Ever since Wynyard Quarter opened to the public back in August, it has been a resounding success. I’ve been down there twice myself, on opening day and then on the day of the All Blacks versus France game, and the place has been buzzing both times. Even on days outside of events, apparently Wynyard Quarter remains extremely popular – perhaps best of all, especially with families and kids.
The city centre is pretty notorious for shunning children. The only playgrounds prior to Wynyard Quarter are in pretty hard to find places like Myers Park, or on the periphery at Victoria Park. Whilst it’s outside the CBD, the fact that the domain doesn’t even cater properly for children by having a playground has always seemed to me as a classic example of the message that has (probably inadvertently) been sent out over the years: don’t bring your kids into town. (The day of the Santa Parade probably being the only exception, it certainly was usually the only day of the year I came into the city centre as a kid).
So one of the best things about Wynyard Quarter is the way it caters for children. You can wander down steps to the water and get splashed as a boat travels past, you can wade through the pool that sits beneath the “Wind Tree” sculpture. And, of course, you can enjoy the fantastic playground:
A campaign from “Heart of the City”, trying to prise peoples’ minds away from the Rugby World Cup for just a second in order to focus them on the myriad of incredibly important plans Auckland Council is undertaking consultation on at the moment, raises the fact that the playground’s site is actually zoned for redevelopment into apartment/office buildings at some point in the future. This is mentioned in a NZ Herald article yesterday:
The children’s playground at the hugely popular Wynyard Quarter is set to be replaced by a towerblock, says the Heart of the City business group.
Chief executive Alex Swney says Aucklanders are loving the new open spaces at Wynyard Quarter but blissfully unaware of plans for high-rise towers on the playground and other open spaces in a draft waterfront plan…
…Heart of the City is today launching a campaign highlighting what it sees as some of the problems with the draft Auckland, waterfront and city centre masterplans.
They say problems include allowing high-rise development on Wynyard Quarter and expanding the port to increase the number of containers from 890,000 to four million.
Heart of the City, which successfully campaigned in 2006 to increase the size of the headland park at Wynyard Quarter to 4.25ha, does not want new planning rules that provide high rise buildings in Wynyard Quarter in the Auckland and waterfront plans.
The business group is opposed to the $126 million ASB headquarters rising more than 50m near the waterfront at Wynyard Quarter, saying high-rise buildings should be located further back towards Victoria Park.
By my reckoning, the playground is located on (or very close to) the site outlined in red, in the master plan for the area:
The master plan for the Wynyard Quarter area has been many years in the making, and certainly looking at it from an overall perspective I don’t get the impression that it is ‘over-built’, or indeed that its buildings looks particularly out of scale due to their height. In fact, if anything I think it could be nicer to see a greater variety in building heights to what’s shown in the master plan, as there’s nothing more boring than a vast swathe of buildings of exactly the same height.
While Wynyard Quarter is very popular at the moment as a ‘destination’ for people to visit, there is probably some level of novelty factor in its attractiveness – which is likely to wear off over time. Once you’ve done the tram, once you’ve played on the playground, once you’ve wandered around the viewing platform, paddled your feet in the water, wandered over the bridge, waited (along with hundreds of others) for a single boat to pass underneath the bridge, I’m not quite sure whether the area in its current form will bring people back to it again and again.
So in the long-run, the place will need to be self-supporting to an extent. I think it will need apartments and offices to keep the area vibrant and full of people. It will need some good density to its built form to feel properly like the urban place it will become, all the time while still being true to what sets it aside from the bland Viaduct Harbour – the retention of its industrial, working, character. Allowing greater height on empty redevelopment sites is also likely to be the best way of ensuring a large enough number of existing buildings which give the places its “genuine” feel can be retained. So I’m not sure whether I really agree with Heart of the City’s bigger picture point that high-rise buildings should be kept away from Wynyard Quarter.
Getting back to the issue of the playground, in the shorter term I think it would be a tragedy if the place where it’s located was redeveloped into a high-rise building. Auckland desperately needs more playgrounds like this in its city centre, to encourage families on the weekend to come into town and really enjoy the result of what is a pretty large expenditure of ratepayers’ money. In the longer term though, it seems to me looking at the master-plan image above, that the most logical place for a top quality playground would be some point in the large park which is proposed at the point of the peninsula that Wynyard Quarter forms.
As long as the playground shifts to there before its current site gets redeveloped, and as long as the Wynyard Quarter development’s roll out creates good linkages between the large park and the existing North Wharf area, I don’t necessarily see a problem. After all, in the long run to ensure the ongoing success of Wynyard Quarter, we need people living and working, as well as visiting, the place.
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Who owns the playground land? I assume the council does, in which case they can develop it or not, irregardless of what the plan says.
I think the key success factor of this playgound is its proximity to the cafes and restaurants. This allows families to have some kid time and some adult time. This is rare in Auckland City with most playgrounds located far from any ‘adult’ spaces. If the playground is moved there should be cafes and restaurants in close proximity.
The Herald is reporting that the playground is to to be moved to the north of the gantry once the storage tanks are gone.
I quite like the prominent tank that stands out at the end of the path. I think it is an interesting and quirky feature overlooking the playground. I hope they do retain some of the history of the tank farm as a reminder of what it once was
I honestly thought Josh you were going to back the Heart of the City position, how wrong I was and I glad I am wrong.
I too support some apartment and light/medium commerical development on the Quarter.
As you said “I think it will need apartments and offices to keep the area vibrant and full of people. It will need some good density to its built form to feel properly like the urban place it will become, all the time while still being true to what sets it aside from the bland Viaduct Harbour – the retention of its industrial, working, character. Allowing greater height on empty redevelopment sites is also likely to be the best way of ensuring a large enough number of existing buildings which give the places its “genuine” feel can be retained.”
I remember doing an assignment as a former post-graduate planning student on re-developing a piece of Auckland’s Waterfront. I chose Wynyard and opted with mixed development including residential, commerical, light industry, retaining North Wharf as it is now and parks/public spaces. I got skinned alive by my former class mates because I went against the grain of the class who wanted what Heart of the City is advocating. I stuck to my guns got commended by guest Planners from outside the university and knew it was the right idea for Wnyard Quarter.
I should post the plan somewhere one day Josh for others to see (rather then gather dust)
Certainly seeing both sides of this debate. Definitely think Wynyard ultimately needs to be self-supporting to maintain that critical mass of people, so I absolutely support mixed use development here in principle. But it’s always going to be a balancing act – yes it has to be self-supporting, but it can’t be so self supporting that nobody from the outside has a reason to go there.
I don’t know why development has to involve the playground/Silo Park area. It’s an overnight success, people love it, and like James B says above, the success has alot to do with its position relative to the North Wharf restaurants. I think from an urban design point of view the playground site is quite important – it’s a strategic intersection between the east-west promenade and the future Daldy St north-south green link to Fanshawe/Vic Park – alot is going to converge on that site. Personally I think maintaining it as public space is important, if nothing else to keep the public happy – people love it, it’s viewed as a rare success, and they won’t like seeing it screwed with. But those strategic sites in my view have got to stay public.
That said, I completely support appropriate residential/commercial/light-industrial development elsewhere. Development potential in the southern end around the tram loop is huge – Daldy and Hasley Streets especially. No problems with development here as it’s not so important as public space. I just see no sense having to develop the playground site when there’s so much development potential elsewhere in the Quarter – getting rid of something that’s already so successful for the sake of one or two extra buildings – surely if it aint broke don’t fix it??
Also well aware that there’s a case to be made for moving the playground to the larger proposed Wynyard Point park, but again, I think the current playground site will be an important intersection in future that needs to be retained as public space. No reason we can’t have two parks and two playgrounds, and still have alot of development potential elsewhere.
I wonder about the position of the proposed public park space. It will be further from the cbd than the existing one, and its not very connected, just a destination. Great if you live in Wynyard, but if youre walking from the city, just makes it harder to get to.
A bigger and better playground is needed. I remember the Farmers playground was a big attraction for me as a kid.
Update Wellington City: Beca Safety Audit has IDENTIFIED significant and serious safety concerns with the Golden Mile Improvements see report here: http://www.wellington.govt.nz/projects/new/goldenmile/pdfs/goldenmile-audit-response.pdf
Land Transport Act requires regional and local authorities to integrate roaD safety at planning, NOT AFTER!