The MUL and housing affordability
An article in today’s NZ Herald notes that new councillor Dick Quax, who replaced Jami-Lee Ross as the representative for the Howick Ward, argued against the council’s generally agreed position of preferring a ‘compact city’ in his maiden speech. I’ve discussed the metropolitan urban limits (MUL) in many previous posts, including reference to a pretty detailed study undertaken for the ARC that showed an expansionary model of urban development generally delivered the worst outcomes for the highest cost.…
20 Comments Transforming Auckland’s city centre
One of the best things that has come out of the creation of the Auckland “Super City” Council so far has been, in my opinion, the fundamental reconsideration of how Auckland should work. In documents like the Auckland Spatial Plan, the City Centre Master Plan and the forthcoming Unitary Plan, we have the opportunity to completely reanalyse the plans and policies that will guide and shape Auckland’s future.…
Looking at Auckland’s economic future
An opinion piece by sprawl advocate Owen McShane in the National Business Review refers to a series of research papers undertaken by the Ministry for Economic Development over the past few years. The papers relate to MED trying to get a better handle on what policy interventions in Auckland are likely to have the most impact on improving the city’s economic performance.…
Auckland Transports Draft Statement of Intent
Auckland Transport will devote their next board meeting on 29 June entirely to their draft statement of intent (SOI). The SOI will be a pretty key document as it effectively determines what their goals will be for the next 3 years (they have had a temporary one to cover November to July).…
The Unitary Plan
There has been a lot of talk over the past few months about the “Auckland Spatial Plan” and more recently about the City Centre Master Plan. Both these documents are undoubtedly important in defining goals for Auckland as a whole or for the city centre, highlighting important projects, discussing how funding might be acquired for various important projects and generally setting out an important vision for what Auckland should be like in 30 years: whether that vision be for the entire Auckland region (in the case of the spatial plan) or for the city centre (in the case of the City Centre Master Plan).…
Sylvia Park: PT success or missed opportunity?
When I think of the Sylvia Park shopping centre in Auckland, from a transport perspective, it seems to tick a lot more boxes than many other shopping centres around Auckland (particularly St Lukes). The primary reason for this is that Sylvia Park has a train station right next to it – a station that seems fairly popular, especially on weekends.…
Auckland’s improving CBD
One of the pitfalls of looking at transport and urban planning matters on a daily basis is that you can sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. For want of a better phrase, it definitely is possible to “lose sight of the forest for the trees”.…
Convention centre: catalyst for improving Hobson & Nelson?
I was initially disappointed by the decision that SkyCity had won the bid for a new international convention centre in downtown Auckland. I was more of a fan of “The Edge” proposal, largely because a key part of that proposal would have involved the restoration of the St James theatre.…
Stupid urban planning
As a planner by profession, I can quite honestly say that more often than not we do urban planning in Auckland utterly terribly. We focus enormously on silly details: recession planes, consistency with minutely detailed assessment criteria, road-widths, numbers of parking spaces per unit, number of units coming off driveways and so forth – but we miss the really obvious stuff.…
The price of parking
There’s an interesting article in today’s NZ Herald, which notes that the cost of reserved monthly parking in Auckland is relatively high compared to other overseas cities.
Monthly parking rates in Auckland are more expensive than in most big cities around the world, says a global survey.…
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