Removing the Rural Urban Boundary is a dumb idea
The new Minister of Transport, Housing and Urban Development – Phil Twyford – has certainly hit the ground running across his portfolios. But in one area it seems as though he’s either poorly informed or is potentially embarking on a pretty dumb and unnecessary path.…
86 Comments Video – the high cost of free parking
We have talked about the stupidity of parking requirements for as long as this blog has existed. Here’s a recent good video from Vox that runs through the key points through an interview with parking guru Donald Shoup. We should soon be hearing about where the Environment Court landed in relation to an appeal by retailers against Council to reject applying minimums for retail activities.…
Unitary Plan changes were “in scope”
Almost exactly a year ago the future of the Unitary Plan was looking uncertain after a group of rowdy residents, mainly from eastern suburbs who had been whipped into a frenzy by the likes of the NZ Herald and UP opposition groups like Auckland 2040, complained to the council about the plan.…
2016 – A Year in Review Part 4 – Everything else
This is Part 4 and the final part of our series wrapping up the year and in this post I’m looking at everything else. You can also see: Part 1 on public transport
Part 2 on Walking and Cycling
Part 3 on Roads Unitary Plan
The completion of the Unitary Plan has been one of the biggest and most important discussions Auckland has had for the last few years.…
Light Rail Dominion Road – Land Use Low Hanging Fruit
Light rail on Dominion Rd is one of the big projects being discussed right now and is being actively investigated.
During the Unitary Plan debate I saw many people raise concerns that Dominion Road does not have the zoning to support Light Rail.…
Unitary Plan hits a snag
In August we celebrated as the Unitary Plan was finally approved by the council and then formally notified after a four-year roller coaster of a process. Even better was the end result was actually pretty good, far better than we could have hoped for back in February after the agreed to most of the changes the Independent Hearings Panel made.…
Zoning reform: Who submitted on the plan? (3 of n)
This is the third installment in an ongoing series on the politics and economics of zoning reform. Last week’s post took a look at the outcomes from the Unitary Plan process, which included a mix of political decision-making and technical assessment.…
Zoning reform: Is the Unitary Plan any good? (2 of n)
This is the second post in an ongoing series on the politics and economic of zoning reform. The first part looked at the costs, benefits, and distributional impacts of reforming urban planning rules to enable more development. This part takes a more specific look at the most recent reform to Auckland’s planning system: the Unitary Plan.…
How Councillors voted on the Unitary Plan
At 5pm on Friday the Unitary Plan was officially notified with this notice appearing in the NZ Herald. The documents that were made available at 5pm included the final version of the plan the Council finished agreeing to earlier in the week.…
Unitary Plan Passed
So they did it, the council actually passed a reasonably good Unitary Plan, a feat that just six months ago seemed so unlikely. This represents a fairly historic moment for Auckland as for the first time, the region will have a single set of planning rules that enable the city to grow and are also aligned with the policies and goals of the region.…
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