Time to think, work smarter in Auckland

BY ROD ORAM

OPINION: Auckland grows so fast it would rank just behind Phoenix and other US hot spots if it were an American city. Its population was 1 million in 1997, 1.45m today and will be 2m by 2030 or so.

Yet, local and central government and the private sector have never planned and invested for such rapid growth. We build with no great thought for the future. When demand for infrastructure becomes acute, we add it piecemeal, which is often less effective and more expensive.

As a result, Auckland's a mess. From 1987-2006, its urban area grew by 24 percent. It oozed out over the landscape, covering another 330ha of prime farm, bush and coastal land each year. It is the 115th densest city in the world. Even Los Angeles, everybody's nightmare of urban sprawl, ranks 90th.

Low density is deeply dysfunctional. It makes infrastructure more expensive, or even uneconomic in the case of commuter rail services; it comes at high cost to the environment and urban lifestyle; and it drastically reduces the network effect in the economy.

The denser a city is and the better its transport, the greater the collaboration between people and the greater the value they generate. Manhattan or central London and Tokyo are excellent examples. In contrast, Auckland's population growth has conspicuously failed to generate wealth, as last week's column discussed.

So how the first mayor of the supercity intends to help it grow well should be one of the most critical issues of the campaign. Each must be grilled on their vision and on their detailed plans for using the new tools available to the Auckland Council and local boards through the supercity legislation.

We know lots about what needs to be done but less about how to do it. As a result, the region is famous among urban planners worldwide for the quality of its myriad strategies – and infamous for its lack of execution because of the fragmentation of local government and combative relations with central government.

The Royal Commission on Auckland governance delivered excellent analysis of these failures and proposed many carefully integrated remedies. One of the most crucial was a spatial plan. This would enable the Auckland Council to bring together the economic, infrastructure, environmental, landscape and social factors that shape the region, with long-term strategies for making the most of them. In essence, the spatial plan would help the region work out the very complex issues of how, where and when to grow and how to plan and invest for that.

The government quickly endorsed the proposal for "one plan for Auckland". But it dropped many other Royal Commission recommendations that were essential to making the spatial plan work well. For example, it stripped the plan back to a mainly economic and infrastructure focus. It also ignored the commission's call for a much more collaborative and integrated relationship between local and central governments on Auckland issues, particularly the funding of infrastructure.

Thankfully, though, the government's inadequate plans for Auckland have been much improved by public submissions and the select committee's work as the three bills have gone through parliament.

The spatial plan, however, has ended up a bit of a dog's breakfast. The third bill heaps 23 requirements on it, mixing up strategy, process and prescription. Worse, it exists in limbo without legislative linkages to the likes of the regional policy statement required under the Resource Management Act.

But at least the plan's "wealth" outcomes are now defined as economic, environmental, social and cultural, each essential for achieving a vibrant and sustainable region.

Work has begun on getting the spatial plan up and running. The old councils, led by their chief executives, are pulling together existing strategies, identifying the big issues the spatial plan needs to address and doing a bit more research on the choices Auckland has for shaping its future.

There's lots of knowledge to draw on. The best place to look is aucklandoneplan.org.nz. This is the site for "OnePlan", the overarching strategy that councils pulled together in 2008 in their Regional Sustainable Development Forum.

OnePlan is based mainly on existing work such as the regional growth strategy which defines where new housing goes, the Metro Plan on economic development, the regional land transport strategy and others on the likes of affordable housing, open spaces and recreation. It also includes seven programmes to deliver progress on issues such as economic development, tourism and workforce skills.

OnePlan had generated good buy-in by the councils. But it fell short of being a spatial plan because, for example, it was not linked to long-term investment plans by central government. And it delivered very little anyway because its work was suspended once the supercity legislation began.

The biggest task by far for the spatial plan is to help drive the right kind of growth of population and urban environment in the region. The existing regional growth strategy relies heavily on the Metropolitan Urban Limits, the boundary between town and country. The idea was to try to encourage greater intensity of development within the existing urban area.

But it hasn't worked well. Housing developers say they are starved of greenfield sites, exacerbating the cost of housing. They are likely to push the new council to lift the MUL. It's also been hard to get good quality, higher density development around rail and road nodes.

So the spatial plan with a 20 to 30-year timeframe is the big hope for delivering a much more comprehensive set of policies, priorities and plans for good urban growth.

To that end, the new mayor, council and staff will have to work very fast when they open for business on November 1. They are required by law to produce by June 2012 the region's Long Term Council Community Plan, the 10-year strategy required of all local governments. To do that, they need a spatial plan in place by the end of 2011 at the very latest.

To pull this off the council needs to:

Make the mayor's and council's vision for Auckland's development the driving force for the spatial plan.

Develop the plan largely on an amalgam of OnePlan and other existing strategies rather than going back to basics.

Work on the weaknesses and lack of cohesion in the amalgam.

Articulate very simply and persuasively the plan and the decisions about growth it requires.

Work extensively with local boards so every community across Auckland believes the spatial plan and LTCCP will deliver on its needs and ambitions.

Pick some high profile projects that show how good higher density urban development can be and then deliver.

Forge a new collaborative relationship with central government, particularly on funding big, long-term infrastructure investments. Officials are acutely aware of the need to do this but ministers such as Steven Joyce and Bill English define progress project by project, rather than engaging on long-term strategy.

Create with central government strong legislative links between the plan and the other main planning mechanisms such as the RMA.

Bring the spatial plan alive as an expression of Auckland's ambitions.

But above all, politicians and people need to remember that developing a city is not an arid, mechanistic process constantly enmeshed in laws and protocols. It is a triumph of human collaboration, creativity and spirit, as Charles Landry expresses so powerfully in his book The Art of City Making.

- © Fairfax NZ News