Editorial: City doesn't need to buy this land

Not much happens in Auckland without some complication caused by the city's Byzantine local government. The exciting Tank Farm redevelopment is no exception.

The possibility of a truly striking redevelopment of the Western Reclamation has captured the minds of all public bodies involved, including the nominal owner of the site, Ports of Auckland, which is now wholly owned by the Auckland Regional Council. The land use authority for the area is the Auckland City Council which will also be obliged to provide drains and other services to more intensive developments there.

Happily, all three bodies seem to agree that the development should be a mixture of residential and marine uses with generous public access throughout. And all agree that ample provision should be made at the end of the reclamation for an "iconic" civic building commanding the Waitemata.

With so much harmony, it ought not matter that decisions have to be co-ordinated among three public bodies, or four when you add the ARC's portfolio managers, Auckland Regional Holdings, which are supposed to keep assets such as the port company at arms length from political predation. Auckland Regional Holdings, too, believes that ample public access to the property will help the port company to extract the maximum value from it.

Problems have arisen only because the Auckland City Council is not content to be the land use regulator of the development, it wants to buy into it. Mayor Dick Hubbard says his council needs to take a stake in the development in order to have a greater say in its "public-good" elements than it could have through zoning powers and resource management consents, which is hard to understand.

Land use powers seem sufficient for reserving public spaces and access. The real reason for the council's interest is probably the likely commercial returns from commercial and light industrial leases.

The Weekend Herald reported that the stake is likely to cost city ratepayers as much as $350 million. The payment to the port company would be justified if the city was demanding a great deal more public space than the port and its regional overseers wanted to provide, but they have not reached that point of disagreement. The port company has revised its development proposals several times to meet the clear wish for more open space.

While the city council endorses that call, it also recognises the need to integrate public space with marine industry and other commercial life if the area is to attract good numbers of people.

The city, the port and the regional council are so much in harmony on the principles, if not the detail of the development that the ARC chairman, Mike Lee, questions the need for the city to buy in. He is right. His council, as ultimate overlord of the port, is in a position to impose the public interest on its designs and appears to be as keen as the city council to ensure the area becomes a popular public place. And the ARC could do that at no direct cost to Auckland ratepayers. It would simply allow its holding company to lower the expected return from the port on the redevelopment of the Tank Farm site.

Not only is a city council stake unnecessary but it would also arouse resentment of the need to charge city ratepayers for land that is already public property. If the city wants a share of the commercial returns it has to make the downpayment.

But the city's ambitions for a joint venture are causing complications for the management of the project. The four public bodies are busy now debating the right "governance structure" for the project. While this continues, planning cannot make much progress. And chances are the discussion will create yet another public body, the last thing Auckland needs.