Greg McKeown: Challenge is to give us a sense of place

COMMENT

How should Auckland grow? Big sprawl or big squeeze? Do we allow market-led laissez faire growth or is better city planning required?

Somewhere between these extremes there is a sensible growth solution for the region that will suit the geography, the economy and most of the people of Auckland. Lifestyles have changed. We live, work and play in different ways today than 30 years ago, and different housing and transport options from traditional suburban to new urban are required to match the different choices Aucklanders are making.

The past assumption that suburban living, with a backyard to bring up the children, provides the best option for community health and well-being should be and is being tested by the changing faces of the city and its people

But the issue is not only one of new urban versus suburban living. They are not mutually exclusive. As the Weekend Herald Big Squeeze feature made evident, the issue is one of better planning.

How Auckland grows is not a matter of planners telling people they have to change. People are making the changes for themselves. The issue is the need for a different planning environment and improved planning followed through with implementation to make good projects happen.

One of the big issues on the isthmus is that much of our land development occurs largely section by section, and is often left in the hands of the development industry. Developments are often haphazard and bear little relationship to their surrounds, community needs and community assets. We need to plan more on a square kilometre rather than section basis. Compared with green-field subdivisions on the outer city limits, cohesive development is much harder to achieve where we have longer-established communities and many landowner interests.

How can we do the job well? Here is a point plan for better compact living on the isthmus.

* Accept the need for good urban, architectural and community planning, for both public and private land.

* Collaborate with communities right from the start - build an ideas trap.

* Move away from effects-based planning, which is inherent in the Resource Management Act and district plans that Auckland City has used over the past decade. Effects-based planning basically allows developers to build what they want unless you prove legally that they cannot. That's a hopeless way to build a city.

* Move from a development culture to an investment culture, taking a long-term approach to value creation and financial returns. Change zoning laws and land-use regulations as required to allow for the creation and use of masterplans for new urban development.

The Auckland City Council's urban living strategies are a step in the right direction. The council can further develop its urban planning and commercial resources and partner with the private sector to help make it happen.

Masterplanning promotes integrated rather than segregated property uses, and enables communities to see the big picture - in fact, to help create it.

* Facilitate broader and more expert involvement from developers, market analysts, architects and land planners, property managers, funders and long-term investors.

Effective masterplanning requires cohesion that means developing necessary critical mass, land assembly, co-ordinated infrastructure development, timing, financial feasibility, market evaluation, timing and phasing strategies, and deeper financing arrangements.

We should applaud and support developers and professionals who are doing it well.

The present planning regime helps neither suburban nor compact new urban communities. By allowing backyard subdivisions in the former, and ill-planned eyesore developments in the latter, we could end up with the worst of both worlds, sub-urban Auckland.

Fortunately not all is lost and some areas sparkle. Changing our planning regime, making careful choices about our transport infrastructure, and taking action along the lines I have suggested will build strong communities.

To do this we must also recognise the links between land use and transport and invest in both in a more balanced way.

Traditionally suburban development on the city's outer edges has resulted in large neighbourhoods of single-family standalone homes that are a car trip away from local shopping centres and regional malls. The solution for longer trips from these neighbourhoods, particularly for work purposes, has been to build more motorways across the full width of an expanding region to move freight, provide for services, and supposedly give everyone the freedom to drive where they want when they want.

On the other hand, a more compact urban form and strong local communities can be achieved by planning for local mixed use - more homes, shops, jobs, entertainment, and civic and cultural activities planned in a local area.

The idea is not new and is how we have designed and built our villages and cities for centuries. With this approach there is a different sense of place and community within a smaller area, a greater number of local trips can be made by walking, and public transport plays a larger role for longer trips.

Transport governance and funding arrangements tend to support the Auckland sprawl.

Upper Symonds St, a once attractive retail community, is an example. The pressure of being between two motorway connections, one in Newton Gully and the second on Khyber Pass, led to the "need" to straighten out the Khyber Pass-Symonds St corner for cars. Then came the Symonds St road widening, the green bus lanes, the terraced housing that has no architectural relationship in form or scale with surrounding buildings, and finally the street-facing buildings that try to imitate the long-standing architecture on the street.



An outcome statement for transport development - "time efficient travel in cleaner quieter vehicles, along safe attractive corridors connecting and building strong communities" - puts transport in its place.

My view of building an integrated transport system is not one where all modes are duplicated everywhere, but where the most appropriate options provide for the associated land uses.

* Greg McKeown is the chairman of the Auckland City Council's transport committee.