Matthew Bradbury: Cleaning up harbours could transform city

Rubbish washed up on Rangitoto Island. Photo / Supplied

Survey the landscape of Auckland today, a city of office parks, malls, big box retail, houses and gardens. All this is linked with a motorway system that is getting bigger but still can't cope.

The city is ethnically diverse and growing at such a rate that 38 per cent of New Zealanders will be living in Auckland by 2031.

Where are we going to put everyone? What is the plan for Auckland in the 21st century?

Is it to be laissez-faire? Will we simply watch Auckland sprawl from Whangarei to Tauranga? Or will we try to make Auckland denser, get more people living in apartments in the older suburbs of the city especially along major transport routes?

The objections to these two solutions are well known. The true infrastructure costs to the ratepayers of building far-flung suburbs are prohibitive. The dismay that existing residents of old suburbs show in the face of building intensification is evident, as the recent controversy over building a new apartment block in St Heliers attests to.

So what is the thing that unifies all Aucklanders, both new and old? We all agree that we have the most fantastic landscape in the world. No matter what we build, the volcanoes, harbours and coasts are extraordinary and we love and enjoy using them as our playgrounds.

Both Maori and European used our three great harbours, the Manukau, Waitemata, and Kaipara as sources of food, ways to get around and places to live, especially around the numerous bays.

Unfortunately the harbours were also used to dispose of industrial waste, the residue of timber mills and abattoirs in the 19th century, then the byproducts of 20th century industries located on the harbour edge.

Add to that the sewage and stormwater from an expanding city and our harbours were looking in pretty bad shape. Over the last 30 years we have started to clean up our water but much still needs to be done.

So the situation seems to be, we love being by the water and many of us would relish the thought of living and working by the water but many places on the harbour's edge are polluted.

Could we kill two birds with one stone? Clean up the contaminated parts of the harbour and find new places for Aucklanders to live?

Imagine relocating the old industries and cleaning up the harbours' edges, restoring native vegetation like our unique salt meadows.

Then we could clean the contaminated stormwater before it gets to the waterfront. We could gradually establish a continuous public park along the edge of our harbours with new paths, cycleways, beaches, launching ramps, and playgrounds. Then, working back from the water's edge, clean the contaminated industrial sites by planting trees to take up pollutants from the soil.

Ugly industrial sites like those along the upper Manukau could be transformed into clean, green parks, desirable locations for eco-tech industries, office parks and apartments, all connected to the harbour with a new green infrastructure.

With the development of a new waterfront population, new transport options have a chance to appear - ferries, water taxies, private launches.

The pleasure that Aucklanders used to have in moving around the water can be rediscovered, with the increased populations on the water edge making the provision of these services easy and profitable. New technology such as hovercraft can be used to negotiate Auckland's estuaries.

But water in Auckland is not just found in the harbours, Auckland has a dense network of streams. Many of these urban creeks are in poor ecological condition.

They are neglected, and weed-infested, stormwater channels.

Imagine cleaning these streams, making sure the stormwater we put into them is already clean, planting the edges with natives, making wildlife corridors, putting in good quality public recreation facilities, paths, cycle tracks, parks.

As this new green network is being established, apartments and offices can be built adjacent to the streams, making new connections between homes, work and play.

Utopian? We are already doing this.

The transformation of the Hobsonville airbase, an old military site on the upper Waitemata, into a new suburb with a ferry service is a great success.

The restoration of the Opanuku and Oratia rivers in Waitakere shows how urban streams can become a vital social amenity.

More than 30 years ago, Professor Richard Toy, from the Auckland Architecture School, wrote about how Auckland could become the water city of the South Pacific.

He wrote movingly and perceptively about how Auckland could link its urban growth to its unique geography.

With the creation of the Auckland Council, a single unitary body, we have a chance to develop a unique city, rather than building new suburbs miles from the centre of Auckland, or trying to shoehorn apartments into established neighbourhoods.

We can build a new city along our harbours, coasts and streams giving all Aucklanders a chance to experience our fantastic water landscape.

- Matthew Bradbury is a senior lecturer in the landscape architecture programme at Unitec.