Ad hoc planning makes us architects of our downfall

PARTY central? Try party pooper central. Seasoned urban planning watchers in Auckland could have predicted the current fiasco around revamping Queens Wharf for the Rugby World Cup.

This city exemplifies a wider national malaise when it comes to civic and aesthetic vision – a shortsighted, narrow-minded parsimoniousness that dooms even a blessed natural environment such as the Waitemata harbour front to dull mediocrity.

How else to explain a design competition, weirdly rigged in the first place, that is then roundly trashed by its own patrons, the civic leaders tasked with picking a winner? It's beyond farcical. The most appropriate design for the old wharf, were it to truly reflect the spirit in which its redevelopent has been conceived, would be an enormous sandpit containing various sculptures of local and national politicians, dressed as preschoolers, fighting over the only bucket and spade.

When John Key announced the newly purchased venue would become "party central" in 2011, I had that old familiar sense of deja vu. It wasn't that the sentiments weren't right, despite the tiresome populism of it, or that a gathering place on the water isn't a good idea.

It was that – once again – Auckland's architectural and urban future was being made up as we went along.

Under the previous government the then minister in charge of making it up as we went along, Trevor Mallard, seemed to come up with a plan for a massive waterfront stadium on the back of a serviette. A lot of people liked the idea, partly, I suspect, because it at least looked bold and visionary. The trouble was, it was another Wellington take-it-or-leave it afterthought. There had been no discussion up till then about the wisdom of such a monolithic structure on such a site, the real costs of building it, and the challenge of regularly filling something that big once the world cup had come and gone.

The Key government seemed to learn nothing from this, and apparently hadn't even convened a proper meeting of the various responsible ministers and other parties to discuss how best to co-ordinate promoting the event, including the best strategy for controlling free-to-air TV rights. I would have thought such matters would have been a routine diary entry for the offices of the ministers of broadcasting, Rugby World Cup and tourism. After all, isn't one of the primary functions of government to plan?

In the Queens Wharf case, the planning came down to running a bizarrely structured competition that financially hobbled potentially good designs and then allowed three of the eventual eight finalists in by a side door based on, from what I can tell, their project management and building capabilities. Hardly surprisingly, given the impossible brief – large floor areas with tight height restrictions, competing berthing functions for cruise ships and harbour ferries – and a budget that wouldn't cover a school hall renovation, the finalists are uniformly expressions of compromise over idealism.

If our current planners had been in charge of, say, Renaissance Florence, it would have ended up looking like Hamilton – no offence, but I don't see a Ponte Vecchio over the Waikato, do you?

Don't even get me started on Auckland's transport infrastructure – other than to say we could have been the envy of many other cities had a few sensible, rational decisions been taken a few decades ago.

I sometimes wonder whether New Zealanders are missing a crucial part of DNA, the bit that governs the ability to think beyond the next election cycle. Or is it perhaps a legacy of the colonial frontier, where the only thing that really mattered was utility and cheapness in the short term? Whatever, the phrase "she'll be right" should be added to our coat of arms, in recognition of the national tendency to let the future look after itself.

This isn't to say such projects as Queens Wharf can be conceived without consideration of their financial impact. But, by handicapping the field from the start, the process almost guaranteed a lack of inspiring outcomes – through no real fault of the entrants, who seem to have tried very hard to tick too many boxes. It's almost certain that better – as in braver and less fettered – designs lurk among the also-rans, relegated for not being cheap enough. Perhaps one option for the disenchanted judges would be to revive them all and revise the budget upwards.

Alas, the pessimist in me foresees another lost opportunity, another temporary monument to our curious inability to plan our way out of a wet paper bag.

finlay.macdonald@star-times.co.nz