy with losing a lot of the viewshafts from the maunga if it meant reforesting them. There isn’t much of a view from Owairaka Mt Albert but it is a much nicer place than the arid Puketāpapa Mt Roskill peak.
There are important cultural values that require debate and respect. Views from are more significant than views to, although views from one maunga to others will be important. Views from Maungawhau to the coastal points of the founding land gift should also be considered.
Identifying lookouts/viewpoints and the significant objects visible from them could give a fresh look at AUP protection.
Surprise value of views is often best for objects close up, though views of Rangitoto and Whangaparaoa are also valuable – including value for house prices for those who benefit from the views.
I commuted into Auckland CBD along the southern motorway for years.
The peek of the Hauraki Gulf from the newmarket flyover was a highpoint of the commute. I was not really surprised to see the view degraded by highrise apartments, and more recently westfields. This small glimps connected me with whats great about Auckland, and also what we dont value, or have the ability and foresight to protect.
https://www.google.com/maps/@-36.8734705,174.7770639,3a,75y,15.86h,85.07t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sS5m51QTZ0dVP09wWYv77hw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DS5m51QTZ0dVP09wWYv77hw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D247.05403%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAyMS4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
You guys really are deluded! I love the ‘idea’ of apartments, but they have seriously limited potential in Auckland, given the development economics at play. You need a booming property market for them to work. That’s why their construction boomed 2002-2006, and 2021-2023, and why they have now totally slumped!. So the economics are completely self defeating. As per this article below, prices would need to lift very significantly, and interest rates drop significantly, for them to approach viability. Much better to focus on 2-3 storey medium density.
If you want some apartment delivery, there’s more than enough land zoned for them, especially once PC78 is finalised. So we don’t need to worry about the volcanic viewshafts, which I admittedly agree are occasionally tenuous in terms of value.
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/10/australians-cannot-afford-to-live-in-apartments/
Look mate, if you are trying to make a good faith argument, don’t start with accusing people of being deluded.
And for your information, interest rates affect townhouse developers and greenfield developers as well.
Also, you seem to still miss a key point: The fact that there is X zoned land available for apartments across town doesn’t change the fact that SPECIFIC SITE Z might work to build apartments if you could go 5 stories higher, but if there’s a height limit of 2-3 stories, it probably won’t.
Arguing that there’s space to do something *somewhere* doesn’t mean it is encouraged – when in reality it is more limited in most places.
Interest rates have far more impact on apartments than townhouses. Simply because the cost to build apartments is much higher, hence there is greater sensitivity to higher interest rates. Hence apartment consents have fallen off a cliff. This can be clearly seen in consent data over the past year.
I don’t get the obsession with mid/high rise apartments, other than they satisfy ‘urbanist’ fantasies. Lower prices are achievable with terraces and three storey walk up apartments. And relatively high densities are achievable. I will defer to the American transport planning expert Robert Cervero, who said upzoning to three storey development is more than enough to achieve densities sufficient to support transit.
There’s a place for higher rise apartments, but they will usually be in higher income suburbs such as St Heliers, Remuera etc.
Don’t know about “more than enough” to support transit. But even if that is correct, is it (more than) enough to allow schools, shops, jobs in walking or biking distance?
Yes.
If you get high levels of take-up within walkable catchments.
Another issue with high density zoning is you are likely to get high development contributions, which then really does kill development