Joel Cayford: Time to reclaim our relationship with the harbour

Joel Cayford

The challenge of building Auckland's port assets back into the physical, social and economic fabric of Auckland City is huge.

I agree with the approach outlined in Heart of the City's waterfront vision: that large infrastructure should be built early, and that the port operation should be confined to the east, allowing Auckland City to develop in the centre and west on surplus waterfront land.

A key feature of Sydney's waterfront design is its wide public accessibility, through many public transport systems - rail, monorail, bus, tram and ferry - and its seamless connection with downtown. Wellington's waterfront, stadium and museum share similar public access.

Public consultation by the Auckland Waterfront Liaison Group attracted many submissions highlighting the need for transport systems that provide public access to Auckland's waterfront and the amenities that could be built there.

This is the opportunity for Aucklanders to reclaim their relationship with the sea. Waterfront regeneration needs to be integrated and connected with downtown Auckland. The waterfront's location offers tranquillity and space to balance the noise and congestion of high-density city development.

The historical buildings in the Britomart precinct convey a sense of the city's trading past. These experiences need to be physically linked. Transport infrastructure is central.

Quay St would become Auckland's waterfront boulevard, with modern electric trams typical of a self-respecting European city running straight from the tank farm to the new City Arena, through to Mission Bay. Viaduct Harbour would be bridged for Auckland's iconic tram system capable of moving 7000 people an hour, freeing up carpark space on the wharves for more attractive development.

This quiet transport would displace diesel buses and noisy cars in Queen St, too, although retailer freight access for vans and trucks would be permitted at certain hours.

The waterfront tram would service all Quay St destinations, connecting to bus, train and ferry at Britomart and could loop from Wynyard Wharf to Fanshawe St, back into town, following the routes suggested in Heart of the City's map published on this page on Monday.

Unfortunately, so far, Auckland's waterfront regeneration has been fragmented and publicly disconnected. The railyards land development is so cut off from the rest of the city that it risks becoming a ghetto. The Princes Wharf apartment development could hardly be more central to the city but, sadly, poor urban design ensures its public spaces feel private - apart from a few bars and restaurants.

There is no shortage of ideas of what would attract people to the waterfront: an open-air opera house on Queens Wharf; the environmental engineering and marine studies faculties of Auckland University in competition-winning architecture on cleaned-up tank farm land. Heart of the City has other visionary ideas.

Visions are great but they have to be paid for. Inevitably there will be pressure to build more housing on surplus waterfront land because it is highly lucrative.

I accept Heart of the City's suggestion that a significant chunk of waterfront land needs to be zoned for mixed use. Carefully designed mixed development that ensures thriving street-level retailing, cafe and boutique activity, combined with the constant presence of local people coming and going from their homes above, provides the safe and economically vibrant basis for a reinvented waterfront.

But the reverse sensitivity of private desires cannot be permitted to displace popular activities and the public's enthusiasm to reclaim ownership of the waterfront.

Surplus port land and old wharves will continue to be sites of intense conflicting pressures for new developments. If these are to serve a variety of social, economic and environmental purposes, an institutional structure is needed to consider and balance the widest range of public values in the planning and management of the waterfront development.

Auckland's institutional inertia and traditional patch protection must be overcome, otherwise fragmented development will continue, opportunity will fade, and the public will be disappointed.

A waterfront development agency, formed by stakeholders and able to work with both public and private enterprise, has been central to regeneration success in Amsterdam, Barcelona and many other cities.

What Auckland is doing is not new. We can learn from other cities and our mistakes so far. In particular, we need to appreciate the importance of master planning for transport infrastructure, pedestrian access, ferry connections and linking the waterfront city deep into Auckland City.

Only then will the vast promise and potential of Auckland's urban waterfront be fulfilled.

* Joel Cayford chairs the Auckland Regional Council's transport committee. He is responding to Heart of the City's vision for a people's waterfront that people want to live by, work by, and visit.