Mr. Bridges, open this gate. Mr. Bridges, tear down this wall!
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood by the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and called on Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union, to take down the wall cutting off Berlin’s east and west halves.
In 2017, I’m calling on the Minister of Transport, Simon Bridges, to take action.…
94 Comments More jobs in the city centre
However you define Auckland’s “city centre”, it’s been adding jobs rapidly in the last couple of years. Based on a narrow definition – roughly, the area bounded by the motorways – the city centre has hit a new milestone of 100,000 jobs, actually reaching almost 102,000 as at February 2016.…
Development update: January 2017
2017 will be the Year of the Terrace.
Terraced homes, built in rows: neighbours on either side, but not or above or below. They’re relatively cheap to build, and they’re within the reach of many small/ medium-sized building firms, ones which have traditionally concentrated on detached houses.…
More petrol station changes
Last year, Z Energy bought Caltex New Zealand’s network of petrol stations from global oil giant Chevron. That was a pretty big deal (almost $800 million, in fact).
Just before Christmas 2016, another deal was announced. Caltex Australia* has bought the Gull New Zealand network of petrol stations (and associated operations).…
Development update: December 2016
2016 has been a big year for development, and by “development” I mean the process of getting new homes built, or any other new buildings for that matter.
In the last “development update” post for the year, I wanted to look back at some of the highlights which you might have missed.…
Petrol stations in the city centre
Caltex Fanshawe St, one of only a few petrol stations in Auckland’s city centre, has recently closed. Z Energy, who operate the Z-branded petrol stations and bought Caltex earlier this year, found that the property is worth more as a development site than as a petrol station.…
State Houses and Social Housing (part 3)
State housing, or “social housing” more generally, is often in the news for one reason or another. Governments over the years have all had their own policies. In this post series, I won’t really be looking at the pros and cons (at least not much) – I’ll mainly be looking at some of the numbers.…
Guest post: carbon taxes and the NZ economy
We don’t talk about climate change on TransportBlog that often, although we should – transport is a big contributor to emissions, and the most obvious opportunity for NZ to reduce its emissions.
But most economists would agree that the best starting point for tackling emissions is to price them properly, so people and businesses are incentivised to change their behaviour.…
State Houses and Social Housing (part 2)
State housing, or “social housing” more generally, is often in the news for one reason or another. Governments over the years have all had their own policies. In this post series, I won’t really be looking at the pros and cons (at least not much) – I’ll mainly be looking at some of the numbers.…
Development update: November 2016
I’ve just updated the RCG Development Tracker for November – it’s now got almost 800 developments listed, across all property sectors but with a focus on higher density residential.
The ones which didn’t make it
In the last month, we’ve had a bit of media coverage about developments being cancelled.…
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