How Sprawly is the Unitary Plan?
There has been a great deal of emphasis on the zones where higher buildings will be allowed in the media coverage of the Unitary Plan. Especially giving voice to those who see this as unwelcome. Yet the plan isn’t by any means only about Auckland ‘growing up’, it also includes the quite substantial expansion of the current city limits.…
11 Comments The (rubbish) Integrated Transport Programme
Aside from the rather depressing patronage news, the most interesting report on the March agenda of the Auckland Transport Board is the Integrated Transport Programme (ITP). We saw some snippets of this document at last month’s Board meeting, but this is the first time we’ve seen a document that seems fairly critical in filling in the details of giving effect to the transport section of the Auckland Plan.…
Govt sponsored report backs the Auckland Plan
Interesting news out this morning of a report, paid for by the government and Auckland into the economic competitiveness of the NZ economy. While the whole report hasn’t been released yet, information has emerged about a chapter in it relating to Auckland.…
How revolutionary is a focus on intensification?
As the debate over intensification versus urban sprawl seemingly intensifies, there is one assumption that seems to underpin a lot of the discussion – from both sides of the debate actually. That assumption is that achieving most of Auckland’s future growth through intensification will be an enormous challenge, a ‘step change’ from what Auckland has done before, requiring a huge change in mindset away from living in a traditional (mythical) “quarter acre paradise” and towards living in different housing typologies like terraced housing and apartments.…
Demolishing Demographia? An alternative explanation
My last two posts (here and here) considered Demographia’s recently released survey of housing affordability for 2013, which concluded that housing in NZ is increasingly unaffordable.
My first post suggested Demographia’s primary findings were not supported by independent evidence, such as alternative “rent-income” and “home affordability” indicators.…
Demolishing Demographia? It’s cookie time.
Yesterday’s post considered the recently released Demographia survey on housing affordability. Thanks to everyone who commented; the discussion was useful for honing my thoughts on follow-up posts. Such as this.
But first let’s re-cap: Demographia’s key findings were 1) New Zealand has increasingly unaffordable housing and 2) this is the direct result of urban containment policies.…
Does Auckland really have a land supply shortage?
The annual Demographia Housing Affordability report is out – this time with its forward written by Bill English – and just like every other Demographia study it suggests that more land needs to be opened up for urban sprawl in order to bring down housing prices.…
Demolishing Demographia?
*** Spoiler alert: The title of this post is somewhat hyperbolic ***
Demographia’s “9th Annual International Housing Affordability Survey” has just been released and is receiving a lot of attention in various media outlets, such as the NZHerald. Indeed, NZ ‘s connection to the report is relatively strong – it was co-authored by a kiwi and the foreword is written by our very own Minister of Finance.…
Almost the world’s most liveable city
The 2012 Mercer Quality of Living Ranking survey has Auckland as the world’s third most liveable city – retaining the same ranking as 2011. The survey is designed to assist employers in the placement of expatriate staff and how much they should receive in living allowances, so the results tend to indicate quality of living if you’re really well off, however they give a useful guide.…
Transport Spending: what’s the point?
As a country we spend a lot of money on transport, at three levels: central government, local government and personally. In the 2012 budget, around $3.8 billion of expenditure on transport by central government was proposed. Further to that, transport is generally the biggest item of expenditure for local government – the Auckland Council spends over half its money (more than half your rates bill) on transport each year.…
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