Andy Foster — Your City Councillor

ONSLOW-WESTERN

Press Release

For some people change means opportunity, for others it means insecurity and threatens familiar comfort.

Wellington City Council is currently consulting on how best to accommodate population growth over the next 40 years. Statistics NZ predicts 44,000 extra residents in our city by 2031. That means change. Our challenge as a community is how we manage growth in a way which makes the city more – not less - liveable, attractive and sustainable.

Between 2001 and 2006 Wellington City’s population grew 15,700 or 10%. The rest of the region grew less than 10,000 or 3.9%. Our CBD grew 25%. Wellington is predicted to continue dominating regional growth.  We aren’t deliberately promoting population growth. It’s ongoing natural growth, migration, and people choosing to live in Wellington.

We’re proposing a significant shift, focussing that growth towards chosen areas. Last year Plan Change 56 (PC56) tightened up on ad-hoc backyard infill development because much of it was poor quality, affecting neighbours’ privacy, removing all vegetation, lacking open space. At the same time we proposed encouraging greater development in some areas with good public transport and services (shops, employment, community facilities), and suggested additional protections for special character areas.

Over the past six weeks we’ve held well attended meetings around the city. Some people welcomed the proposals as a chance to ‘get things right’. Others said ‘please pick somewhere else’. Sometimes it’s ‘any other Wellington suburb’, some Miramar residents wanted those 44,000 people in Taita!

Tuesday’s opinion piece by Tawa residents Margaret Lucas, Valerie Saxton and Lindis Taylor raises several concerns which I’d like to answer.

Residents lose rights to object. Any rule changes require altering the District Plan, a fully public process. We want rules that require quality development. Rules are likely to be specific to different areas, and guided by a consulted on long term community vision. Rules should address shading, privacy, amenity, open space provision, relationship to public space, avoiding monolithic design etc.

Residents face marked population increase. We have choices. Population growth will continue. We can sprawl (high infrastructure, environmental, energy costs), revert to ad-hoc infill (including Tawa), or encourage development close to public transport and services so more people walk, use train or bus, and support local services. Some have suggested shutting up shop and saying we don’t want would-be new residents. (our children?) What would that do for our economy ? What would growing demand (40,000+ people) and fixed supply do to house prices !  What pressures on transport infrastructure, energy and carbon footprints from forcing people to commute longer distances ?

It’s an ‘unpublished sop to developers upset by PC56’. Nonsense ! We circulated both proposals to ratepayers last May - in the same envelope ! We’ve been absolutely open about our thinking. Incidentally we gave no advance notice of PC56 precisely to avoid an avalanche of poor quality development applications before PC56 was notified.

What if population growth is lower ? We’ve taken Statistics’ medium projections. Migration rates might change, but birth and death rates are reasonably predictable. There will be significant growth. If critics think Council should only think short term because the crystal ball isn’t 100% clear further out, I’d argue that’s exactly the short term political thinking that plagues this country.

What areas should be covered ? That’s precisely the considered feedback we want. Should growth areas be extended or reduced, and why ?

Areas were selected on the basis of affluence. No.

Tawa and Johnsonville are ‘so far out of the city ignoring realities of climate change and finite fossil fuels’. Climate change, energy costs, congestion, housing choice (60% of new building is apartment style already), are all reasons for targeted development. I struggled with them then saying ‘it makes more sense to focus growth in appropriate parts of Porirua and Hutt’. Aren’t they further away?

People will continue to drive everywhere regardless of ‘rising petrol prices and social pressures’. Research, anecdotal evidence, media (Tuesday’s Dompost ‘Oil—‘) all say otherwise. Increasing fuel costs mean many people in dispersed car dependent areas will reduce engagement in some aspects of society, reducing children’s multiple activities, volunteer involvement, trips to shops/library etc.

We all face a challenge which won’t disappear just because we don’t like change. We are thinking long term, and about sustainability, reduced energy use, congestion and increased vitality of our suburban centres. We want to hear from people and due to the high level of interest have extended the submission period to 14 July. Copies of the discussion paper ‘How and where will Wellington grow? Proposals for change and character protection’ are available on Council’s website – www.Wellington.govt.nz..

28 June 2008

Urban Development—Think Piece