An image of the stadium proposed for a new precinct at Te Tōangaroa, or Quay Park, which would also feature hotels, commercial, retail and residential spaces.
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.
OPINION
“And none of them will be built!” Or so Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said on Thursday, chatting during a break in the day-long meeting of the Auckland Council. “They” were the four proposals to build a new stadium in the city.
He wasn’t speaking authoritatively, but nor was he entirely joking. It’s still far from clear whether any stadium plan is feasible. Partly that’s because of funding issues, but there are other big problems too.
The meeting ran from 10am until 7.30pm. They didn’t start on the stadium debate until after 6pm, and they did it in confidence, after a vote to discuss the item in open session was lost 13-7.
And now they have decided. The proponents of two of the proposals are being invited to deliver feasibility studies, within six months, at their own expense. These will then be assessed against the status quo, the ongoing feasibility of which will be assessed by the council itself.
One of the still-surviving plans is for a bigger, better Eden Park, with a retractable roof and a second, smaller ground to be built next to the main one.
The other involves a complete new entertainment, commercial and residential precinct, with a stadium as its centrepiece, in the area known as Te Tōangaroa, or Quay Park. This is the eastern end of the city’s waterfront, roughly between Spark Arena and the Strand in lower Parnell.
The proponents of Wynyard Point and the “sunken stadium” next to Bledisloe Wharf are now being told the council “does not wish to consider” them further.
There’s really only one good thing about all this: the decision on Thursday doesn’t have to stick. Whatever happens next, we are still far from a green light for any new stadium on any site.
But there are several bad things.
The first is that the preferred bidders will do their own feasibility studies. That makes no sense. Does anyone think there’s a chance either of them will decide they’re not feasible?
And a proper feasibility study is likely to cost about $1 million. Does Te Tōangaroa have that kind of money? Does Eden Park? It lost $21 million last year.
The second problem is that despite this being a matter of enormous public interest, the entire process has been conducted behind closed doors.
It’s ridiculous. Each proposal has its fans and there are many people who don’t want one at all. But the public has not been privy to any of the analysis done by the council and its working group. Nor have we heard what councillors – our elected representatives – have to say.
The council based its decision on Thursday on the report of an independent assessment by consultants Stanton Reid, but a version of that report was not released until yesterday morning.
It’s a PowerPoint presentation. The company did not make any recommendations and says it did not “audit” the information provided by any of the proposals.
The secrecy also means the council has no idea what the public thinks. Is there a social licence for a new stadium? Is there a frontrunner in the public mind? Who would know?
A new stadium is a massive proposal for the city. The debate has been held in secret because of “commercially sensitive” information, but so what?
What the council should do now is publish all four proposals, minus that “sensitive” information, and why not set them up in a venue downtown so we can all go and have a good look. And most of all, it should encourage a public debate.
And because much of that debate will focus on the waterfront, the site of three of the four proposals, it should include other ideas for big new public buildings in the area. Why are we talking about a stadium, but not a new museum or cultural centre?
Only after we’ve seen what’s on the table should council decide how to progress.
Next up, the council’s evaluation criteria seem badly flawed.
In the way of these things, everything was weighted. Funding/finance accounted for 35 per cent and site issues 20 per cent. Environmental issues, precinct development, deliverability and stadium requirements weighed in at 10 per cent each, and the credibility of the proponent was 5 per cent. There was also a pass-fail for “ethical and social sustainability”.
It’s true funding is critical. Neither Auckland Council nor the Government are interested in financing a new stadium, so we need to know where the money will come from.
But is it decisive at this stage? The funding plans attached to each proposal don’t necessarily have to remain attached to them. If the sunken stadium, for example, has backers who think they can make money from the project, those backers might also think the same about one or more of the others.
Surprisingly, the council’s criteria don’t include design. Perhaps they think it’s not important yet, because initial designs can be improved.
But if we want a building that will do great things for Auckland, it will have to look fabulous. Concept renders provide a very real guide to whether the proponents understand the importance of good design.
The views of mana whenua would ordinarily be important, but Ngarimu Blair told me in March that Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei “aren’t wasting any of our time on discussing concept plans and pretty pictures with anyone unless there is confirmed financing and funding. After which we will then have proper commercial negotiations.”
But there is one really important thing at this stage. Site.
That includes environmental impact and what the building will do for the economic and social life of the city. It should be the centrepiece of a year-round, night-and-day entertainment precinct where no one ever complains about the noise or having too many people on the streets, because the whole point is to attract crowds.
It also includes the design. We’re not going to get a Sydney Opera House, but there’s no reason we can’t have a building that looks magnificent and helps make the city world famous.
For economic, social and visual impact reasons, a new stadium will need to be on the waterfront. It’s a great place for crowds and the only place to build an enormous, magnificent public building that can be admired from everywhere.
Because of all this, you’d think Eden Park would have been vetoed off the shortlist. Hiding in the suburbs doesn’t cut it. But somehow it remains.
And that brings us to perhaps the biggest site issue of all: transport.
Internationally, there are two guiding principles of stadium transport planning. One is that as many people as possible should use public transport. The second is that everyone who can should have to walk in and walk out, for about a kilometre.
That’s about the length of the concourse joining Wellington’s Sky Stadium to the railway station. The crowd disperses, without bottlenecks.
Eden Park has a train station, but it’s too close. Auckland Transport clears its passengers as fast as it can, but when 50,000 people leave that stadium, Sandringham Rd gets completely clogged up, with buses and taxis stuck right in the middle of it.
Te Tōangaroa and Wynyard Point are both about 1.5km from the Britomart Railway Station. A bit far but not too bad. Wynyard is also a good distance from what could become a bigger bus centre on Fanshawe St.
Te Tōangaroa promises a whole precinct of entertainment, hotels, commercial and residential life. Wynyard also has the potential to grow a big entertainment precinct.
There are two other factors that seem relevant at this point.
One is that because Te Tōangaroa is so big, it could create 20 years of construction disruption at the point where Tāmaki Drive meets the city. Remember the fuss about the road cones on Quay St when they rebuilt the seawall? Imagine an exponentially bigger version of that.
The other factor is the reason Wynyard Point was ruled out, as explained by Councillor Shane Henderson, who chaired the working group looking at all this.
He broke secrecy last week to say that Wynyard Point had “been through a long community consultation process, in terms of a public park. It’s scheduled to see a lot of investment down there and it has been long promised to the residents and Aucklanders generally. So we have to keep our promises.”
For the record, the council agency Eke Panuku, which is in charge of developing all of Wynyard Quarter, has a plan to create a park on the windy northern end of Wynyard Point, with most of the land being developed like the rest of the precinct. That is, with upmarket apartment blocks and commercial buildings that do very little for the nightlife.
The “consultation” took place just before Christmas, lasted three weeks and seems to have generated just 123 responses. And the only option consulted on was Eke Panuku’s plan.
“Keeping promises” like that is surely far less important than getting the best outcome for the city.
There’s an underlying issue. I’ve watched for years as inspired, creative, highly skilled Aucklanders present the council with their good ideas for the city. Almost the only civic plans that are realised in Auckland come from within the council itself.
Congratulations to Te Tōangaroa Consortium for breaking this pattern. But honestly, the answer to Aucklanders with bright ideas should not be, “Sorry, we’ve got our own ideas.”
If the council doesn’t think Wynyard Point (or the Bledisloe proposal) is good enough, let’s hear some genuinely good reasons, in public, and let’s get the debate going.
As it is, with jokes about nothing happening anyway, the process feels a little like it’s being conducted in bad faith.
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