National’s Urbanist Minister

On Friday, Chris Bishop, the Minister of Housing, Transport, Infrastructure and RMA Reform, gave an absolutely fantastic speech to the Committee for Auckland.

As a starter, he really sums up well why we need better cities with this line.

I make no apologies for being an urbanist. Well-functioning urban environments with abundant housing, transport that gets people where they need to go quickly and efficiently, and functional infrastructure, will do more to create a brighter future for Kiwis than just about anything else government can do.

Before getting into the policy specifics, here a few things in general about the speech that stood out to me:

1. It’s worth remembering his audience. If he was speaking to an urbanism conference you might argue that he was pandering to the audience. That he was saying this to the business community suggests he is genuine about it.
2. His predecessors from the last government, Phil Twyford and Michael Wood both gave good speeches on the need for better urban outcomes but one thing I liked about Bishop’s is that he prefaced the things he was talking about with useful evidence and examples. That makes it much easier to understand where he’s coming from and helps give the case for change. It’s also a refreshing change from the culture war driven agenda of his immediate predecessor.
3. Given the above, it makes me wonder how different things like the Government Policy Statement or speed limit rules would have been if Bishop had been in charge from the start. Perhaps a good example of what a difference a different minister makes.
4. Despite many of the specifics he talked about also being good for the climate and wellbeing, it’s notable neither of those words were mentioned once.

On to the speech – note, I really wanted to cut this down more but there was so much good stuff in it.

Congestion Pricing

In talking about Auckland growth he focuses in on congestion as holding the city back and I like the framing of congestion being a tax and I wonder if that will flow on to how the government eventually talk to the wider public about it – that congestion pricing is really just a tax switch.

Congestion stifles economic growth in Auckland, with studies showing that it costs between $900 million to $1.3 billion per year.

Congestion is essentially a tax on time, productivity, and growth. And like most taxes, I’m keen to reduce it.

The government will be progressing legislation this year to allow the introduction of Time of Use pricing on our roads.

We will send that Bill off to a select committee before the end of March and the public will be able to have their say on it.

There has been study after study into time of use pricing in New Zealand. It’s time to get on with it.

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Modelling has shown that successful congestion charging could reduce congestion by up to 8 to 12 percent at peak times, improving travel times and efficiency significantly.

Housing

The minister talks directly about housing in two sections of his speech, in the first section setting up the need for more housing and later on in some specific examples of where change is needed to enable more housing and to make the most of investments like the City Rail Link.

One of the things I’ve been trying to emphasise since I became a Minister is that housing has a critical role to play in addressing our economic woes.

There is now a mountain of economic evidence that cities are unparalleled engines of productivity, and the evidence shows bigger is better.

New Zealand can raise our productivity simply by allowing our towns and cities to grow up and out. We need bigger cities and, to facilitate that, we need more houses. As our biggest city, Auckland has to be a leader in this mission.

As Housing Minister I am focused on getting the fundamentals of the housing market sorted.

The Government’s Going for Housing Growth agenda involves freeing up land for development and removing unnecessary planning barriers, improving infrastructure funding and financing, and providing incentives for communities and councils to support growth.

Report after report and inquiry after inquiry has found that our planning system, particularly restrictions on the supply of urban land, are at the heart of our housing affordability challenge.

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These changes build on the existing Auckland Unitary Plan, which evidence shows has made a real difference in Auckland.

It also builds on the National Policy Statement on Urban Development brought in by the last government, which we support.

The one nitpick here is that our cities don’t really need much growing out and those planning restrictions are a far bigger barrier to growing up than they are out.

Far more interesting though is a specific section on Transit Oriented Development (TOD), which flows on from talking about the City Rail Link. He starts with making the case why the TOD concept works.

It should also, in theory, result in a significant increase in development density in and around Auckland’s railway stations, especially those benefiting from City Rail Link.

We have to ask ourselves: are we doing all we can to fully take advantage of this multi-billion-dollar transport investment?

I believe that in order to properly unlock economic growth in Auckland, we must embrace the concept of transit-oriented development adopted by the world’s best and most liveable cities.

This approach promotes compact, mixed-use, pedestrian friendly cities, with development clustered around, and integrated with, mass transit. The idea is to have as many jobs, houses, services and amenities as possible around public transport stations.

This is not an untested theory: transit-oriented development has been adopted across the world in cities like Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore.

Cities that embrace this approach consistently outperform those that don’t across multiple metrics: they experience increases in productivity, lower unemployment, higher population growth, increased availability of homes, and more stable rents.

A floor filled with smart people working next to each other, in a building filled with floors of smart people working next to each other, unsurprisingly, enables greater economic opportunities for productive growth. Proximity encourages collaboration and innovation.

Transit-oriented development creates exactly these kinds of possible agglomeration effects – for example, it has been shown that doubling job density increases productivity by 5 – 10%.

The evidence speaks for itself.

And then a great example of where it’s needed.

To answer the question: are we doing all we can to fully take advantage of City Rail Link? The answer is clearly no.

So, today I am announcing that the Government will be kicking off a work programme to properly take advantage of the opportunities that transit-oriented development could have on Auckland, and what actions we can take in the short-term to better enable development clusters around City Rail Link stations.

Right now, Auckland Council is only required to zone 6 stories around rapid transit stops. We are going to need to go much, much higher than that around the CRL stations if we truly want to feel the benefits of transit-oriented development.

My aspiration is that in 10-20 years’ time, we have 10-20 storey apartment blocks dotting the rail line as far west as Swanson and Ranui. But for right now, we need to look at how to increase development opportunities around the inner core of stations.

Take Kingsland, for example.

Once CRL open Kingslanders will have a 20 minute travel time saving to Aotea station from the project. But Kingsland’s population actually declined by 4.7% between 2019 and 2023; and while Auckland averaged 15,375 annual new builds over the last 5 years, Kingsland built just 22.

Compare that to Paramatta in Sydney. It too benefits by circa 20 minute time savings from the Sydney Metro project and has upzoned from a few stories to more than 60 in some cases.

Kingsland is still predominantly made up of single story dwelling zones.

How about if our aim is to make the special character of suburbs be that they are thriving, liveable, affordable communities with access to regular and reliable public transport?

For many families, the dream of home ownership looks a little different today. Many young families are now choosing to swap the station wagon for the train station, and the corner dairy for the cafe.

There will always be a place in New Zealand for the quarter-acre section and the large family home. But we have to be honest with ourselves: that place isn’t within a stones-throw of a transformational piece of transport infrastructure with the ability to shuttle tens of thousands of passengers each day.

We must allow Kiwis to make the choice that’s best for them. Permitting more development close to train stations and rapid bus routes supports those who want to live nearer to their work and their friends, just like the significant investment the Government is making in new highways and roads support those who want to live in our world-class towns and suburbs.

Change is inevitable. My job as a Minister it to make sure that change is shaped by the lives Kiwis want to live and the homes they want to live in.

I really like the idea of changing what we mean when talking about special character and that right next to a train station, in a suburb right next to the city centre isn’t the most appropriate place for single family homes.

Kingsland is also a notable example because the council put off upzoning it as required by the NPS-UD due to light rail potentially going through the area, despite it already having train station.

He only gives one example of a policy that needs to change to enable more housing but it is a good one, viewshafts.

One barrier to proper high-density in Auckland, including around City Rail Link stations, is undoubtedly the current settings of the 73 viewshafts that have restricted the height of the city since the early 1970s.

In 2016, the Independent Hearing Panel for the Auckland Unitary Plan recommended further work on the viewshafts, including refining them to improve their efficiency and reduce opportunity costs. In the almost-decade since, this work has not been progressed.

This is one of the reasons why the NPS-UD and MDRS were needed, councillors and  planners originally promised they would start refining and improving the Unitary Plan (AUP) after it went live, but then dropped the idea and then pretended that the AUP was perfect.

Some of these viewshafts don’t make a lot of sense. The Unitary Plan protects the view from the tolling booths on the North Shore, so that those people sitting in their cars getting ready to pay their toll for the Harbour Bridge have a nice view of Mt Eden. Of course there hasn’t been tolling booths on the North Shore since the mid-1980s.

Forty years later, we are still protecting a view that would be considered dangerous-driving to admire. A study done in 2018, looking at this one view shaft – the E10 – showed that its cost was roughly $1.4 billion in lost development opportunities. This is just the impact of one of the 73 viewshafts.

It is worth stressing that the cost is almost certainly much greater than $1.4 billion. It only includes costs to the city centre, and about half the land under E10 falls outside the city centre. So add that on.

It doesn’t look at the positive externalities of intensification, such as agglomeration and other wider economic benefits. So add that on too.

It doesn’t look at public land, just private. Add that on.

And it’s based on 2014 land values.

And this is just one viewshaft.

I hope you’ll agree with me that the cost is immense.

Aucklanders and local mana whenua have always had a special relationship with the Māunga and Volcanic cones that their city is nestled between. It is right that we acknowledge and protect this special relationship.

But even just minor tweaks to existing viewshafts could materially lift development opportunities. The 2018 study showed that rotating the E10 viewshaft just 4.5 degrees to the left maintains the view of Mt Eden for a similar amount of time, whilst saving the city 43% of the lost development opportunity cost.

Back in 2018 we ran a guest post by the author of the 2018 study referenced by the minister.

The land around the Panmure Train Station is another area heavily impacted by viewshafts and why an area ripe for redevelopment with only 16 minutes by train to the city is not being developed.

Today I can tell you that Mayor Brown and I have had discussions on this issue, and he said he is open to a fresh look at Auckland’s viewshaft settings in its Unitary Plan. We agree that the time is right to start the conversation. This is particularly relevant where the viewshafts impact the CBD and major transit corridors.

We are committed to trying to find a way though – alongside mana whenua – to get the balance right between economic growth, and the special role these Māunga play in the unique identity of Auckland.

We are not proposing to remove these viewshafts. Rather, we are recognising that as the city changes, and there will be areas where the viewshafts should change with it.

The tollgate viewshaft example above proves that it is possible to eat our cake and have it too. We can both preserve views and enable more development. That is the kind of change that a dynamic city requires to be the best for all its people.

There’s a lot to like about the minister’s speech and it also there was more to it, with him also talking about the City Rail Link and the removal of level crossings but I’ll cover that in a separate post.

While the talk is good, as noted earlier we’ve also seen good urbanist talk before so the challenge is how he delivers on it. How will he get changes made to deliver more housing past is colleagues and coalition partners like David Seymour who opposes less regulation in housing.

Lastly, while we’re here, don’t forget about our event with Ray Delahanty, also known as CityNerd, on Thursday.

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