The Auckland city centre should be a safe and exciting place to visit. Photo / Supplied
It's been a dismal two years but new campaigns, business support programmes and events are aimed at bringing people back to the downtown so it can regain its vibrancy.
With all the investment and development that has happened over the past decade, the Auckland city centre should be vibrant, thriving and safe — and one of most exciting places to visit and experience in the country.
The Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years dampened that spirit and aspiration, and now plenty of planning and work, with events and campaigns, is taking place to regain that vibrancy and attract the thousands of people daily back to the city centre.
The change in the Covid traffic light system to a more relaxed orange and the phased reopening of the international border will bring more workers, tourists, shoppers, diners and movie-goers to the city centre.
Since Covid struck in March 2020 and the lockdowns bit down, foot traffic has fallen as much as 70 per cent in the city centre — with up to 140,000 people working from home for most of that time, as well as the absence of tourists including cruise ship passengers and international students.
Heart of the City's foot traffic count was 2.2 million or 71,000 a day in March this year compared with 6.9m or 222,580 a day in March 2019. But numbers are starting to creep up — foot traffic hit 98,000 on one day late last month – as more workers and international students return to the office and universities, and tourists from Australia visit the downtown attractions.
More than 38,000 people are now living in the city, with residents decreasing 3.4 per cent last year, according to Infometrics statistics. It was estimated that the city centre population would reach nearly 50,000 in 2033 and nearly 60,000 in 2043. That will depend on how the recovery pans out.
Over the past two years a net 213 businesses (taking into account new arrivals) have closed and at December last year there were 15 per cent fewer businesses in the city centre than in December 2019.
The overall retail vacancy rate has climbed from 1.4 per cent in the December 2019 quarter to 12.6 per cent in December last year — the highest level since June 2013. And it's estimated the city centre has lost $1.2 billion of spending over the two years of the pandemic.
Crime has increased and more people are living on the street. Police statistics reveal 1971 assaults, 148 aggravated robberies and 1666 thefts from stores in the 12 months to March. This is about 30 per cent higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Like all city and town centres, Auckland needs a safe, secure and welcoming environment.
Police Inspector Grae Anderson, acting area commander for Auckland City, says the demographics of the downtown changed with the exodus of international students because of Covid, leaving behind vacant tenancies.
There was an influx of emergency housing leading to "a slight escalation" of family harm incidents. There were a number of people bailed to the cheaper accommodation in the city centre.
"What is quite alarming is that 501 gang members deported from Australia have taken up the vacant residences in the city centre," says Anderson. "They are employing degrees of violence that we have never seen before — and we've had gangs in New Zealand for a long time.
"We won't tolerate that level of violence and the police had added 700 positions to deal with organised crime. Rest assured it is a very good investment."
Anderson says "we have been present in the city centre doing the hard yards but at the same time a number of teams were assigned to the managed isolation and quarantine facilities and borders.
"We are getting these teams back on the beat doing their core function of preventing crime. They will be more visible in police vehicles and on foot."
Anderson disputes the call and need for the return of a downtown police station. "This provides a false sense of security. You get a better bang for your buck by having more boots on the ground.
"There will be teams on the street engaging with the public and going along High St, Fort St, K Rd and other parts checking on the rough sleepers. Being homeless is not a crime, they are not necessarily dealing in drugs, and they are the most vulnerable. We as police speak with them, make referrals and engage them with social agencies, and help get them on track. It works out for some but it's not an easy fix."
Anderson says the city centre is the jewel in the crown and "we need to get the heart back into it. I don't think it's just crime holding back people visiting the city centre. People have found it convenient to work from home. But if we get people back in the city centre in droves feeling confident, they will become the eyes of the community and report incidents to the police.
"We have seen a spike in violence — the causes often go back to alcohol — and if we can adopt a state of calm and have cool heads, then we will be in a far better place," he says.
The recovery plan
Economic development agency Auckland Unlimited and the Heart of the City organisation are busy implementing the recovery plan for the city centre.
Tania Loveridge, head of advocacy and engagement with Heart of the City, says the city centre has been at the epicentre of the pandemic. "The customer taps were suddenly turned off in March 2020 and they are now slowly being turned on. Our key customers of office workers and students are coming back.
"We know it's not going to be an easy road but we are putting on lots of events for people to be involved with. We want to create a dynamic, safe and fun city environment and reconnect Aucklanders over the next three months."
The new City of Colour Festival and Cheap and Cheerful campaign will run through May, followed by the Matariki Festival in June/July, and Restaurant Month in August with more than 100 of the city's finest eateries participating and offering special menus.
The City of Colour, a fresh initiative in partnership with Auckland Council and other city centre stakeholders, will showcase more than 50 vibrant art and lighting installations in the downtown area including K Rd.
Loveridge says City of Colour will form an immersive trail to encourage people to come back and rediscover the city centre, at all times of the day and night. "We are making use of the vacant shops with pop-up art works."
Cheap and Cheerful highlights the diverse array of affordable eating options in the city centre, with two price points of $15 and $30. The Elemental AKL Festival, organised by Auckland Unlimited and highlighting our diverse and ethnic offering of cuisine, music and arts, takes place across Auckland from July 14-31.
Heart of the City is running two digital campaigns: The City is Happening Again, and It's Time to Make a Move — the latter directed towards workers moving back to their offices and enjoying barista-made coffees, relaxing lunches and team contact.
Heart of the City also operated the Outdoor Dining Grants scheme, supported by Auckland Council, for bars, cafes and restaurants to obtain funding of up to $1500 and expand or improve their dining environment including adding heaters.
Some private operators offer half-priced parking, as well as the government-initiated half-priced public transport fares.
"It's a strong offer to woo people back to the city centre," says Loveridge. "The city centre is a story of recovery and on-going investment."
Reactivating Tāmaki Makaurau
Auckland Unlimited is managing the $25.5m Reactivating Tāmaki Makaurau and the $60m Business Support programmes, both funded by government.
Reactivating Tāmaki Makaurau is designed to revive economic, social and cultural activities including handing out vouchers for people to explore the different attractions.
The voucher programme, finishing at the end of June and already injecting more than $9m into the Auckland economy, is supported by 100 tourism businesses and so far has attracted more than 330,000 Aucklanders.
"Over the past two years we've had several new openings such as Wētā Workshop, All Blacks Experience and a Māori tourism experience in the Tikapa Moana Whale and Dolphin Cruise by the Explore Group," says Pam Ford, director investment and industry at Auckland Unlimited.
Over the past two years, hotels such as Britomart, Park Hyatt, Sudima, QT and Ohtel, and outstanding retailers and restaurants have opened in Commercial Bay, Aotea Precinct and Wynyard Quarter, says Ford.
"The city centre with world-class visitor offerings is a jewel wanting to sparkle again.
"It has played an important economic, business and social role — the city centre is home to 70 of the 100 multi-nationals in the country — and it will continue to be critical at both a regional and national level," she says.
Since December more than 9200 small and medium-sized businesses have received support, worth $42m under the Activate Tāmaki Makaurau programme which connects them with service providers.
The businesses, many of them financially stressed, receive planning and marketing advice, participate in webinars, have access to website resources and receive support for health and wellbeing.
Ford says the programme is an opportunity to build more resilient businesses by supporting them to work through tough decisions, seize opportunities and adapt where necessary to thrive.
Brett O'Riley, EMA chief executive, says businesses are operating in a changed environment and the business support programme helps them re-tool and adapt.
"A lot of businesses have now normalised their way of operating that they would not have contemplated in the past. They will continue to work flexibly; some are even talking about four-day working weeks.
"Some staff like working from home and others like the face-to-face contact and function better in the team environment. There is a job to do to incentivise people to come into the city centre.
"It's like going back to the future," says O'Riley, former chief executive of Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (now Auckland Unlimited). "In 2012, Aucklanders didn't come into the city centre. We changed that with major events and activities, and having festivals such as Diwali and Lantern in the city.
"The good news is that we now know how to activate the city centre — Aucklanders like events and will turn up to watch, and the activities can be marketed to rest of New Zealand and overseas visitors."
Ford says everyone is surprised how hard and devastating it's been for the city centre over the past two years.
"But going into summer the concerts are coming and the cruise ships are coming. We can stage events around the cruise days and create a real atmosphere.
"We are keen to support local businesses and there's no shortage of great ideas," she says.
No doubt, the city centre will again be buzzing by the end of the year, and visitors and workers will again be filling the downtown streets and laneways.
Mayor's take on crime problems
"I went out on a reasonably rare occasion to dinner at the Viaduct Basin and walked up Queen St at midnight a few weeks ago, and it was a pretty lonely place.
You didn't feel very safe, because there weren't people around if something happened.
The people who used to be around and occupying the city centre, people on working holidays who were staying at backpackers, international students staying at hostels, international tourists staying at all the hotels, they are not there.
Replacing those people, you've had people with pronounced social problems. So the houses that used to be used for the students might be used for people that have got drug, alcohol addiction problems, mental health problems.
And then on top of that, you've got the 501s from Australia, bringing in their gang connections.
So what have we done? We've pushed really hard with central government. We have got our policing numbers up and I've been pleased with the increase in police numbers.
But then Covid came along, and police were dissipated to MIQ facilities. Recently, they've been down in Wellington, dealing with the protests down there.
The police, like everybody else, catch Covid, their families catch Covid and they're household contacts.
I was talking to our area commander, at one stage we were in danger of having 50 per cent of our police force doing other things or out of circulation.
Out on patrol at 1am in the city centre, I was told by a police officer that one of the big problems comes at about 3am when the bars start to empty people and people come out tanked up and spoiling for a fight.
Is this a new problem? No. Am I happy about some of the liquor outlets still being open and supplying grog at 10pm when people have run out of their supply and are tanking up from the off licence? No. Are we trying to do something about that? Yes. If the supermarket's didn't lock us into seven years of appeals to stop us implementing our local alcohol policy, we've just put a submission and the Government saying, you've got to change that, we need tighter control over alcohol, because that is fuelling some of the problem.
Firearms are another problem. I'm a firearms owner, I can tell you all the gaps and the loopholes that exist. I could go out and buy a score of high calibre weapons, and then I can sell them to the gang members, and there would be no record of what I've done. I'm all in favour of tighter controls on firearms. All it takes is one person that has a firearms license to buy the guns that can — albeit illegally — but with no record, pass the weapons on.
There has been 800 arrested under Operation Tauwhiro with 1000 firearms confiscated, $5 million worth of cash confiscated.
There are good things that are happening. But there is still a serious problem there.
I'm working with the local police, I meet regularly with the area commanders, I go out quite regularly on patrols with the cops late at night. So I'm aware of what's happening on the ground. I convey my concerns to Ministers, I've got my officials at council working with social agencies, working with the University, working with government departments to say: what are the things that we next need to do? We are part of working together to find those solutions. But for all the reasons that I mentioned before, there have been aggravating factors that have come in that have probably affected the city centre more than almost anywhere else."
Activating Tāmaki Makaurau
Major events planned to bring people back to the city centre are:
• City of Colour Festival, May 6-22
• Cheap and Cheerful dining campaign, throughout May
• Matariki Festival, June 21-July 16
• Elemental AKL Festival, July 14 to 31 (also in other parts of Auckland)
• Restaurant Month, throughout August
• Top 10 destinations in the voucher attractions programme: Fullers 360, Butterfly Creek, Sky Tower, Sealife Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium, ZaberriWorld in Riverhead, Wētā Workshop, Paradice Entertainment, Auckland Zoo, Rainbow's End, and Sculptureum at Matakana.
OPINION: Tensions are likely to become more evident next year.