Greg McKeown: We need a waterfront to make citizens proud

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Opinion

There's a golden opportunity on our waterfront but it's not building a gigantic container port. Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL) managing director Jens Madsen is to be thanked for his recent Herald article because it will heighten the debate about how our waterfront should be developed. Aucklanders will be gravely concerned about his plans.

What the port company describes as its ultimate layout doubles the size of the current container port, making it over 50 per cent larger than the Auckland Domain. It brings huge S-class container ships and bigger cranes right into the heart of the CBD, opposite the new Britomart developments.

The POAL Development Plan (Plan A) shows the rude scale of the proposed reclamations that will further industrialise the city waterfront and leave our CBD roads clogged with container trucks for decades.

The alternative City Waterfront Development Plan (Plan B), while still accommodating a port focused primarily on imports, provides the tremendous opportunity of an economic and urban transformation for Auckland that will help shape and brand the city for years to come.

Building convention and exhibition facilities, a new cruise ship terminal and supporting tourism infrastructure on Bledisloe will bookend a broader, vibrant and more people-friendly waterfront.

The vital economic contribution of imports is provided not by what the port company does but what is inside the containers it helps to move. The Port of Tauranga is currently able to match Auckland head-to-head on import container pricing, and is a more profitable company to boot.

Besides imports, hubbed containers are dropped off at the Auckland port by large ships and are redistributed by coastal ships around the country. Hubbed containers make no significant contribution to the Auckland economy but they take up valuable port space.

As the ships get bigger, hubbed containers will take up more space and we'll need more reclamation. Add to that Ports of Auckland will start bidding for more and more of the export container business out of the Waikato and Bay of Plenty, exports that currently leave New Zealand via Tauranga.

Madsen argues that "factoring in cost, efficiency and the environment, Ports of Auckland is the logical hub for Auckland's - and much of New Zealand's - cargo". But is it logical that we export dairy products through Auckland? Hub containers when space is scarce? Stifle the development of a better waterfront? Not on your nelly.

Ports of Auckland profits have been heading south for longer than the economic recession and its balance sheet is weak.

Investing more in the Tauranga port should not be regarded as a loss for Auckland. There is a greater upside. Developing a super import/export/hubbing port in Tauranga and a complementary import port in Auckland is the proverbial double-whammy. It provides for container trade growth plus the opportunity to develop Auckland's tourism economy and a better urban environment.

The chairman of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee, by supporting the construction of a brand spanking new cruise terminal on Queens Wharf, and by opposing any alternative uses of Bledisloe, seems to be nailing his flag to the port's huge reclamation plans.

He should be more open if that is the case. Does he support his subsidiary company's massive reclamation? Would he support an alternative which allows for trade growth and builds a better city?

Auckland City's suggestion of remodelling Shed 10 on Queens Wharf offers the advantage of providing additional cruise ship capacity in the short term while leaving open the option to construct a purpose-built cruise ship terminal on Bledisloe later.

We're making governance changes in Auckland to improve city leadership and develop better long-term plans for Auckland. Most important, we want better-built outcomes to match our fantastic natural landscapes.

Yet under our noses we have yet another compromise unfolding. The Government has set the ball rolling by announcing party central on Queens Wharf, but New Zealanders can rightly expect more for Auckland's waterfront than that.

Before we start redeveloping Queens Wharf let's get a straight answer from our elected leaders. Where do they stand on the longer-term issues of North Island port capacity growth and the development of Auckland's CBD waterfront?

We must start improving the built environment of our city, and with bolder brushstrokes.

What sort of CBD waterfront will make Aucklanders more proud of the city they live in?

* Greg McKeown is a previous Auckland City councillor and member of the regional land transport committee.