Waterview Connection consenting bypasses local hearing
It’s no surprise, yet still fairly disappointing, to see NZTA announce today that the consenting of the Waterview Connection will bypass a local hearing and go straight to either a ‘Board of Inquiry’ or to the Environment Court. This ‘fast-tracking’ was made possible by last year’s changes to the RMA – which allowed for many more projects to be “called in” and have a “one stop shop” for consenting.…
7 Comments The Auckland Spatial Plan
A few posts back I mentioned how the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill will require the Auckland Council to draft up a “Spatial Plan”. Part 6 of the Bill says that the Spatial Plan needs to include these aspects:
As regular readers of this blog would well know, one of the biggest annoyances I have with Auckland is the lack of co-ordination between land-use planning and transportation planning.…
Transport and Urban Form
Jarrett, from the excellent Humantransit blog, has dug up a few of his older posts from 2009 – of which one in particular caught my eye: the interaction between transport and urban form:
Of course transportation is completely bound up with urbanism, and demand for it is derived from other demands of urban life.…
The Planning Paradox
Whilst I like to think of myself as a “public transport advocate”, in my ‘day job’ I’m a planner. This has influenced the angle to which I view transportation matters, and as I have explained before, has really determined many of my opinions on transport.…
Balancing transport
As a planner, a lot of my work is based around the much-maligned Resource Management Act, and various aspects of it. This piece of legislation generally finds itself being attacked on multiple fronts – whether it’s from land developers considering it as far too much “red tape” for anyone’s good, or whether it’s from environmentalists thinking that it’s far too weak in protecting the environment.…
Why I care about transport
It’s interesting to see the variety of people who end up being “transport advocates”, “transport geeks” or just interested in transport issues. From the people I know interested in transport matters we have a software programmer, a police forensics expert, an accounting student and a radio marketer (among others).…
Jane Jacobs – Neighbourhoods in Action
Here’s a great video on how the different ways we design towns and cities can have a huge impact not only on the quality of our communities, but also on the health of the people living within them. Jane Jacobs wrote perhaps the most important urban planning book of the 20th century – The Death and Life of Great American Cities.…
Transport and Quality of Life
I came across a bit of a “think-piece” written by Chris Harris (the public transport advocate, not the cricketer) that is simply too good and interesting not to share. I won’t quote all of what he wrote verbatim, because it relates to a submission on a policy plan, but there are some fascinating tracts.…
Density and Public Transport
It’s often said that for public transport to work, you need high residential densities. I don’t remember the exact figures, but I know that there are a few books I have read over the years that have gone to the level of calculating the densities required for different levels of public transport service – ie.…
Will Auckland be a super Super-City?
Today saw the release of the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee’s report on the hearings that were held as part of the reorganisation of Auckland’s local government and the formation of what most people think of as “the Super City”. I made a submission on the plans back in June, and then presented my ideas to the select committee in early July.…
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