The $7 billion question

ated it. And it would still score highly in terms of emissions and in terms of the potential for mode shift. But it will only achieve the mode shift if you have the people in the places that rail serves.

Providing it when you haven’t got people out east that would catch the train. It just makes no sense.

But a ferry could happen sooner?

We hope so, there is still more business casing to be done, but the early indications are looking like it should be viable to run a ferry from the Mount to the CBD.

The plan talks about average densities of 30 dwellings per hectare in greenfield areas and more along major public transport routes. What does that look like?

A lot more three-storey buildings, a lot more terraced housing kind of developments. It’s not full-blown apartment blocks.

In our vision of the future, there’s a lot more green space as well accessible to those buildings. So it’s not cheek-by-jowl, necessarily.

It’s a well planned urban environment that has green space, has a lot more people living in those threestorey buildings multiplexes, duplexes, townhouse developments, all that kind of thing.

Is it the end of the 500sq m section with a white picket fence?

No, it’s not. The key thing is to give people a choice that they can afford. We’re still saying there is going to be greenfield development, we’re quite careful to say an average of 30 dwellings per hectare across those greenfield areas.

That means you will still have some areas with your picket fence and your 400-500sq m section that used to be a quarter-acre section. It also means that’s not the only choice available.

We’ll be able to choose a house that meets our needs.

The cost of this programme is estimated at $7 billion — what does that number mean?

For that 50-year vision, the 2070 vision — which is your 400,000 population — we’re saying the costs will be in that $6-8 billion range, with that implementation phased out over time.

That’s a really high-level estimate. We haven’t done any site investigation. There will be overs and unders on every project that we’ve identified.

Growing a city is going to be expensive whatever way you choose to grow up. The capital projects to create lots and lots of capacity aren’t the answer — modelling shows us that really clearly, as well as the expense of building them.

But there isn’t a free lunch. Public transport operational expenditure still costs money, the public is still going to have to continue to subsidise transport via public transport or road building.

Realistically, we aren’t going to be able to rely solely on rates and the National Land Transport Fund to fund the kind of infrastructure the city needs if it is going to accommodate the growth.

We’ve got to look at other tools. — This interview has been edited for length and clarity.