Part of me can understand why there seems to be such significant opposition to intensification in the Unitary Plan. Many people like the place they live the way it is and they’re fearful of change. Furthermore, they’ve seen what developers have built in relatively recent times and don’t trust planners to stop bad developments from happening in the future. They also, perhaps correctly, feel that the process of the Unitary Plan is being rushed for political reasons and there’s a good chance of mistakes being made in that rush.
That said, many of those very same people probably don’t want to see Auckland sprawl forever either. Yet burying our head in the dead on this issue, or coming up with draconian measures to stop Auckland from growing, aren’t really viable options so there really is a key tradeoff to make here:
The more we stop intensification, the more Auckland will need to sprawl.
There are many reasons why sprawl is a bad idea – especially sprawl that isn’t planned properly and based around enhanced public transport networks. Let’s just cover a few key points:
- It’s typically much more expensive to service with new roads, pipes, schools, hospitals, parks etc.
- It destroys the countryside, with potentially massive environmental impacts and a reduction in productive rural land
- It leads to car dependent urban development, which itself creates many environmental and economic problems (people in distant suburbs tend to have to spend far more of their income on transport than inner areas)
- It undermines the economic benefits of agglomeration and also creates more severe congestion than more compact urban forms
At the moment the Unitary Plan is working off somewhere between a 70/30 and 60/40 intensification/sprawl split. Given that Auckland’s development in the past 15 years has been 70% intensification this is a slight shift towards sprawl compared to what’s been happening on the ground.
I thought it would be a good idea to visualise the impacts on how much land is needed under a few different scenarios. To do this the maps below are based on any sprawl being at the same density as recent suburban developments.
If Auckland’s growth over the next 30 years was to achieve the 70/30 split, then the red on the map below shows the extent to which the city may expand into areas that are currently rural:
At this scale it doesn’t look too shockingly large, but these areas represent around 120,000 dwellings – which (to give a bit of context) is only 22,000 fewer dwellings than were in the whole of Christchurch in 2006.
At a 60/40 split the red areas unsurprisingly grow quite a bit bigger. Remember that the Council is planning for this level of urban sprawl (of course we don’t know exactly where it will go yet) “just in case” it proves difficult to achieve 70% intensification.
Now we’re looking at 160,000 dwellings outside the existing urban limits. For a bit of context the entire Waikato region had 147,000 dwellings in 2006.
At some of the meetings on the Unitary Plan it seems like there’s a bit of push-back to change the intensification/sprawl split. I assume that doesn’t mean a higher proportion of dwellings being on the intensification side of the ledger. So let’s look at a 50/50 split and how big an area that might take up:
By this stage we’re looking at every single greenfield option currently being considered and a significant amount more. If it looks like the red “explodes” as the proportions are wound back there are two reasons for this:
- Growth to rural towns like Waiuku, Helensville is likely to occur as some of the earlier development outside the current urban area so as the numbers get bigger a greater proportion of growth needs to go in the main sprawl areas.
- As the numbers get larger it’s likely that development would have to take place on more difficult land, meaning lower density of development and therefore more land for a certain number of houses.
At “50/50” we’re looking at 200,000 houses outside the current urban limits, which compares with 178,000 dwellings in the whole of the Wellington region in 2006.
Pushing things a bit further, the map below shows what things might look like in a “40/60 scenario” with only 40% of growth through intensification and 60% through sprawl:
With 240,000 dwellings of sprawl in the 40/60 scenario, we’re looking at the number of dwellings in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions in 2006 combined. (Think of how many schools, hospitals, roads etc. in those two regions!)
As perhaps an extreme example, (though maybe not to Dick Quax or Nick Smith?) the final map below shows a “20/80” scenario – with 80% of Auckland’s growth outside the existing urban area:
In this scenario the red areas total up to around 34,000 hectares – which is the size of the red box. The 320,000 dwellings outside the existing urban area in this scenario is not that far short putting Wellington (178,000) and Canterbury (212,00) regions together in term of the number of dwellings they had in 2006.
Of course many of the maps above are fairly fanciful and I doubt there would be a market for that much sprawl development even if allowed, but it gives some indication of what people should keep in mind while opposing intensification.
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I’m still not sold on your claim that it’s much more expensive to sprawl in terms of schools, hospitals and utilities.
Right now Auckland is spending a fortune building large underground sewer pipes just to handle the current intensification.
In terms of schools it’s much cheaper to make a new one than it is to try and further increase the capacity of an existing that has already been expanded various times before. Same goes for hospitals.
I agree, especially, as is the curernt case with Greenfields development, that the developer both funds the full cost of local infrastructure and contributes a significant amount to the city-wide supporting infrastructure. I understand that in Wellington, there is a developer charge of about $6,000 per unit for the latter costs of which 1/3rd must be spent in the local area and the rest goes into the city-wide (slush) fund.
Therefore, even if the infrastructure costs are higher in greenfields (and this is not clear), they are essentially fully funded by the developer (and so by the eventual house owners) whereas other ratepayers must pay to have the infrastructure upgraded to support infill intensification. There is no clear accounting to be sure that city ratepayers are not essentially subsidising infill housing developers while greenfields developers pay 100% of the associated infrastructure costs.
IOWs, if infrastructure build costs for greenfield developments are as high as dense advocates claim, the houses will be as or more expensive than infill and so housing densification will occur through the market forces and pricing (no need to force intensification). If these claims are wrong, then not only will house purchasers get access to cheaper (greenfields) housing, but ratepayers will also be better off not having to pay for the infrastructure cost of this form of housing.
Tony, presumably you realise that brownfields developers pay development contributions too, right?
Your arguments are simply not credible without assuming there is absolutely no capacity in already built and serviced areas. About a decade ago our local Intermediate [Ponsonby] faced closure from a falling roll, that is no longer the case, our area has and is happily intensifying and this has a great deal to do with the buoyant local economy. Schools are not the only things that prosper from a less dispersed habitation pattern.
The other issue is unit cost, no matter who pays for all the new infrastructure at the distant periphery those costs must be re-couped somehow and detached houses on new estates are therefore much more expensive than attached dwellings on already serviced sites, as not only the servicing cost but also the land price divided by fewer units makes for a higher final cost. Todays Herald:
“Houses and land packages in the same street have gone for $1.25 million and we expect demand above that,” he said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/property/news/article.cfm?c_id=8&objectid=10884954
Your arguments are simply not credible without assuming that the current infrastructure has twice the capacity it currently needs.
The current transport plan looks to spend some $30 billion upgrading existing roads just to cope with the added demand.
A road plan which is insane and unnecessary as you know as you are such a fan of this site.
An addict’s plan without logical support.
I don’t know about that. Most of the projects in it look rather good.
As our resident traffic engineer it all looks like lots of high value work for you no doubt. ‘Rather good’ indeed.
Oh it certainly does, I should be able to retire by the end of it.
Lets assume that we need that entire capacity for a moment.
And Lets also ignore that sprawl encourages people to drive more.
Those roads are primarily arterials heading in a general route from the city centre to the periphery.
The vast majority of those road upgrades will be just as justified no matter whether the 1,000,000 people live on Brown or Green fields developments.
The difference is that if we do it solely by sprawl we need new roads to cover the converted land, probably totalling at least 1/2 again of a 70/30 split. Assuming the cost is even 1/4 extra that is 7.5 billion, or if you want it in terms of rates, and assuming a mean pop of 2 million, that is $3500 for every man woman or child in Auckland, if that comes only from residential rates that is a mean of $10,000 per household, or over $300 a year.
Sailor boy, I’m not too sure what you are talking about. Are you talking about intensification or the transport plan?
I’m guessing that your talking about the transport plan which includes the CRL but I’m not so sure about what the point your trying to make is?
Someone claimed that intesification would be no more expensive in terms of transport.
I refuted that, using figures taken from both data sets.
Are you talking about Patrick’s claim that the 30 year transport plan was unnecessary?
The quote is actually from you
“Your arguments are simply not credible without assuming that the current infrastructure has twice the capacity it currently needs.
The current transport plan looks to spend some $30 billion upgrading existing roads just to cope with the added demand.”
You make the supressed premises that the intensification is responsible for these costs, and that less would be needed if we sprawled. I aimed to disprove that.
Ahh I see sailor boy.
Well the thing is, upgrading an existing road costs about 10-20 times more than doing the same in green fields.
So although we would still need a large portion of the projects in the transport plan, we could plan developments to make better use of things like the existing rail system and the CRL.
Yeah, I’m going to need some stats for that. There is no way that it costs 10 times more to 2 lane a brownfield road than it does to build a 2 lane on greefields.
Not to mention that the 2 laning on brownfields would happen anyway.
How about this then. The hobsonville motorway which is 10km in length and has 5 interchanges cost $140 million. The Lincoln road interchange is going to cost about the same. VPT cost $400 million and waterview at 5km in length will cost $1.4 billion. The Ngaruwahia bypass which is 16km long is about $100 million.
If Waterview were done at level then the cost was half. Same with VPT.
Not to mention that Waterview is 6 lanes and Hobsonville is 4.
Ngaruawahia bypass is also expressway, not Motorway.
The estimate for a surface option of waterview was $1.6 billion compared to the tunnel option estimate of $1.8 billion. So no it wasn’t half the cost. It would also likely not get consent and so being half the point.
I will also point out that there is very little cost difference between a motorway or an expressway and that adding an extra lane to a greenfields project costs chicken feed.
Ok, seeing as greenfields motorways are so cheap we should build greenfields, on that one positive.
It’s the same with stormwater and sewer pipes. If you need to tunnel it you are looking at about $20k per meter. If you trench it you are looking at about $2k per meter for the same size pipe.
Stormwater is different as often when you intensify you don’t need any capacity. With sewers you often only need trunk capacity along a few routes which you would need for Sprawl anyway as all that shit has to get to Manurewa.
It isn’t quite 20k per metre as that would make my street a $20,000,000 dollar project and I am certain that the cost was 3-4.
Anything underground is going to be cheaper to trench, and cheaper on gren land. But you still need most of the brown capacity anyway.
I see what you are saying about the lineal metre costs being higher in Brownfields, but that ignores a lot of other issues.
Ratepayers aren’t subsidising infill any more than they are subsidising sprawl. Auckland, like Wellington, applies development charges to infill and redevelopment as well, on the basis of the net increase in dwellings.
Unlike Wellington, though, Auckland (supposedly) recovers 100% of the cost of capital expenditure from development charges. They are pretty much the same (from $13k to $17k, from http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/newseventsculture/OurAuckland/mediareleases/Pages/cutstodevelopmentcontributionswillsave92monnewhousingforauckland.aspx) whether you are within the established city or outside it. So if anything infill developers are subsidising sprawl.
Tony – It has been said a lot but noone is “forcing” intensification. The UP is just putting in place rules to allow intensification and make it easier. The Council has no power to force landowners to sell land for development or for developers to buy and develop land. If anything the rules now force sprawl by making intensification more difficult.
Personally I would like to see all planning rules scrapped so there is no city boundary, no minimum parking, no minimum lot sizes, no minimum set backs and no maximum height. Of course, pro sprawl groups would be against a free market like that because current planning laws actually suit them by making greenfield developments easier and more attractive for developers. I know because a lot of my clients are developers (I am a commercial lawyer).
For me (and this is after all a transport blog) the transport projects that are built will be critical and all this planning discussion is irrelevant. If there is one thing the last 60 years of development in Auckland should have taught us is that the form of the city will follow the transport options. When Auckland was a street car city we got dense suburbs on grid patterns (like Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, Parnell etc). When we are building motorways we get suburbs like Manukau and many parts of the North Shore where travelling other than by car is almost impossible.
Whatever the rules or sprawl/infill percentages are, without good public transport and cycling/walking infrastructure we are resigning ourselves to sprawl and more motorways and massive arterials. In my opinion, these destroy the fabric of cities and will ultimately mean we have a city with no soul. Young people (particularly the ones we spend huge amounts of money educating for high value jobs) will continue to leave NZ as it wont offer them the dynamic urban opportunities they want. It will also resign NZers to lower wages as the benefits of urban agglomeration are slowly eroded and that will only spur more of the young people to leave.
Almost all sewers end up in Mangere or Rosedale. Whether you intensify in the current footprint or expand on the edges you’ll still need the trunk capacity under the city to reach the plants. It’s also perfectly true that Auckland spends a fortune building large underground sewer pipes just to handle the current sprawl. However if you expand at the edges you need to extend that trunk pipe all the way to the edge of the city, and install a whole new collector network covering a wide area. If you intensify your trunk capacity doesn’t need to go far, and you have the ability to utilise any spare capacity in the existing network of pipes before you need to expand capacity.
I’m not sure on schools, it it really cheaper to buy the land and build a school from scratch than it is to replace a couple of prefabs with a properly designed two story classroom block?
Enough of the anecdotal here’s the definitive study: http://www.vtpi.org/sg_save.pdf
I guess the distinction here is that you are talking about smart growth that requires planning. Unlike the unitary plan which just leaves it up to developers to make as much money as they can building what they think they can sell.
You could make the same argument for green fields development calling it smart growth.
No you couldn’t.
Well planned brown fields is cheaper than well planned sprawl.
How is it cheaper sailor boy? How is buying a bunch if land, kicking out the existing tenants, clearing an existing site, digging up roads and utilities that are in use all so much cheaper than stripping some topsoil and installing new facilities with all the space you need or want?
If it really were cheaper developers would have been doing this all along rather than using virgin land.
That isn’t well planned intensification.
The reason that developers don’t so it is that developers don’t bear the cost of the infrastructure. You have been shown serveral reports on the costs, can you provide one to back up your claim?
But it isnt a level playing field right now. If developers were able to build houses on small enough lot sizes and utilise all the land – hell lets go crazy and say not have to waste land providing car parking – it would be economical.
Have you ever looked at the costs of knocking down an old house? They are minimal as the demolition company can make money out of salvage. So to get two 1,000 sqm lots ready for development is not that hard. In theory, with no minimum lot size, you could then get maybe eight 200sqm lots on there with some space for narrow access ways and some communal green space – remember no parking means only small areas for access.
Right now the rules are slanted in favour of greenfield development by having so many rules around dense housing. The rules around sprawl are no better really as they encourage developers to build huge houses on big sections so they can sell it for enough to make a profit – to cover all the massive development levies they pay so that Council can provide infrastructure. Plus all the “private” (SOE) investment to install utilities to new areas where the cost per dwelling are high.
Sailor boy. The two reports given were about smart growth and not intensification. I will use those reports as my evievidence as well.
Ok, we’ll just ignore the half a dozen other reports shall we.
By the way easiest way to think about transport costs.
Lets say that we build rail to Albany, and are considering housing 300k more people on the shore.
If we put them in existing areas then we can build a rail line from Onewa to Albany to complement the one to Albany, giving a much better service to every single person West of the existing line.
If we put them outside the existing areas then we have to build rail to Silverdale, and leave the population on the west of the shore with the same level of service, poor.
Even if we ignore the fact that the sprawl will be low density and allow less walk than an increased density city, we are still looking at a far worse option to sprawl.
Now lets say that we consider the low density factor.
Increasing density allows more people walk up, increasing patronage. low density discourages patronage. Assuming that high density allows 8000 people in the morning rush to walk up and head to the city (this includes people who can walk up to the western shore line, or in intensified areas on the west, minus those who would walk up in Silverdale). This is not unreasonable as a lot of Shoreites work in the CBD.
In order to pick that up with cars we would need 2 extra lanes across the bridge to move them all into the city in the 2 hour peak, assuming that you could do a 3 lane tidal barrier, or 4 assuming it would remain as one.
So even within the existing urban areas transport infrastructure is more expensive for sprawl.
Sailor boy. Why would we spend some $5 billion building a 14km railway to Albany and then again extend it to silverdale?.
What it not make more sense to use existing infrastructure such as the western or southern rail lines? Or even the busway?
And why do you think the only possible form if greenfields development needs to be low density sprawl that is car orientated with poor walking and cycling provisions?
As I have been saying all along, smart growth type developments can be done in greenfields locations. And for New Zealand they are probably the more likely locations.
It won’t cost $5b as we can just stick it along the busway pretty easily. Couple of bridge improvements and a short tunnel sunnynook to constellation., but I’ll let that slide.
If you are talking about a masterplanned suburb planned for walking cycling and PT over driving then I would agre. That would be good and it is how we should do all of our sprawl.
It is a dream of mine to masterplan one of the greenfields sites in Auckland, I think thaat there are some really good options just South of Silverdale, but it isn’t even worth considering til we have an RTN to Silverdale.
The cost would depend on the type of train you run. The busway isn’t suitable for heavy rail so it would cost a fortune to upgrade. So spending $5 billion to get to Albany is pretty doable.
If we were to use a now type of train incompatible with the existing network maybe then you could do it for $3 billion.
Yeah, ‘m gonna ned a link for that. Pretty sure that the only areas that we need work on are the bridge over tristam, Sunnynook to Constellation needing about 2 kilometres of tunnel, and then obviously Constellation to Albany. But that needs to be done regardless of whether it is a busway or rail, it will just be slightly more expensive to do rail.
If you included the Harbour crossing, and rail to Takapuna as well I could see 5 being realistis. But the crossing has to happen as either rail or busway, and a 4 lane tunnel is not much cheaper than a 3 lane and a rail, as boring cost is proportional to the square of the diameter.
Yes I was including crossing the harbour as the line would not be much use without it.
What is this 4 lane tunnel you are on about however? The plan is to build two 3 lane tunnels and by doing that you free up space to run the busway over the existing bridge.
Ok, fair enough then.
When building new developments you can make them sustainable and low impact, you can’t do that with infill.
Also very few of the big schools in the growth areas are made out of pre fab units. Most have very expensive buildings that would need replacing or loss of sports fields in order to double the schools capacity.
There is so much empirical data on the subject it’s hard to know where to start-
http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/fiscal-analysis-of-nashville-development.pdf
This study shows that infill development had “almost 1,150 times the net revenue generated” compared to sprawl.
I shouldn’t need to point this out but, most of the intensification we can expect in Auckland will be people subdividing their sections or small redevelopments turning one large property into a bunch of town houses.
The complete redevelopment of a few city blocks like that of what you showed is more like the potential of a green fields development here in Auckland and will be very rare in the existing built up area.
Well that depends entirely on the what planning regs we choose doesn’t it? There is no need to only infill in gardens and that certainly isn’t our preference. In fact the less intensification we allow at the urban centres [read building height, mandated parking, and other controls] then the greater the pressure will be for ‘garden grabbing’. Arguably the worst of both worlds: Dense Sprawl.
The unitary plan is mainly around providing more housing for a growing city. To that extent most of the developments we will see will be in residential areas removing gardens, increasing surface runoff increasing flooding.
Despite the fact that you can only cover 40% of a mixed site with housing, and there is a minimum permeable surface in the UP?
Sailor boy, if what you suggest we’re really the case we would be going less intense than the current nee developments and not more.
I currently live in one of these new proposed norms and we would have less than 10% of the place being permeable.
It is really the case. http://unitaryplan.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/html/4.3.1%20Residential%20zones.htm#TOCt_h27911_ID
The Mixed Housing zone has a maximum building coverage of 50%, maximum impervious coverage of 60%, and a minimum landscaped area of 40%.
For the Terrace House and Apartment Building zone the maximum building coverage is only 40%! The impervious/landscaped coverages are 70% and 30%.
Ahh so it’s meant to be 30% impervious. And how does that compare to a normal house.
Now look at the terraced houses on the corner of hometown and Pitt st and try and find the 30%. It would seem this requirement is often ignored.
That’s the proposed Unitary Plan requirement, not the current one, and it’s only for Residential zones.
The terraced houses on Pitt St are in the Central Area District Plan at the moment, and will be in the City Centre zone in the UP. Both old and new zones allow 100% building coverage.
@SFLauren, I am trying to have a reasonable debate, but when you use Pitt street as an example of housess it makes it hard.
What about the place on the corner of western springs and new north road?
Or there is 955 mount eden road. Or the place at the end of hunters park drive.
943 mount eden road is a bit of a laugh as well.
What’s wrong with Pitt street sailor boy?
Those places are rather nice except for the shortage of landscape.
Those were all in business zones under the old district plan, and are probably zoned as business or town/local centres under the UP. All the business and centre zones allow 100% site coverage, I think.
Oh, except for 943 Mt Eden Rd, which is in a residential zone. Don’t know what’s going on there.
Well when you give Pitt Street as an example of a mixed housing zone you start to sound like Cameron Brewer.
These Mt Eden Rd addresses are all designated Business Activity Zones,
http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/documents/district/maps/mappdfs/f08.pdf
I never made any mention of it being mixed housing. I gave it as an example of intensification as per the topic, which obviously, is the type of development we get and can expect more of.
This debate about how much of the surface could be impervious started when you said:
Which means that giving examples of developments that aren’t in residential areas is not proving your case.
Well as we have seen, most of these developments are in residential areas, however it seems the developers target business lots where they are not held by the same constraints.
They other trick the appear to have is to put all the driveways in as a form of road therefore not governed by the impervious area rules. This then magically turns what wad 10% landscaping into 30% landscaping by changing names rather than anything physical.
No, they’re in business areas, not residential. You might think the zoning for those sites is wrong, and they shouldn’t be zoned for business. But that doesn’t reflect on what will happen on sites that do have a residential zoning, since they have different rules.
Most of the land area currently used for dwellings in Auckland is zoned residential, so most of the development of existing residences will be governed by the residential zone rules.
How can you call them all business areas when they are surrounded by houses. Even if that one lot is zoned business it doesn’t make the entire are a business area like the CBD. It like your saying it’s all good for an 8 story apartment block to take the place of the corner dairy just because the zoning of that one lot.
Anyway your missing the the point. I’m going by history here on what we have seen happen. We have seen what were little shops turned into multiple town houses with hardly a trace of grass. What was one house and a lawn turned into 3 houses and next to no lawn.
How you can say the impact on the existing infrastructure will be minimal or think developers are going to change their ways for no reason I do not know.
Your examples are part of fairly large contiguous business zones. The one on Western Springs Road is part of the business zone in Morningside that’s one of the largest in the isthmus. The ones on Mt Eden Road are part of the business zone that surrounds and includes the quarry.
Frankly, your comment about 8 storey blocks replacing the corner dairy is just stupid. I didn’t say anything like that, and anyway in the UP neighbourhood centres are allowed to be just 3 stories. But we were talking about stormwater runoff, and dairies already can, and often do, already have 100% impervious coverage, or close to it. Have a look at some shops near me: http://goo.gl/maps/uCA9i
You’re wrong to say that because these developments have gone up in business areas, identical developments will go up in residential areas. They won’t, because the rules are different there. They’ve always been different, and they will continue to be different under the Unitary Plan.
Steve, for the 3rd time, people don’t give a rat’s behind what the technical zone is of a lot. It’s the character of devdevelopment and how it’s fits in the context of the area. All but on of my examples were flanked by houses on 3 of their 4 sides being part of a residential area. Just looking at a map shows you that these are small business clusters surrounded by houses.
Looking at the older parts of Auckland you get small business clusters like thisa iveover the city and these are the obvious target for developers.
Regarding the comment about the dairy I find it far from stupid. The height of the building is a technicality besides the point and in many locations more than 3 stories is perfectly acceptable. Based on the plan a ber if lots near me can go up to 6 levels.
Anyway, my whole point was to highlight the fact that intensification adds a rather large burden onto the existing system which can be heavily mitigated on green fields developments.
The specifics of what good samaritan developer could do in a perfect world is not really the primary point.
Of course people don’t care what the zone is, Richard. The council does, though, so it’s highly relevant that all of your examples of townhouses with nearly-100% impervious coverage are in what are technically business zones. You can’t hold up these developments as examples of what could happen in a residential zone, because for the third time myself, the rules are different in different zones. Most of the residential areas in the city (in the sense of places where people live, not the zoning) are in fact zoned residential (in the technical sense in the district plans). So for most people, the rules for what’s allowed in a (technical) business zone is irrelevant.
Townhouses in business zones can have a high site coverage, and it won’t be replacing gardens, because those gardens don’t exist. In a residential area, where the gardens do exist, the coverage rules mean that much of the area will need to remain as gardens. Not so hard a concept, is it?
As I said right back at the start I am referring to residential area. I never made a distinction between the different zones in the area.
Given these are clearly the type of developments developers like to make we can only expect to see more.
You also have the example of that house I showed that was zoned residential. Like many others it was pretty much of full site excluding some token gardens.
Again though, the impervious area was only a side point from that of the main being intensification adds a great many costs onto the existing systems.
I take it we are ignoring the costs to those same systems imposed by sprawl, and the cost imposed in extending that same infrastrusture to sprawl.
Right, but the council does make a distinction. Those townhouse developments were allowed because they were in business zones, and before being built it’s likely the land was being used for a commercial purpose, rather than being gardens. They wouldn’t be approved in any residential zone under the Unitary Plan, so you can’t take them as an example of what development in residential zones will be like.
Another article in the same vein on the cost benefits of smart growth infill: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/05/21/taxes-too-high-try-building-walkable-mixed-use-development/
If you talk about costs maybe you should also consider why your bank, your grocery etc. charges you way more compared to those in Europe. Despite the different level of interest (for banks) it is also a result of the low numbers of customers for each branch but similar overheads, so it is simply economies of scale. It is not just about the public spendings when discussing the negatives of sprawl it is also about private ones.
Exactly, or the cost of those dwellings needing more cars. Thaqt is a cost in petrol, rego, warrants, servicing, health costs, time and crash costs.
“Part of me can understand why there seems to be such significant opposition to intensification in the Unitary Plan. Many people like the place they live the way it is and they’re fearful of change. Furthermore, they’ve seen what developers have built in relatively recent times and don’t trust planners to stop bad developments from happening in the future. They also, perhaps correctly, feel that the process of the Unitary Plan is being rushed for political reasons and there’s a good chance of mistakes being made in that rush.”
Matt, I think you have hit the nail on the head with opening paragraph.
Yes, people don’t trust most developers to do the right thing. They’ll also take the least imaginative approach in design building the cheapest cookie cutter designs they think will do. then they’ll take the money and run, leaving the rest of the community with their physical and visual mess for a long time.
Yes, people don’t trust planners who seem to bend the rules as they see fit (or more likely, having their arm twisted by the private developers and their lawyers), and so approve any old application as if it was completely stand alone without reference to cumulative effects of all these “exemptions”.granted for every other development.
Yes, they don’t trust the national Government (or National) for its part in the changes that caused leaky buildings and they’re threatening all sorts of nasties all over the country if councils don’t get in behind there houses at all costs attitude.
Yes, they don’t trust the Local Government either as they see that the UP is being rushed into law with undue haste in order to meet an arbitrary date before the next local body elections.
And finally, the real kicker – the supposed last bastion, the “final fence” at the top of the cliff to prevent history repeating – the “bible of design rules” – is top secret – and not to be released until after the UP is in place and even worse its still unclear whether it is or is not statutory – and so can actually be enforced by councils or is merely a wish list of ideals
– councils own planners seemingly having different interpretations of this point.
So we don’t know whether this protective fence is in fact a massive double fence with a razor-wire topping monster (as we are told it will be), or is in fact the same old rickety old chicken wire fence that any developer or their dog can get over around or through without missing a step.
And you are right, they do also know that we can’t sprawl forever.
Yet, the Government seems to think NZ Inc can given their pronouncements of late on allowing greenfield developments for Africa “to reduce house prices”.
And today we read in the Herald (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10884996) that people are driving in to the inner suburbs for free all day parking (“suburban park n ride”) to save on transport and parking costs. This is not a new issue – Meadowbank/Orakei residents been complaining about this issue for years.
But it sends totally the wrong message – and this approach while apparently good for the car driver – doesn’t help overall as its causes nearly as much congestion much and is a symptom of other issues.
And also indicates bigger issues with the PT network.
So, whats to be done?
Before people will trust intensification can be done well, they need to see that it can be done well and (cheaper) than the distant sprawl model being pushed by Central Government.
Council said that they would lead by example on this with exemplar designs to show what can be done here – but I don’t see any of this coming to pass.
And we need a lot more leading by councils and not so much of the proclamation by fiat we’ve had of late.
I live in Pukekohe, work in Parnell and catch the train every day. That is a very scary picture for Pukekohe!
I actually see the bigger issue around Pukekohe being that it is some of the most fertile land in the country. The value of that land is so much higher as farm land than as 700 m^2 sections.
The big issue is being able to reduce what is a complex discussion into very simple sound-bites.
With a compliant MSM, it has been really easy for opponents to simplify the arguments into what has been a sort of virtual billboard containing a picture of a “suburban paradise” home on one side, and a tower block on the other, along with the question – what would you prefer? The variation to this has been to replace the text with the phrase – if you agree to this plan, this tower block will become your next door neighbour!
A lot of contributors to this forum are visually and communications “smart”. So, how do we reduce the complexity of the arguments promoting the alternative of say an attractive Melbourne, Sydney or Vancouver city lifestyle to a similar level of simplicity? This should have been one of the primary tasks of the Auckland Council before the Unitary Plan was released.
Interesting that Auckland’s development over the last 15 years has been 70% intensification.
Those who have been to certain parts of the USA will have seen what I call extreme sprawl. There are many roads that do not even have footpaths. The overall form could be described as a sort of soup that is neither suburban, or country. A place where you can’t even go to the dairy without getting in your car, but you can drive to your local shopping mall – the de facto alternative town centre. I encountered this type of development in the North East of the USA of all places, on the fringes of the great cities of Boston, New York and Philadelphia. It was a useful lesson on just how far you can push sprawl, if the will and the justification (eg the sales pitch of a lower house prices crusade) is there.
Great study. I would also like to see what the 60-40 or 50-50 scenarios look like assuming a “developer friendly” sprawl model that places growth in the desirable coastal areas. It’s easier for people to accept sprawl if we place it in ‘affordable’ areas that we don’t care so much about (far inland)… Under such a scenario, how long would it take people to realise that are driving to Northland or Coromandel just to visit a beach that isn’t heavily suburbanised?
Do we have to put up with more of this????
Almost every other post is either about the Auckland Unitary Plan or related Auckland sprawl.
Whilst JAFA’s may be fixated on the subject, rest of New Zealand isn’t and since there are people who don’t live in new Zealand’s only city, it is becoming boring.
There should be a separate section on transportblog.co.nz, that is dedicate to Auckland Unitary Plan for those who still want to procrastinate about it.
We all know that urban doesn’t work, due to the high infrastructure and environmental costs associated with it, so Auckland, accept the fact that 3 or 4 story apartments are going to be reality in the current limits that is administered by Auckland council.
If Auckland wants to be the gateway to NZ Inc, having head offices, etc and seat of government, then Auckland will pay the price for its for large having a rapidly growing population.
How about spreading the population around, so rest of New Zealand can have a piece of the economic pie.
Just a point to note, Auckland is seen by increasing amount of Asian visitors, is the only city in New Zealand and Wellington and Christchurch are satellite towns of Auckland that is connected by high speed trains 😉
Firstly see point 4 of our guidelines. http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/user-guidelines/
Further we said on Sunday that in the lead up to the closing of submissions that we would be having a focus on the unitary plan.
As for your point about spreading the population around, see this post http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2013/05/08/stopping-aucklands-growth-a-slippery-slope/
It’s called Auckland Transport Blog for a reason.
+1
Please keep reading though Kris, we also try and bring up issues that affect all of NZ or other places rather than Auckland :-). I’m wanting to write up a few myself. The Unitary Plan is just a hot topic at the moment as we get close to the deadline for public submissions.
“Urban doesnt work” – please explain why this is ans what you mean. Especially as this means the vast majority of NZers live in places that dont work – as we are among the most urbanised countries in the world.
Can you also explain why over the last 100 years people have flocked to cities and continue to do so.
It sounds to me more like you dont understand how urban works and you dont want to know because you dont like it. I dont understand why anyone would want to live anywhere other than a city – but I dont claim that rural areas dont work.
Sorry, it was suppose to read ‘Urban sprawl, doesn’t work’
christ, that is a slightly differnet argument haha. Completely agree, some people are still living in the 1950s unfortunately.
Oh I see. Excuse my rant! Amazing what a difference a single word makes.
However, how do we spread it around? Should we somehow enact policies to retard the growthy of a successful city? That doesnt seem like a good idea. Cities make a lot of money and are a very productive way to concentrate labour and capital.
Actually I think that if we did have Chch and Wellington connected to Auckland with high speed rail that may actually help to spread development out without losing those agglomeration benefits to the same extent. However, the chances of this government spending money on anything without four rubber wheels is zero. Brownlee made that quite clear in his interveiw on Campbell Live.
Somehow I dont think high speed buses would have quite the same effect
It might not necessarily spread development around. For a differing view about the effects of HSR, Alon Levy argues that Japan’s Shinkansen has reinforced the centralisation of country to Tokyo, and the TGV has helped France centralise in Paris. Much the same way as cities with rail links tend to centralise downtown.
http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/an-hsr-country-is-a-centralized-country/
Interesting article. Frankly that makes the idea even more attractive in my opinion as I dont want to see Auckland weakened and I Iike centralisation.
Creating a really strong Auckland region or even better a “Golden Triangle” of Auckland, Tauranga and Hamilton linked by HSR would be fantastic for NZ in my opinion. HSR would give people more choices and potentially the best of both worlds. People could live in a smaller city and enjoy all the agglomeration benefits of Auckland – like more competition for jobs and therefore higher salaries.
So where can we find this in the government’s wish list of projects? How much would HSR to Hamilton cost? Should this be a higher priority than another Harbour crossing?
We are dreaming really. As I said, if it doesnt have four rubber wheels, this government will run a mile.
Another harbour crossing is probably more important, but I would put HSR above Puford.
Goosoid – proper HSR to Hamilton and Tauranga would be pretty expensive, probably easily something like $10-20 billion, if not more. That doesn’t mean there isn’t more we can do with what we have in the interim. In my opinion if we were serious about this then between Auckland and Hamilton we should: fully double track and straighten out as many of the curves as possible, electrify the lines, improve maintenance. All of this would be to allow for much higher speed than what we currently have. We would also need to a completed third and possibly fourth main all the way through Auckland. This would then allow an electric train departing Britomart to only make one or two stops within Auckland then travel at up to 160kph through the rural sections. If the average speed could be kept up around 120kph then a trip from Hamilton to Auckland would come in at around one hour which would be very competitive and a compelling option for many.
I don’t know exactly what it would cost but it would a damn sight cheaper than a dedicated HSR line with benefits for other users of the line like freight. Could eventually be extended to Tauranga too.
Completely agree Matt, HSR is nice, but unnecessary atm. We can get most of the benefits for a fraction of the costs. A wee bit like puford.
I can safely say, that from current intensification all the local schools I went to being Westmere primary, Pasadena intermediate and Western Springs college have all more than doubled in size of pupils since I was there without the need for expansion.
The problem is the schools have encroached onto the existing land where there were fields and play areas etc. But for Westmere and Western Springs, the addition of World Class artificial pitches (as well as sand carpet upgrades), plus the upgrades done to other amenities etc make losing the land for classrooms understandable.
With regards to existing infrastructure not being able to cope, yes you are right, but the councils upgrades they are processing at the moment are replacing sewer pipes build in the late 19th and early 20th century and are being future proofed.
Interesting to see that there’s 40 comments so far, and the one reason I think should be top of the list is barely mentioned: climate change.
We have a moral responsibility to coming generations not to $!?* it up, and we aren’t taking that seriously enough.
To make a low energy city, there’s nothing better we can do than to make it compact, and ideally get more people sharing a wall or two with their neighbours. Then the transport efficiencies start to add up on top of that.
I just accept that as a given in New Zealand, you don’t get too many science deniers here. I also think it is a bad argument to use against NIMBYs as they tend to see it as any excuse to not force everyone to live in drury or Helensville.
“you don’t get too many science deniers here” – I think that is very optimistic of you. Check out WhaleOil, Kiwiblog or NotPC some time. Denial is rampant.
As I say below, as with transport policy, science and economics take a back seat to political ideology.
NotPC links to this site: http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/exploit-the-earth-or-die.asp
Nuff said.
I meant regarding climate change.
And we are nothing like the US where Whale Oil would be a liberal site.
I absolutely agree with you but I find raising climate change is like raising religion. It seems to just be a matter of faith and political leaning rather than science. That despite 97% of climate science papers agreeing climate change is man-made: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/may/16/climate-change-scienceofclimatechange
Closely related is Peak Oil, which again is not a matter that is debated scientifically but from a position of political leaning. If the effects of Peak Oil are felt any time in the next 20 years – Auckland’s systems would be in serious poo – even worse if we havent improved our rail system.
For me those issues are just taken for granted.
I agree on Peak Oil though. Climate change’s less popular cousin.
I actually think it is a far bigger issue than any that have been brought up so far, but if you try to justify anyhting with it you get the ‘conspiracy theory’ look.
We can learn a lot from Irelands financial collapse after an oversupply of land zoning and building occured. The price of houses dropped with the collapse of Irelands economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_property_bubble#Planning_policy
NZ could be heading down the same path with the Governments Housing Accord legislation opening the way for uncontrolled Urban sprawl.