Govt undermines Auckland
Obstruction and interference derail planning processes on transport and housing.
Thursday was the perfect day for the Government to demonstrate it was finally going to help Auckland fulfil its potential as a city.
It was the day construction of the City Rail Link began. The long and tortuous road to lifting the first shovel of soil had showed the best and worst of local and central government.
The best – Auckland Council planned long-term and acted practically and persuasively in the short-term. The worst – central government denied the facts, dismissing the demand even though train patronage has doubled to 16 million trips a year since it came to office in 2008. It dragged its feet from beginning to end.
As a result the Government has substantially delayed improvements in public transport that will help relieve road congestion.
Had the Government learned anything from that miserable slog? If so, could it apply the lessons to the housing crisis and other big growth issues?
The test would be the Government’s National Policy Statement (NPS) on Urban Development Capacity. This is the ultimate, most powerful policy instrument it can use to help the Resource Management Act and other legislation deal with the very many, complex and interdependent factors in the city’s fast growth.
But with the NPS the Government has comprehensively failed the test. Clearly it has learnt nothing about its own inability to think and act strategically or from Auckland’s travails.
The draft NPS is all about land supply; and it heaps another hurdle on the council, requiring it to ensure the supply of residential land outpaces demand.
Yet the Government is giving the council no help to achieve the goal. What’s needed are big improvements in the planning process to increase housing density and availability of land; and in funding of infrastructure to serve new developments.
In contrast, Labour is offering a very thoughtful, co-ordinated and practical suite of policies which would go a long way to solving those problems.
Moreover, the draft NPS also requires the council to ‘‘recognise the national significance of ensuring sufficient land is available over local interests’’.
But the Government denies the council any help in achieving that too. No surprise. The vested interests blocking progress – Nimbys and speculators – are more likely to vote National than for other parties.
Worse, the Government is allowing only six weeks for submissions on the draft so it can implement the final NPS by October. This is far too fast for such a powerful, far-reaching policy instrument.
The sudden, sharp focus on the NPS also runs the big risk of destabilising the existing planning process. The Government set this running in 2010 by creating Auckland Council, requiring it to produce a 30-year plan for growth and a unitary plan to deliver the first 10 years of it.
The Government also pushed through a fast-track unitary plan process. The Independent Hearings Panel tasked with reviewing the plan and recommending a final version to the council has sat for 249 days and received 10,500 pieces of evidence. The council has to make its final decisions on the plan and notify the public by August 19.
The Government interfered in unhelpful ways all the way through the process, particularly with its single-issue, unco-ordinated measures such as Special Housing Areas and its HomeStart grants.
Prime Minister John Key keeps upping the pressure on Auckland while denying it the tools it needs.
He said recently: ‘‘If the Unitary Plan doesn’t meet the needs of Auckland, the National Policy Statement – because of the way it works – will drive it, mark my words.’’ He has also hinted at replacing the council with unelected commissioners.
With this fatally flawed NPS, the Government is once again setting up Auckland, council and citizens, for failure.
The vested interests blocking progress are more likely to vote National.