Waterfront refresh gets sign off
An industrial wasteland on Auckland’s CBD waterfront will be transformed into a Sydney-style public park under a new council vision.
On Tuesday councillors voted to bring Auckland city into the future by unlocking its public transport potential, improving cycling and walking flows and making the waterfront more accessible.
The decision came as Auckland Council updated its two core spatial plans, a 20-year plan for the city centre and a 30-year plan for the waterfront.
The update focused on a series of projects for downtown, midtown, central wharves and Wynyard Quarter.
A key part of the plan includes demolishing silos and industrial facilities on Brigham St in Wynyard Quarter and turning it into a public park and residential property.
Planning committee chairman Chris Darby said the update acknowledged Auckland had move from a port city to a city that respected its harbour’s edge.
A number of other changes for the city were outlined.
Wellesley St would become the predominant east to west bus link.
New bus facilities would be built in Albert St, Quay St East and alongside a new university bus station in Grafton Gully.
These would remove the need for buses in lower Queen St and central Quay St enabling them to become pedestrian-focused spaces.
This would make it easier to close the area off for major events such as the America’s Cup and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooper- ation (APEC) conference of world leaders, both in 2021.
It also approved the Victoria St Linear Park, a proposed walkway that would join Victoria Park and Albert Park, turning Victoria St into a leafy walkway of plazas and green spaces for pedestrians.
The park had been in jeopardy when Auckland Transport (AT) considered using Victoria St as a bus route.
On the waterfront public parking would be removed from the eastern Viaduct and a replacement Wynyard Crossing bridge for walking and cycling would be built to enable growing numbers of pedestrians and cyclists to use the waterfront corridor.
Council would explore funding as it worked through its 10-year budget, which will be released for consultation in early 2018.