The Cleveland Villas case, with others in the inner city, raises issues worthy of further exploration.
The concept of mixed use seems, at face value, desirable. It enables people to live close to their work and the city, and have ease of access to other activities.
Concerns about the need to contain urban sprawl, reduce traffic congestion and promote more sustainable cities have led to regional and local policies that encourage urban intensification as a major strategy for the Auckland region.
But mixing business and residential uses requires some careful forethought when reconciling the interests of developers and residents in the framing of rules.
Clearly, in the process of developing the district plan, the environmental effects for future residents in zones where commercial developments could also be established were not given sufficient consideration.
This seems ironic considering the effects-based planning system set up by the Resource Management Act.
The act is meant to ensure that council plans establish bottom lines of values and rights for determining acceptable environmental effects.
In this Auckland case, as well as some others, the environmental thresholds are not high enough to sufficiently protect the rights of residents.
To what extent should we expect developers to be mindful of the wider public interest, and particularly those of likely future neighbours, when the rules in the district plan are deficient?
They have already made investment decisions on the basis of what they are allowed to do on a site as of right. That said, in the long term everyone, including developers, will suffer if developments create a reduced quality of living for residents and neighbours.
In the end, a myopic view from developers will only engender further conflict.
Much can be done with innovative architectural design to avoid some of these problems. But this will not overcome the problem of remedying the plan.
The case of the Cleveland Villas is representative of a wider phenomenon in Auckland. We are seeing rapidly changing lifestyles as a wider choice of housing types, such as apartments and terraced villas, are available alongside traditional standalone houses.
People wish to spend less time maintaining their homes and gardens but they want similar levels of protection to their suburban neighbours. Issues such as access to sufficient sunlight and privacy become critical when you are living much closer to your neighbour than you would in the suburbs.
However, at the same time, our experience of living in medium- and higher-density housing is not nearly as well developed as in other countries. Design guidelines are only now being introduced by several Auckland councils to complement district plan policies and rules.
But if there continues to be too much uncertainty for residents and bad consequences, the urban intensification policies promoted by Auckland councils could well come under major challenge and threaten to jeopardise the 50-year regional growth strategy.
The difficulty facing the Auckland City Council is that the district plan represents agreed public policy, which has gone through a significant process of public review. Several plan changes are being proposed to remedy inadequacies, but these changes will be strongly contested by parties with much at stake.
So it could take some time for these changes to go through the process of public submissions, hearings, council decisions and, possibly, the Environment Court. In the meantime, developments can proceed under the present rules.
More fundamentally, these cases call into question the adequacy of the current effects-based planning system to manage and enhance the quality of the built environment.
The risks of a light-handed approach are considerable. Rules can sometimes be blunt instruments for achieving particular standards and can lead to poor results, despite the best intentions of councils. It is important to enable some flexibility in the way sites can be developed.
There has to be sufficient discretion in the planning system to negotiate solutions in these situations, alongside a regulatory framework.
Just as importantly, while undoubtedly one goal is to achieve higher levels of residential density, this case suggests there needs to be a more coherent and stronger vision for improving and enhancing the quality of the inner-city environment.
What is needed is a collaborative approach agreed upon by all stakeholders to resolve these issues. We need to shift from a mandate of competing values to one of co-operative mutual benefit.
It is too important to leave the quality of inner-city Auckland's built environment to protracted debates through the courts. If, on the other hand, negotiation and reason do not prevail, the legal process is the only avenue at hand to resolve these issues.
The Auckland of 2052 will look different from now. We owe it to present and future generations to pay much closer attention to our quality of urban life and that of the built environment.
* Professor Jenny Dixon heads the department of planning at the University of Auckland.
Development next door means a room with no view
