How to make Auckland great again
New Zealand needs to design a Kiwi cities plan for urban life in The Land of The Long White Cloud
It has been a rough year for Auckland in the international liveable cities’ beauty parade. In August, it dropped out of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most liveable cities’ top 10 for the first time since 2010.
For the second year in a row, Auckland (in 12th spot) was beaten again by Wellington which topped the Deutsche Bank quality of life index, and it dropped back one place to 23rd on the Monocole list.
It held on to third in the Mercer survey, but was forced to share it with Munich which has been steadily climbing the rankings.
Auckland’s development challenges seem to have amplified this year. The council has been taken to task by the Environment Court for not understanding its own density plan, and an independent report criticised its poor building consents forecasting, cumbersome systems and limited capacity to improve.
Despite the Waterview tunnel, an AA report showed traffic congestion back to pre-tunnel levels, and, in the ASB’s latest Regional Economic Scoreboard, the area that produces 38 per cent of the country’s GDP sits at only sixth in economic performance.
Eight years ago this month Aucklanders were electing their first unified council so it is reasonable to ask, are these problems a symptom of growth, or is the country’s largest region not growing the right way?
How are the cities beating Auckland in the liveable city rankings growing better?
Copenhagen and Vienna appear on all four main ranking lists. Melbourne and Zurich appear three times, and comparable Canadian and German cities are also well placed.
Copenhagen benefited from Denmark’s planning law reform in 2006. This gave local governments almost full local planning control but also provided direction on Copenhagen’s development and on urban policy planning within the national planning law. The results include some of the best city infrastructure on the planet and the World Bank has used Copenhagen as a planning case study.
In Vienna, Austria’s unique collaborative planning arrangements have been highlighted by the OECD. All three levels of government agree on the Austrian Spatial Development Concept, their key national development plan. The most recent one was jointly signed by the chancellor, a state governor and two representatives of Austrian cities, towns and communities. This has contributed to Vienna’s comprehensive public transport system, effective social housing, and to it being 50 per cent forested.
Plan Melbourne is the multi-faceted planning strategy run by the Victorian state government for its largest city. The benefits include high-quality civic infrastructure, multiple public transport options, and two universities in the global top 100. The Australian government also prioritises urban development both with its Cabinet portfolios for Urban Infrastructure, Cities and Decentralisation, and with its City Deal approach: a federal, state, city economic investment arrangement.
Three different cities and three different planning approaches, but all of which reflect the importance their largest cities have in their overall national planning framework.
New Zealand does little of this. Its 28-year-old Resource Management Act has no urban planning section, despite being amended 17 times and both the former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Productivity Commission recommending this.
The new Ministry for Housing and Urban Development looks unlikely to address this as it simply combines six functions from other government departments, all but one of which are housing.
The Government’s Productivity Commission review into local government funding and financing is also a missed opportunity because the answers to funding city development have already been provided in the commission’s four earlier reports on local government and housing issues.
At the heart of Auckland and New Zealand’s urban planning conundrum is the unresolved central-regional-local government tension as to who does what and who pays.
We can look at what other cities do, or we could just implement what a raft of New Zealand studies tell us.
For example, update the RMA with an urban and an Auckland planning approach (as Denmark has done). Ease foreign investment for housing development (as in Austria). Let local councils capture the value uplift of development and apportion a fair charge to the owner (Australia). Move regional councils to a land-tax basis (Denmark). Give councils the power to auction development rights to encourage density, and embrace smart technology planning for cities (Vienna). Remove restrictions on the use of public-private partnerships for appropriate local government projects (Australia) and allow Crown land to be rated (Canada).
The New Zealand Government and the Auckland Council are swamped with legacy urban delivery issues in housing, transport and water. Meanwhile our global city peers, having dealt with urban planning sometimes decades ago, are focusing on the future.
As one of the smartest, small countries on Earth New Zealand needs to fashion a new Kiwi cities plan that defines a new global ranking for urban life in The Land of The Long White Cloud.