A Complex and Contested Plan
Deficiencies in the vision for a
compact city promoted in the Auckland
Plan are apparent in the contested nature of the statutory document intended
to implement it. The Proposed
Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) has attracted 13,000 submissions and is
subject to extensive hearings by an independent panel
The proposed Plan is complex and
detailed. It aims to manage the public domain and private behaviour mainly by regulating land use, defining in detail what can be done, how, and
where. And because there will be winners and losers from applying its many
rules, it is not surprising that many people are concerned at the
content.
Where is the evaluation?
Given the direction underlying the
Auckland Plan – a compact city focused on an intensively developed CBD and relying
on a legacy of heavy rail and buses (and now, perhaps, trams) to alleviate congestion – the PAUP will
inevitably impact on many people and organisations. It is surprising, then, that the evaluation
of policies did not deal with the distribution of costs and benefits.
But then, the analysis, such as it
is, is not very strong on costs and benefits at all.
Anyway, despite the long list of papers and reports assembled in support of
the PAUP (the “Section
32 Report”), few appear relevant to or reflected in the land use policies
adopted.
The evaluation is focused, the
S32 Report claims, on “the objectives and
provisions within the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan that represent significant
changes in approach from those within the current operative Auckland RMA
policies and plans”.
The comparison of policy options required for evaluation appears to have relied on a bunch of
like-minded people comparing four somewhat arbitrary scenarios of the future. Curiously, all four scenarios are based on a single population projection as if how we plan has no
impact on the outcomes! That hardly matters, I guess. I could see no
recourse to any formal analysis of policies anyway, and no obvious attempt to distinguish
the marginal differences among them that an evaluation of changes from “current operative policies and plans”
would call for.
And what of the quality?
My concern about the quality of
evaluation is heightened because the proposed Plan’s spatial policies are based on misleading
analysis. The fundamental assumption that the proposed plan needs to provide sufficient
capacity for an additional 400,000 households over the next thirty or
so years is demonstrably wrong.
Having heard the level of
disagreement among experts about the credibility of this number, the
Hearings Panel back in April asked them to jointly produce an estimate that they could
agree on.
They couldn’t. Over several months
of collaboration and analysis the best the group could come up with was an
estimate of 83,420 “developable feasible” dwellings – or 26% of the Auckland
Council’s Plan estimate (013 Expert Group, p5).[1]
And despite acknowledging that this was much more realistic , the Group failed to
reach a consensus on a final number.
Which to my mind was just as well:
to believe that we can predict both dwelling demand and supply without even
seriously referencing the impact of price on demand (among other shortcomings) over
25 to 30 years is a conceit too far. The more we refine such projections,
seek consensus, and treat the results as reality, the less we are prepared for the uncertainty that inevitably attends our plans, and the greater the
risk that, in our ignorance, we adopt inappropriate policies.
So what happens when the policy makers get it wrong? They keep going regardless
What is even more disturbing,
though, is that the Council gives the appearance of cynically changing the
Plan rules to offset its miscalculation. This has been done in
haste, apparently, without reconsideration of the policies they support, without obvious analysis
of the effects of these changes, and certainly no consultation with those
affected. Hence, the New
Zealand Herald reported in September that by relaxing rules within the
plan, council planners were able to get their capacity numbers over 150,000
(still a long way short of what the plan is supposed to deliver).
To help achieve this, the heritage
provisions of the Plan, always
problematic, were effectively dumped
in October. And in November, the Council’s Unitary Plan Committee accepted
changes to the Single House Zone in central and western suburbs to Mixed Use
to enable townhouses, studios and apartments to achieve the new number.
Now where did that come from? I have searched the Council website for an
analysis of the effects of these new policies and cannot find it. At least the media is prepared to air the changes and their potential effects.
Dumping on the suburbs
The Plan certainly needs to address
the
future of Auckland’s suburbs: this has been a failing all along in a city
which is no longer mono-centric and in which any expansion will be shaped by
the simple fact that it is contained on a narrow isthmus. But this sudden zone change is knee jerk reaction
to what has been revealed as an ill-informed plan. It has no apparent regard for matters of open
space, transport and transit, commercial services, schools and other public
services, or community and recreational amenities, all critical to the quality of suburban life.
Simply creating new rules that can fundamentally
change the character of suburbs because the planners got it wrong first time
round without any obvious attempt to appraise or moderate adverse
effects undermines the credibility of the proposed Plan, the process, the planners, and
the politicians. And it’s cynical to the extent that it potentially circumvents
the independent hearing process and suggests that the Plan is no more than
an ad hoc means to an arbitrary end.
A step too far?
The uncritical foisting of a
particular set of beliefs – that the way to the future is through less of what
we have now -- raises fundamental questions over the practice of resource
planning, not just in Auckland, either. Whatever
we call it -- urban design, place making, or resource management –an autocratic
and patronising mind-set today permeates urban planning and is increasingly
reflected in the diminishing capacity of elected councillors and board
members to influence outcomes. [2]
Planning to fail
All this will make
life that much harder for many Aucklanders to live here, especially those who do not already own a home. While much is made
of the City's growing diversity there is little evidence that the plan is sensitive to differences in places, communities, and circumstances, or that it is
flexible regarding where and how different peoples might live. It looks set to sustain and even exacerbate the division
between those who stand to benefit from property ownership and
those to whom the Plan offers little hope of home ownership, and the social, health, schooling
and employment benefits that brings.
The proposed unitary plan looks
set to accentuate divisions rather than accommodate diversity.
Time to think about connections and consequences
Unless there is a radical change in
the way we plan, I see little prospect of sustaining the growth Auckland has
recently experienced or of achieving the projections that the Plan is
built on. For all its expertise, the Group convened by the Independent
Panel failed to agree on what the
Plan provides by way of capacity, or to forge the link between housing supply and demand .
A new approach is called for. Let’s treat housing as a right, land for
housing as a necessity, and prepare a plan that enables us to provide it in a
cost effective and timely manner.
The failure to provide land for
sufficient dwellings so graphically illustrated in the Expert Group’s report
(and in others[3])
must lead to a decline in demand as prices escalate. We may have a liveable city on some measures
if the PAUP is somehow implemented, but for whom and for how long?
[1]
Topic 013 Expert Group (July 2015) Residential Developable Capacity for
Auckland Report to Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearing Panel
[2]
And unfortunately this is not
about to be changed by the Government’s latest
tinkering with the Resource Management Act,
[3]
Quite apart from the many
submissions to this effect (see Hearings Topic 13 at the Independent Hearings
Panel website), the Productivity
Commission has published two compelling reports on this issue.
