Project Auckland: A new toolkit for the restart

Committee for Auckland directors visiting the site of the Auckland City Mission's HomeGround just prior to completion. Photo / Supplied

Auckland Council has struggled significantly under Covid, losing more than $900 million in revenue and being forced to delay the much-needed infrastructure investment programme.

Except for a brief positive spike in mid-2021, Auckland's business confidence has been negative since December 2017 and GDP growth is rebounding more strongly in the rest of New Zealand.

Could there be a better time to look at a new way of planning, funding and making council decisions in Auckland?

Auckland's housing, transport and climate challenges were changing and amplifying before Covid, despite the investment being made in all these areas. As the region resets from Covid, all of these issues present challenges that the currently planned resources strategy cannot fully meet.

Our transport network continues to suffer from historical underinvestment and the pressure of new growth, housing remains unaffordable for too many and the steps being taken to mitigate environmental degradation are being offset by emissions challenges we are not addressing effectively enough. Trust in Auckland Council and satisfaction with its performance has never reached even 30 per cent in the twelve years of its existence.

The significant new investment planned (an extra $5b originally budgeted over ten years) will be inadequate to respond to these challenges because 12 years since the Auckland Council amalgamation, the significant investment already made has not addressed many of the largest issues holding the region back.

Few Aucklanders pay attention to the council's significant 30-year Auckland Plan.

It measures Auckland's progress across 33 indicators.

The last update in July 2021, shows progress in only seven areas and the pre-Covid report in 2019 showed progress in just nine areas.

A new normal

Much more mature and durable decision-making and funding arrangements for Auckland are essential and possibly other cities in New Zealand.

Koi Tū's Reimagining Auckland report says substantial change is needed in how governance and planning takes place.

Some of this may be picked up by the substantial local government review underway, but quicker progress is possible if we adopt a Covid-recovery mindset and deploy approaches taken in other countries.

The Sir Peter Gluckman-led report is the most substantial independent review of Auckland's progress since the Super City was established.

The most significant problem raised through the review was the misalignment, at times descending to dysfunction, of the decision-making involved in Auckland's operations, planning and strategy. The most recent example has been the trampling by the central government of the council's existing housing intensification plans with their Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act.

Solving this, Gluckman says, is the most critical problem facing the region if it is to make sustained progress. He says a new and distinctive governance model for Auckland would benefit the whole country.

The largest cities in countries New Zealand can compare itself with have worked this out already. As a result, they have higher productivity, higher incomes and a faster growth rate than Auckland does.

The substantial Future of Local Government review, underway since April last year will report its draft recommendations by the end of September. The structure of local government in Auckland was made more coherent with the 2010 amalgamation. Now there is the opportunity to finish the job.

And Auckland need not be the only beneficiary.

New Zealand's other urban regions could be incentivised to merge to gain scale and receive greater planning and funding benefits.

This follows the model that former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron embarked on in the UK a decade ago.

Voters could take the option of approving amalgamation and receiving greater control and funding for the services and decisions more effectively run locally. The UK's rationale was to improve the performance of urban regions such as Liverpool, Manchester and a total of nine regions covering 12 million people have now adopted the approach.

There is no one-size-fits all solution here as the new combined regions negotiate the deals that suit their region with the central government. But common benefits were new powers in housing, transport and vocational education. Although Manchester negotiated greater powers in criminal justice, health and social care that related to its specific needs.

The finance minister in the UK signs the deal with the leader of the local authority. An extensive evaluation programme is established to monitor the economic benefits and impact of the arrangement agreed with the UK Treasury.

But there are other approaches New Zealand can consider. In 2006, Denmark made substantial planning law changes which gave their local authorities a high degree of planning control. Copenhagen, only a little smaller than Auckland, was given separate priority and a specific directive to steer its development more effectively. Subsequently, the World Bank has used Copenhagen as a case study on its planning approach which has resulted in some of the best urban infrastructure in the developed world.

Austria, a little larger than New Zealand, has all three levels of government collaborate on the Austrian Spatial Development Concept which provides better national and local coordination. The OECD singled out the benefits of this national development approach which had been a factor in its largest city Vienna's efficient and inexpensive public transport network, accessible public housing, high degree of forestation and low crime rate.

Closer to home, the Victorian state government uses a multidimensional planning strategy called Plan Melbourne to guide the development of its largest city Melbourne.

The results have seen a strong, effective public transport system and a world-class infrastructure score.

The Australian Government also uses the "city deal" approach to agree to fund and sometimes fast-tracked planning to make quicker progress on local infrastructure priorities. This approach has the federal government agree with the state and local governments on priorities and funding for discrete projects.

There is a clear menu of choices to resolve what is holding Auckland back. But this does not have to be just an Auckland solution. Most of the smaller developed economies we compare ourselves to have established these kinds of city-enhancing policies because it benefits the national economy.

The approaches I've outlined could also be used in Christchurch and Wellington, indeed any New Zealand region that can demonstrate it has the scale and political buy-in to implement them.

Done well, this approach could see New Zealand regions acquiring greater control of local place-making activity rather than the reduction of control that the housing intensification changes and Three Waters plan contemplate.

After two years, Auckland moves into the pandemic recovery phase with an extensive deferred to-do list.

The region will make the most effective progress delivering on this if it and the central government apply a new tool kit to the task.

• Mark Thomas is a director of the Committee for Auckland and was an elected member of part of Auckland Council for six years.