OurCity

Andy Foster — Vote #1 for Council

ONSLOW-WESTERN

Sustainable City

City Planning

Urban Development and Transport are inextricably linked. A sprawling urban form like Auckland is inevitably car dependent because most people can’t walk easily to the shops, school, community facilities or work. Public transport is much less effective for the same reason.

Ask anyone and our number one strength is almost inevitably the compact walkable city, with a large range of activities close together.

This is partly the result of topographical advantages. It’s increasingly also deliberate Council policy.

As your councillor I’ve been the consistent proponent and key driver of a compact, mixed use city. It hasn’t always been easy !

We adopted an urban containment policy as a key part of the 1994 District Plan. We also freed up rules to allow a wide variety of activities in the CBD, allowing the residential development including reuse of older commercial buildings. We also got rid of rules that previously restricted which parts were retail, and which industrial.

It took until July 2000 to make the 1994 District Plan operative, that is to deal with all the submissions, the hearings, and to resolve appeals. Only then could we really get cracking with further improvements to the Plan which the passage of time, and the development of case law had made obvious were needed. There have been some poor developments which have rightly got a lot of profile.

This month (September 2007) we approved notification of Plan Changes 60 and 61 so there is a lot of work being done!

I’ve attached a list of Plan Changes (PC) to date under the Urban Form section.

The overall drive has been

· To address poor quality of infill (PC 56 notified in May 2007)

· To increase protection for heritage – PC 43 to prevent unsympathetic additions, PC 53 and 58 to add new items to heritage lists.

· To increase protection for character areas (PC 7 and 50 Aro Valley, 38-40 Newtown/Mt Cook/Berhampore, Variation 14 Thorndon/Mt Victoria)

· To improve quality of development in the CBD and suburban centres (notably PC 48 and 52)

· To improve layout of new subdivision (PC 45 and 46)

· Importantly we are also the first Council to trial a new scheme where we write to neighbours about applications when they come into Council. This avoids people having to find out for themselves or not finding out until the bulldozers arrive. I am delighted we are doing this, and I expect the trial to be made permanent. It’s really important that you know what is going on in your neighbourhood if it has potential to affect you and your home.

As you’ll see from the list of Plan Changes there have been a lot of other issues too, many of them technical.

Targeting

Looking forward we are doing a lot of work on my concept of TARGETING.

At the moment we allow INFILL anywhere, and don’t discriminate between the site right next to a shopping centre or a bus or train route, and that which is miles from any services at the top of the hill. We should! It is a critical way of making our city more sustainable and less energy intensive. In May this year at the same time as notifying PC 56 to deal with the worst issues of new infill we consulted about the concept of targeting. 80% of respondents said it is a good idea.

Now we are working on capacity of places to cope with more intensive development. This includes looking at transport, infrastructure, schools and community facilities, special character and vegetation.

The concept is that the residential part of the city will be divided into three parts:

Areas of stability – these are areas of special character, or a long way from services. Infill will be discouraged.

Areas of limited development – infill will be allowed, but under PC 56 will need to be better designed to avoid the adverse impacts that some developments have had of late.

Areas of change – we will look to encourage comprehensive development close to services to accommodate more people. Terrace housing is also expected to be more in demand as our population ages. This land will of course be worth more. In my view Council should capture some of that increased upzoning value to allow it to reinvest directly in amenity for residents in those areas, and potentially for some scattered low income housing which may be owned by Council or by some of the community housing trusts.

Another concept I want to see pursued is that of a public development agency which could landbank sites until sufficient are obtained to allow a comprehensive redevelopment of a given area. This is a model used successfully overseas.

Next year we plan to notify Plan Changes to give effect to the targeting concept.

We will also be focusing on our suburban centres. The current rules are probably overly flexible, and don’t distinguish sufficiently between the types of suburban centre (eg Ngauranga Gorge is covered by the same rules as Ngaio).

That will be an opportunity in my view to revisit what visioning work has been done by our communities across the city, and to update it, or where it doesn’t exist, to develop it. That would be the chance to set out a long term vision for suburban centre upgrades over probably 20 years.

Council Facilities

Location of Council and other key facilities such as schools and workplaces is critical to a sustainable city.

We have real opportunities with the redevelopment of our housing stock. Council owns 2400 units in need of upgrade, seismic strengthening and vital work on ventilation, condensation, etc. Government has agreed to invest $220 million to fund those upgrades thanks to great work from the Mayor and our staff.

We should take the opportunity to build new housing to support suburban centres. An example is Newlands where I’ve been pushing to revitalise a badly laid out and struggling suburban centre.

The indoor sports stadium is another big opportunity, but at present the majority of councillors have got it wrong, and have agreed to build at Cobham Park near the airport. (please see the recreation section for more information)

We are also increasingly working with private sector and public sector on locations for other important developments. Schools are a key part of that. We are working with Ministry of Education on a Churton Park school.

Northern Growth

We are focusing on this as the only greenfields development area in the city. The Northern Growth Framework was approved in 2001.

Progress includes:

New roading connections – Westchester Drive – land has finally been acquired to connect Churton Park directly to the motorway interchange. Mark Avenue and Woodman Drive – Bing Lucus road connections are underway.

Reserves agreements – a lot of work has been done on reserves agreements and infrastructure (especially water) layout for Stebbings Valley.

Lincolnshire Farm – a Plan Change is currently being heard to consider a master plan for the area east of the motorway.

Johnsonville Town Centre – extensive work with the Mall owners and consultation with the community to ensure that any development is really well designed and issues such as traffic and parking, and integration with bus and rail are well done.

Newlands Town Centre – When Council was about to approve the new Newlands Community Centre in what I thought was the wrong place, I persuaded my colleagues to undertake a comprehensive review of the Newlands Town Centre in consultation with the Newlands community. I want to see all our suburban centres working really well. The community centre is now underway thanks also to community support – in the right place, and prospects for the whole Newlands Centre are looking pretty good.

Churton Park – this growing are has no town centre and lacks community facilities and shops. After extensive positive consultation we notified Plan Change 60 in September 2007 to allow a new village centre, and ensure that it has a good mix of activities and is really well laid out.

Port and Railyards

This is a challenging area. We’ve been working with Centreport and Vibrant Wellington on ensuring that we have a mix of uses, including office, residential and some services in the Harbour Quays site – essentially opposite Westpac Stadium. The original proposal was just offices which would have left a dead area at night.

A site has been identified for an indoor stadium but Council has opted instead for Cobham Park. I hope to persuade colleagues to revisit this. (please see recreation section)

Shaping Our City

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