Going for broke?

 

The coalition government’s Going for Housing Growth (GfHG) policy announced on 4 July 2024 is another attempt at trying to fix the housing crises through stimulating housing production by reducing barriers. The policy builds on/replaces at least four other attempts at trying to stimulate housing supply through zoning reform:

1. NPS-UDC 2016 – national direction to positively plan for housing growth

2. RMA changes 2017 - amendments that modified section 31 to include reference to housing capacity / supply 

3. NPS-UD 2020 – introduced the concept of well-functioning urban environments, which is really more about well-functioning land and housing markets

4. MDRS 2023 – mandatory requirements around more capacity is suburban areas and intensification of centres and rapid transit stops.

The intention of the GfHG is apparently to ‘flood the market’ with development options. Whether this will lead to a flood of new houses or a drought of new houses is unclear. You would have thought that after four (not very successful?) attempts at trying to solve the housing crises through zoning reform, a different solution would be looked at. 

Figure 1 shows the number of dwellings added per 1000 new residents between 2018 and 2023, by city, based on census data. While there is no set number that determines if there is an under or oversupply of housing relative to population growth, you would have thought that anything above 500 new dwellings per 1,000 new residents is pretty good going. Yet the housing crises persists.

Figure 1 housing production per 1000 new residents, 2018 to 2023

There are some larger laggards in the housing production profile (such as Tauranga/Western Bay of Plenty) which may deserve some sort of targeted intervention, but otherwise the census data suggests a responsive housing system. It is, however, a system that is not easy to manipulate to produce a housing surplus (over-build). 

Note that Wellington City (not region) is not in the graph as it lost residents between 2018 and 2023 but added some 4,000 dwellings. It should also be remembered that the new dwellings will not all be occupied by new residents. Many new dwellings will be absorbed by existing residents as average household sizes reduce. 

If you then compare housing production between 2018 and 2023 with house price increases over the same period, you get Figure 2. 

Figure 2: Housing production versus house price growth, 2018 to 2023. 

While it is easy to look at the outliers of cities that either saw high house price growth and below average housing production or the reverse (lower house price growth and high housing production), the main story is the grouping of towns and cities in the middle. Average housing production but increased house prices. 

Given this context, there are three points in the housing announcement that I want to look at. I will leave out the minimum apartment size and optional balconies as a bit of a distraction (got everyone going on about shoe box apartments while the big-ticket items got less attention). 

1. New Housing Growth Targets introduced for Tier 1 and 2 councils, requiring them to enable 30 years of feasible housing capacity in their district plans, using ‘high’ population growth projections. Government is investigating options to require councils to plan for 50 years of growth (up from 30). 

What is ‘feasible’ in 30 years time, let alone 50 years time? Who knows? I guess the detail of what is feasible is not really at issue. Its more about having a large bucket of capacity. Rather than push out planning horizons (to 50 years) to create a bigger bucket, would a better strategy be to set a ratio between expected demand and plan-enabled capacity. If expected demand is 50,000 dwellings over the next 30 years, then plan enabled capacity should be three times that demand, or 150,000 dwellings, or something similar. This would avoid the need for endless recalculating what is ‘feasible’.

A danger is that a lot of fake capacity will be generated – lots of capacity in one corner of the city, well away from the NIMBYs, not where demand is. To counter this tier 1 councils are expected to enable appropriate levels of density across their urban areas, having regard to demand and access to different services. In fact a good spread of housing options across a city may be more important than the aggregate picture.

Perhaps there needs to be a focus on neighbourhood level outcomes, rather than city or district wide targets. Cities need mixed density, mixed income neighbourhoods with a good sprinkling of mixed uses and open spaces in these neighbourhoods. As city’s expand outwards and upwards, new neighbourhoods should develop and redevelop. Some neighbourhoods will need to shrink as climate change accelerates. Time of use charging for use of roads may lessen demand for far flung neighbourhoods but increase demand for closer in neighbourhoods. There is likely to be a lot more shuffling around of housing demand and capacity within cities. City-wide housing targets don’t really get to grips with the changes needed in urban form.  

2. Councils prohibited from imposing rural-urban boundary lines in planning documents (but can still have rurally zoned land). 

I presume that plans can also still have ‘no go areas’ in rural areas - areas where urban expansion would have negative impacts and should be excluded. If there is no ability to impose a rural-urban boundary, then there is likely to be a need to review various overlays and precincts where avoidance policies should prevail. Most notably this should be around coastal environments where the National Coastal Policy Statement applies, but also highly productive land.   Natural hazards are the other obvious example where policy needs to be strengthened before Rural-Urban boundaries are removed. 

Who pays for the resulting expansion of infrastructure? This bit is critical. The GfHG ‘fact’ sheets say that a wider range of funding sources can be used to meet medium-term infrastructure requirements including a levy under the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Act 2020, a development agreement, or through central government funding streams. None of these are new tools, they do not widen the pool of available methods. 

The Minister’s speech says that the government will work towards embedding an effective “right to build” on city fringes, on the condition that the infrastructure costs of new development are covered and growth pays for growth. Exactly what bits of growth have to be paid for is not clear – motorway and rail line extensions, trunk sewers, regional parks ?? These types of infrastructure are super expensive and occur in big lumps, not small add-ons or extra capacity here or there.   

The policy will also say that Councils would not be able to turn down a development on the grounds that perceived demand isn’t there, or that the infrastructure costs are too high. 

The last bit about not being able to turn down urban expansion because costs are too high is a bit confusing, given talk that growth must pay for growth. I guess the idea is that all infrastructure costs get totted up and a bill sent to the developer and their funders. If that is too much for the developer/funder/subsequent owners, then the development doesn’t go ahead because demand evaporates. But you can already hear the calls that affordable housing cannot be delivered if all costs have to be recovered. 

So, some mixed messages there and nothing very concrete. 

3. Tier 1 councils must: 

a) enable appropriate levels of density across their urban areas, having regard to demand and access to different services. 

b) deliver housing intensification along 'strategic transport corridors' (e.g. key bus routes). 

c) directly offset any housing capacity lost due to reasons such as ‘special character’ elsewhere. 

At some point I think there will be a big debate about density and where to put it. Density around amenity rather than transit-orientated density, for example. The announcement could have said that density should be increased within walking distance of the coast – in Auckland at least this would have been a sure winner in terms of feasible capacity (but a vote looser of monumental size!). 

There is a link with plans for ‘time of use’ charging for motorists. Increasing or reducing transport costs faced by households will change their location preferences. In theory, higher charges should see households shift closer to work. But it may also spur on hybrid working patterns. There may be a rebirth of the importance of the ‘local’.  

The principle of an off set for lost capacity is good, but like environmental off sets, the off set needs to be real and be in close proximity to the lost capacity. Otherwise will the off set capacity be on the other side of town where nobody wants to live? No mention of City Deals, but perhaps this is what the off-sets could be tied to – investment in areas that need a helping hand to regenerate and redevelop. The national party website says a $1 billion fund for Build-for- Growth incentive payments for councils that deliver more new housing will be established. The funds should be directed to promoting intensification rather than expansion. 

At some point it will also be necessary to find room to rehouse all the people who live in flood prone areas and areas subject to coastal inundation, as climate change takes hold, and retreat (managed or otherwise) occurs. In addition will be finding replacement space for all of the coastal reserves and open spaces that will gradually be eaten away by rising sea levels.  

4. Tier 1 and 2 councils must enable activities such as cafes, dairies, and other retail across their urban areas, and especially in areas where Tier 1 councils are required to enable six or more storey developments. Industrial-type activities can still be kept away from housing. 

Talk of mixed uses often elicits concerns about town centres being hollowed out, with mainstreets left with empty shop fronts. Perhaps a reasonable concern if mixed uses just end up being a series of unconnected strip malls – groups of 4 to 6 shops side on to the street with parking out front. There is a big difference between mixed uses associated with old tram routes through the Isthmus and new arterial roads like Lincoln Road in Waitakere.

I think mixed uses are good and helpful and more should be enabled as areas intensify. But their layout and design need to be carefully controlled – perhaps maximum car parking rates should apply so demand is based on the amount of passing foot traffic, rather than reinforcing car dependency. Mixed use buildings should be built close to the street edge and ideally span from side boundary to side boundary, with access to rear parking. Ideally, the mixed uses are the ground floor  of the new apartment blocks to be built, not stand alone 'mini-malls. Some strong urban desig guidance is needed. 

Can the Centre Hold?

Things fall apart, the centre

cannot hold.....

The top line results from the 2023 census are out and the results pose some interesting questions on Auckland’s growth and development.

First up, as a share of the total population of New Zealand, the Auckland Region slipped slightly between 2013 and 2023. In 2013, Auckland was home to 33.4% of the country’s population. By 2023 this has slipped to 33.2%.

Table 1: Population Share Auckland 2013 to 2023

	2013	2018	2023
AK population	1,415,550	1,571,718	1,656,486
NZ population	4,242,000	4,699,719	4,993,851
AK Share	33.4%	33.4%	33.2%

Not a big drop, but is it the start of a trend towards slower growth relative to other areas? Certainly high house, rent and transport costs in Auckland will make other areas more desirable. Others have pointed out that fast growth of Waikato may in part be a displacement of growth out of Auckland, for example. 

Auckland is supposed to demonstrate a productivity gain from its larger size and deeper labour market, meaning that there is in theory a reduction in overall productivity if a household shifts out of Auckland.  Is Auckland’s productivity premium (which should be seen in higher incomes) no longer large enough to off-set higher housing and transport costs?  

But per capita GDP data suggests that Auckland has experienced reasonable productivity gains over the past few years, at least relative to other areas. Figure 1 is GDP per capita for Auckland, Northland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty. Auckland is ahead of the pack. 

Figure 1 GDP per capita 2000 to 2022

After a period of limited growth between about 2010 to 2015 (when Auckland’s per capita GDP premium was about 106% of national GDP), post 2015, Auckland saw per capita GDP grow so it sits at around 112% of the national figure. 

Figure 2: Auckland GDP per capita as a % of NZ per capita 

Turning to housing, in terms of housing production, between 2013 and 2023, Auckland added 436 dwellings per 1,000 new residents, above the national figure of 399 dwellings per 1,000 residents. 

Table 2: Dwellings per1,000 new residents 

	Population change 2013-2023	Total additional dwellings	Dwellings per 1,000
AK	240,936	105,084	436.15
NZ	751,851	300,309	399.43

So is the much debated role of zoning and planning in constraining Auckland’s growth a reality? 

Perhaps not at the regional level, but may be at the local level.  Looking at population growth by Local Board area shows a strong pattern of growth on the edges of the city, and (small declines) in the central areas. See figure 3.

Figure 3: Population change by Local Board area 2018-2023

This is hardly the picture of a consolidating, more compact urban area.

But house growth has not been static in the central suburbs. For example, the Waitemata Local Board area added about 5,000 dwellings, but lost 1,300 residents. Possibly that loss is due to fewer international students. It is also possible that the central city suburbs are going through a demographic transition towards empty nesters, with average dwelling occupancy declining as the population ages. At some point that will turn around.  

Figure 4: Population and housing growth 2018-2023, by Local Board

But nevertheless the data on population, housing and GDP present something of a paradox. It is often stated that greater density of urban development - with that density concentrated into central areas - will support increased productivity.

Even more perplexing is comparing job growth with population growth. Figure 5 is growth of employment by Local Board area between 2018 and 2023. What stands out is the stellar performance of the Waitemata Local Board area - employment rich but population growth wise a desert.

Figure 4: Emplpoyment and resident population growth 2018-2023 by Local Board

Auckland displays increased productivity but reduced pace of growth and a de-concentration of, at least, population. Is the city starting to experience a structural shift in its organisation?  A shift to the edge in search of more space and cheaper housing may have been facilitated by working from home. Will the “donut effect" accelerate? And how to respond with more public transport and greater housing diversity and density in suburban areas. 

Or is the 2018-2023 pattern of limited population growth in the centre a covid induced temporary ‘blip’? 

The Inside Track?

 

The Fast Track Approvals Bill (or is that the “Inside Track Approvals  Bill”?)  is currently before a select committee who are hearing submissions on the Bill. There is much focus on the powers to be given to select Ministers to approve projects accepted under the Bill.

 At a more techincal,  planning level, an interesting feature of this bill is the weighting to be given to various aspects in decision making. Some form of weighting of the importance of various matters in decision making is generally seen to be a good thing. But how do you set weights/importance when trying to enable development while managing environmental impacts?

Part 2 of the BIll  covers the assessment of consent applications and notices of requirement by an expert panel. The expert panel must give weight to the following matters, in the order listed (from greater to lesser):

                     (a)  the purpose of this Act; and

(b)the purpose of the Resource Management Act 1991 set out in section 5 of that Act; and

(c) the matters for consideration in section 6 of the Resource Management Act 1991; and

(d) the matters for consideration in section 7 of the Resource Management Act 1991; and

(e) the provisions of any of the following, if relevant, made under the Resource Management Act 1991:

(i) any national direction:

(ii) operative and proposed policy statements and plans:

(iii) iwi management plans:

(iv) Mana Whakahono ā Rohe:

(v) joint management agreements; and

(f) the relevant provisions of the Resource Management Act 1991 or any other legislation that direct decision making under the Resource Management Act 1991 (see, for example, sections 104 to 107 of that Act and the provisions referred to in clauses 31 to 35).

 So the purpose of the Act is the most important consideration. The purpose of this Act is to provide a fast-track decision-making process that facilitates the delivery of infrastructure and development projects with significant regional or national benefits. 

 Many people making submissions have noted that this is a pretty open ended clause. 

 Section 17 of the Bill perhaps narrows down a bit  what is a “significant benefit” . This clause says that in considering whether the project would have significant regional or national benefits (and hence be eligible for the fast track process) , the relevant  decision making Ministers may consider whether the project:

• has been identified as a priority project in a central government, local government, or sector plan or strategy (for example, in a general policy statement or spatial strategy) or central government infrastructure priority list:
• will deliver regionally or nationally significant infrastructure
• will increase the supply of housing, address housing needs, or contribute to a well-functioning urban environment (within the meaning of policy 1 of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020):
• will deliver significant economic benefits
• will support primary industries, including aquaculture:
• will support development of natural resources, including minerals and petroleum:
• will support climate change mitigation, including the reduction or removal of greenhouse gas emissions:
• will support adaptation, resilience, and recovery from natural hazards:
• will address significant environmental issues:
• is consistent with local or regional planning documents, including spatial strategies.

 Plenty of room to manoeuver in that list also. 

Setting weights in decision making is helpful. Weights help decision makers focus on the important outcomes. 

 There may be no need to set weights if there is agreement as to the equal importance of each decision making criterion in contributing to the desired outcome, and if decision making criteria are appropriately differentiated and do not overlap or double up.

 Generally in environmental decision making there is no agreement over the importance of different factors, while there are plenty of double ups.  So setting weights is important. 

Setting weights is one of the more complex and overlooked matters when preparing plans and analyzing options.  Societal values are never far from the surface of most decision making crtieria and setting weights inevitably involves judgements. It is often easier at the plan making stage to give everything equal weight so that all the different interests in environmental management get acknowledged without picking a winner.

 Having said that, it could be argued that plans have steadily made progress on placing more weight on some outcomes rather than others. Some newer plans recognise the importance of infrastructure for example. Spatial strategies are supposed to help determine priorities for development in different areas, with plans setting out “go” and “no-go” areas. Section 6 of the RMA helps set bottom lines for particularly important resources. National directions (like National Policy Statements) have also sought to elevate the weight given to certain outcomes (like freshwater or urban development). But progress in up dating plans is slow and variable across the coumtry.

 When it comes to consideration of specific applications, things get murky as to the role of weights. On the one hand there is the avoid- remedy - mitigate approach. Each adverse effect of a proposed development is considered in isolation and a decision made as to whether the various individual adverse effects are adequately avoided or mitigated. Plans help in this assessment but are not the final answer. There is no need for weights, its more a matter of getting to (an often moving) finish line - or is that the start line?

On the other hand, increasingly assessment of specific projects is being pushed into more of a cost-benefit type analysis. Can benefits off-set costs? That is, some effects of a development may not be able to be appropriately mitigated, but in the total scheme of things can be traded off for the benefits the scheme or development may bring. Some effects may not be able to be traded off - the bottom lines, but others can - like changes to urban amenity. 

The fast track bill feels like it falls into the second, emerging approach.  So does the fast track bill’s weights help? If the Bill recreated the approach of plans trying to find the appropriate balance between development and environmental management, then the Bill doesn’t really add much. This could be said to be the weakness of the previous Covid Fast Track Act. The previous fast track act had a dual purpose to urgently promote employment to support New Zealand’s recovery from the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 and to support the certainty of ongoing investment across New Zealand, while continuing to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. The main benefit of the fast track act (was in theory) a faster process of comments, not submissions; no hearings and limited appeal rights. 

The Fast Track Approvals Bill is not unlike a previous attempt to speed things up - Special Housing Areas. That legislation - Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Act 2013 - gave most weight in decision making  to theAct’s purpose, which was to enhance housing affordability by facilitating an increase in land and housing supply in certain regions or districts identified as having housing supply and affordability issues.

The problem that the current Bill runs into is that all decision making on urban and environmental management issues are context specific. In some cases, environmental bottom lines should prevail. In other cases not. It is not helpful to set a broad ranging priority that seeks to work in these different contexts. At least the Special Housing Areas Act worked in the context of some sort of 'balanced' pre-selection of areas to be urbanized / intensified, with the Act more focused on “how” these areas were to be developed, rather than whether they were to be subdivided and developed in the first place. 

 The Fast Track Approvals Bill trys to do both. It seeks to re weight decision making in favour of developments like infrastructure and housing while also speeding things up. 

In the right place, more housing and better infrastructue are good things to support, but I think a more lasting approach to imbedding these outcomes would be through considered changes to district plans that could provide the right context for the application of variable weights: In some cases weight could be given in plans to development, in other cases weight could be given to environmental outcomes.  By cutting across good plan making, the Bill may actually result in plans getting more strident about envioronmental protection to help re balance the Bill's perceived focus on development. 

If it is to proceed, should the Fast Track Approvals Bill adopt a more classical cost-benefit approach; that is whether the benefits of the project outweigh the environmental costs, but with some safeguards built in. For example, that only larger scale projects (say, over $50 million) should be eligible; that the benefits should be independently verified by the regulator; that the decision making criteira  should ensure proper account of the necessary mitigation of adverse effects. By proper account, I mean appropriate consideration of intangible values, cumulative effects and future effects - aspects that often get little attention in assessments. To get the tick, should benefits exceed costs by a factor of 2 to account for likely systemic under reporting of environmental costs?

Sounds like an overall broad judgement!  Structured Decision Making is perhaps a better term.  

Additional Waitemata (dis) connections

Consultation on additional Waitemata harbour crossing options occurred earlier in the year. I had no time to get a submission in. The ‘emerging preferred option’ is two, three lane road tunnels and one tunnel for light rail, while the existing bridge gets reconfigured including separate walking and cycling lanes and one for buses. You could say: “everyone gets a lane”. 

The Auckland mayor has said that the government's plans for a second harbour crossing are a "pipe dream".

It is interesting to see what role spatial planning has played in determining the options for  new crossings and what may end up being the final project. Spatial planning is supposed to deliver us from the quagmire of multiple plans and strategies and set clear priorities for infrastructure projects. The  Spatial Planning Act says that a regional spatial strategy must support a co-ordinated approach to infrastructure funding and investment by central government, local authorities, and other infrastructure providers. The regional transport committee under the Land Transport Management Act 2003 must be satisfied that its regional land transport plan is consistent with the relevant regional spatial strategy.

Can such a big decision about future transport connections be made in the absence of an agreed spatial plan? Auckland council is busy developing its next Future Development Strategy (aka spatial strategy). The Strategy is to replace the existing Auckland Plan 2050 and  is supposed to set out the big picture vision for how and where we should grow over the next 30 years to achieve the best outcomes for Tāmaki Makaurau. 

The Future Development Strategy has little to say about another harbour crossing, apart from stating the obvious: Projects such as Auckland Light Rail and the Waitematā Harbour Connections have region wide potential to change and improve people’s travel to work choices.

A bit later on in the draft Strategy there is the interesting observation: "Whether the Waitemata Harbour Connections project unlocks development on the eastern or western side of the (northern) motorway, or both, is a perquisite for determining which locations may be prioritised for further investment in the future". 

So is transport shaping land use decisions, or should land use decisions shape transport decisions?

Back to the harbour crossing options. 

Firstly, why additional transport connections north (rather than south or west) are getting so much attention is a bit hard to fathom. The northern urban area (or at least the 5 northern Local Board areas) represent about 24% of the region's population, up from 23% in 1996.  South Auckland has grown much faster (from 32% of regional population in 1996 to 35% in 2022). Logistically, a business location in South Auckland makes more sense, and so too population growth will follow.

The draft 2023 Tāmaki Makaurau Future Development Strategy says that over the shorter term (next 10 years) the Auckland Housing Programme in Mt Roskill, Māngere and Tāmaki, an identified live-zoned area within Drury-Ōpaheke, and the Westgate and city centre nodes as the spatial priorities for council investment. In other words, the northern area is not a priority.

The future Harbour Crossing is noted as a mega project that could upset these priorities. The Strategy states the obvious:  that the project will have transformational, city-shaping impacts on Auckland’s urban form and the way people and goods move around. However, these projects are currently unfunded and details such as routes and timeframes are not yet known. This uncertainty means "forecasting more location-specific impacts and market responses remain highly speculative at this stage, making longer-term prioritisation equally speculative".

So how do you decide what infrastructure is best when there is little clarity on how and in what way  the northern urban area should develop? 

The Business Case makes much of the danger of meeting demand for travel in and out of the northern area in one corridor - in particular its vulnerability. Whether this reliance on one main corridor is a reason to further boost the growth of the Northern area is not really discussed. Two ‘pipes’ in and out of the northern urban area may be more resilient than one pipe, but not by much.

Reading the Business Case does suggest that land use futures should be a critical element in determining the form of the best infrastructure option.    The Business Case says that Waka Kotahi follows an ‘intervention hierarchy’ approach, with land-use planning and demand management the starting point, followed by network optimisation. New infrastructure initiatives are the last option. The Business Case says that there is a need to further investigate the potential for land-use planning and demand management (e.g. road pricing) to optimise existing infrastructure and delay the need for major investment.

These interventions are likely to delay the need for road investment but bring forward the need for public transport investment. Actions could cover:

• Addressing the  link between the timing of greenfield urbanisation around Dairy Flat and the need for high-cost rapid transit and road investment. 
• Focusing growth in and around major centres (especially Takapuna and Albany) will help reduce travel demand and support mode shift to public transport. 
• Employment growth on the North Shore will ease pressure on the harbour crossing part of the corridor and potentially delay the need for major investments. 
• Road pricing can help reduce congestion on the corridor, potentially delaying the need for road investment. However, it will increase public transport demand and potentially bring forward the need for rapid transit upgrades. 
• City centre plans will reduce road capacity, discourage people from driving there, and increase public transport demand.

The Business Case says that these interventions are important ‘foundation’ elements of the investment programme and will play an important role in the timing (both delaying and accelerating different capital investments) of more infrastructure focused investments.

Sounds good. 

But do the inputs into modelling of future transport demands reflect the above ‘foundation moves’?

What about the expected growth of jobs in the north, Will the new tunnels help or hinder more jobs on the Shore?

The Business Case says employment and population forecast ratios suggest that the 2016 jobs/population ratio of 0.4 will drop to 0.37 in 2048. In other words the level of self containment of work related trips in the northern urban area will drop, not increase.    

Total travel originating on the North Shore in the AM peak of 145,000 trips in 2016 is projected to rise to 190,000 by 2048, an increase of 31%. Internal trips within the North Shore in the AM peak increase by 25%, while trips from the North Shore to the City Centre increase by 44%

The modelling is based on the city centre having a high and growing level of reliance on the North Shore’s pool of labour. The North Shore contributes 15% of the city centre’s workforce today, and this is expected to increase to 19% by 2048; making the North Shore second only to the Isthmus in terms of labour contribution. "This confirms that the North Shore’s access to the city centre is important to its potential performance. This is significant in the strategic context given the productivity of the city centre and its important role in realising Auckland’s land use objectives for a quality, compact city as expressed in the Auckland Plan". So much for working from home! 

Should the modelling start with land use options and demand management actions that help achieve the wider goals set out above about more jobs and intensification around centres; with the residual demand served by new infrastructure. But it is new infrastructure that gets all the attention in the Business Case. If you are going to build some expensive infrastructure, then you want lots of users to help justify the large investment  (and perhaps help pay for the new connection). So the residual demand after land use changes and demand management is not enough.

Looking more closely at jobs versus population, the ratio of people to jobs has improved over the 20 years 2001 to 2020 from 310 jobs per 1000 residents to 378 jobs per 1000 residents. 

Figure 1: Jobs versus Population 

This is a positive trend. Restricted cross harbour access may well have spurred on this trend. 

Taking a closer look , the working age population (well, 15 to 65 year olds) has not grown much since 2018, but employment has slowly stepped up.

The Business Case says both an enhanced busway and an additional rapid transit connection are required to meet future demand. Upgrading the busway to light-rail results in a relatively small ‘net’ increase in overall corridor capacity (from around 10,000 to just over 14,000 people per hour). So  a new light rail route is needed - but which way to go - east or west? 

The modelling outputs indicate that the public transport improvements primarily result in more people being able to cross the harbour, rather than reducing the number of vehicles crossing the harbour (aside from a small southbound AM peak reduction). This means that there are still inefficiencies and unreliability in moving goods and services. Has enough attention been paid to business needs, if the prime objective is to support more local employment and less travel out of the sector? 

Is it time for a bit of a rethink about urban form on the Shore? North Shore is a series of beach side settlements, hugging both east and west coasts. Not surprising that most people want to live close to the coast, even if that means extra travel to get to the central motorway spine.   It is an attractive place to live, but what about a place to work? Whether the North Shore is a resilient area to house a lot more people has to be questioned, with restricted transport links, coastal focused communities and limited business land. Perhaps the North Shore’s future is best as one large retirement home, with a decent sprinkling of “work from homers” clustered around the many small centres and neighbourhoods? With that type of future, is there a need for such big investment in so many new cross harbour lanes?

Natural and Built Environment Bill: Where is the urban bit?

What does the Natural and Built Environment Bill (the ‘NBEB’) have in store for urban planning? Is planning going to go upstairs and concentrate on spatial planning, or is it also going to stay downstairs and find new ways to address old problems in the nitty gritty of developments? 

It is hard to understand the implications of the Bill for urban environments - environments that house, entertain, protect and sustain over 85% of the population. The short answer to the question of what does the Bill mean for the future of towns and cities is ‘not much’.  Gone are any references to amenity and the quality of the environment. Along with that goes character and identity. Even health and safety is a tenuous reason to manage land uses and development. There are still effects to be managed- one of the purposes of NBE plans is to manage adverse effects. Urban areas are hot beds of small scale spill over effects (externalities), many of which generate adverse effects on others,  but it is unclear what effects are to be managed. At least we know that scenic views are out. Will references to promoting outcomes for the benefit of the environment provide a rock to anchor urban design? 

In come references to responsive urban environments, housing choices and ample supply of land. All worthy goals, but somehow the Bill has lost focus on the wider purpose of urban environments - not just to house people but to also foster social, economic and cultural exchange. Read the Bill and the impression is that urban planning is no more than a handmaiden to urban development. The desire to free things up so as to generate housing supply remains the dominant theme, yet should this be the only or at least main objective for an urban environment? If you are central government under pressure to build more public housing, address emergency accommodation and help support middle class families to own a house, then yes it is the main (only focus). Don’t let infrastructure, NIMBYs or amenity get in the way!  

The statutory recognition of spatial planning is helpful, and hopefully with this comes some real commitment by  central government to implement the results. But history tends to suggest that spatial planning is more of a process, rather than a fixed product that endures. There are signs of the emergence of a new economic order —a shift the Economist suggested that may be as consequential as the rise of Keynesianism after the second world war, and the pivot to free markets and globalisation in the 1990s. This shift will play out in urban areas and may be disruptive of many current trends and patterns. We are already seeing a decline in the relevance of large, central office buildings.  

Spatial planning is not new - the Bill codifies current practice. Links to infrastructure funding and finance are made, but at a general level.  These are always the weakest link and unless strengthened, then spatial planning will founder in the gap between meeting today's needs versus developing cities that can meet future challenges.  

It is at the level of day-to-day development that the NBEB is unclear as to its intentions for the urban environment. At what point and in what way should private development be modified to respect the public good and to ameliorate effects on other activities? These tricky questions are left unanswered.  

Look at the first objective of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development - a well-functioning urban environment that enables all people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural wellbeing, and for their health and safety, now and into the future. There is reference to health and safety and to the well beings.  Turn to the NBEB and all the fluffy stuff gets trimmed back - the ‘system’ outcome for urban environments is well functioning urban and rural areas that are responsive to the diverse and changing needs of people and communities.  Even the Randerson report - which is apparently the basis of the NBEB - said that for the built environment there should be a general requirement to enhance features and characteristics that contribute to quality built environments. This reflects the broad role of the proposed Natural and Built Environments Act in managing the use and development of resources. 

It feels like that too much has been stripped out in the mad dash to promote housing construction; that any reference to amenity will be hijacked by existing residents, so best avoid saying anything. But there is a distinction between public amenity and private amenity. The public - private interface is critical to whether urban environments sustain safe, resilient communities that can be enjoyed by its inhabitants. Even the basic Medium Density Residential Standards have a nod to  public amenity with the standards relating to windows on street frontages and landscaping  and scope for related controls on front fences. Does the new NaBEB support the outcomes sought by the MDRS? 

We need responsive urban environments, but not just ones responsive to housing supply and demand. The 1980s book Responsive Environments (Ian Bentley and co) attempted to demonstrate the specific characteristics that make for comprehensible, friendly and controllable (safe) urban places -'Responsive Environments' - as opposed to the alienating environments often then built in the name of housing supply. 

So many important community outcomes are tied to the functionality and quality of the public-private interface - crime and feelings of safety, propensity to walk and cycle, mental health and well being to name a few. 

Could the quality and safety of the public environment at least be added to the system outcomes for urban areas?

How do you reduce vehicle kilometres travelled by 20% by 2035?

The recent National Emissions Reduction Plan - Te hau mārohi ki anamata Towards a productive, sustainable and inclusive economy – has a number of targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector.

The first target is:

Target 1 – Reduce total kilometres travelled by         the light fleet by 20 per cent by 2035 through         improved urban form and providing better            travel options, particularly in our largest                 cities.

This target sits alongside other targets about EV take up, and more walking and cycling. It is good to see that cutting emissions is not just about switching to electric vehicles and planting some pine trees to offset the non-EV emissions. Less use of cars is also important.

However….

It is not totally clear from the target if the 20% reduction is to be based on 2022 emissions or what may be the 2035 figure, if no action was taken. 

The 20% is also a total, national figure. If the population grows between now and 2035, then on a per capita basis the reduction would need to be larger. Others have pointed out that achieving a 20% reduction in VKT across the whole of New Zealand will require more aggressive reductions in some parts of the country – notably Auckland – to ‘offset’ the difficulties in achieving much change in smaller towns and rural areas. Furthermore, even in Auckland, some people are unlikely to be able to cut back travel by 20% so some people will need to reduce travel by more than 20%. 

So the 20% reduction rapidly turns into a 30% to 35% reduction in VKT for an ‘average’ Aucklander. In fact, Auckland Councils Transport Emissions Reduction Plan says that VKT should drop by half, by 2030!

How do we do that? Does anyone have any idea? 

The national ERP says that a specific plan needs to be developed, starting with the main cities. A Light vehicle kilometres travelled reduction programmes for Tier 1 urban areas is proposed.

So we have a plan for a plan. Understandable perhaps, but after lots of investigation of various budgets and pathways, action still seems long way off. 

Auckland Council's recent transport emissions reduction plan is also a bit vague about how to do it, apart from the normal recipe of lots more public transport , walking and cycling, plus congestion charging. 

While reducing VKT may be difficult and nobody seems totally clear how to do it, it’s more a matter of having to do it and having to find a way to do it, rather than argue if 20% or 30% is too much or not enough. We are, after all, in a climate emergency. 

The interesting planning question is the role of urban form and urban design in helping to achieve the target.  

But first some numbers. Per capita vehicle kilometres travelled in Auckland is around 9,500 kms per person, per year. Each car, on average, travels 14,000kms in a year.

So a 30% reduction is about 5,000kms less travel per year for each car – or 13.69 kms per day. 

How easy will that be? 

An often-quoted statistic is the large percentage of short trips – 50% of car trips are less than 6kms in length.   

2011 data on trip lengths is:

• 17% (one-sixth) of driver trip chains are less than 2km long. 
• 43% of driver trip chains are less than 5km long. 
• 48% of driver trip chains are less than 6km long. 
• 53% of driver trip chains are less than 7km long. 
• 65% are less than 10km long.

However 50% of total VKT is not comprised of short (less than 6km) trips.  

More than likely, to reduce VKT by at least 30%, some longer trips will need to be not taken, or else undertaken by public transport. So a mix of short and long trips will need to be switched from car to walk, bike or public transport or not taken at all. 

So what type of trips could be diverted?

Household travel survey data for 2018 suggests the following share of VKT by trip purpose. Data on trip length is not easy to find. 

Trip Purpose	Share of total KMs
	Driver	Passenger
Went home	37%	42%
Went to work	15%	3%
Shopping/personal business	19%	20%
Social visit/entertainment	10%	17%
Made a trip for work	8%	1%
Completed study/education	1%	4%
Accompany someone/dropped someone off/picked someone up	7%	9%
Sport and exercise	3%	4%
Total	100%	100%

Not surprising the two big trip purposes in terms of distances are work and shopping.  

Work-related travel accounts for one-third of all household driving time and distance, most of which is commuting to and from work. The mean distance for journey to work in Auckland (one way) is around 11kms.

Already, due to Covid, many commuting trips are not being taken as work from home takes hold. But not all jobs can be undertaken remotely. 

The journey to and from work has been the big focus of transport and land use planning to date, with congestion being the problem, not VKT. The planning response has been trying to confine jobs to a number of larger centres that could be effectively served by public transport. 

But has the time come to reduce the emphasis on the work trip as being the target of emission reduction? Has fibre and digital technology reduced the benefits of being in a large central spot anyway? 

Shopping trips are the other big source of kilometres travelled, and perhaps more able to be combined or avoided (visit the supermarket every second or third day, rather than every day, or perhaps every day if on foot or bike).

Both the national and region emissions reduction plans see a role for urban form to help shape transport choices, with the emphasis on developing land use patterns that help reduce the need to travel. 

Auckland refers to building up, not out and developing / encouraging more local shops and services. 

Similarly the national plan refers to identifying ways to incentivise developments that avoid/reduce the need to travel and encourage travel by public transport, walking and cycling. 

In Scotland, to take a different example, reducing people’s need to travel with more local access to goods and services is seen as the first priority. Likewise, digital connectivity and flexible working approaches will play a key role. 

Sounds good, but as also often noted, land uses are slow to change – as a climate change commission report notes:

There are numerous studies examining the emissions reduction potential from compact urban planning and design. For example, the Productivity Commission notes that higher density urban centres can reduce vehicle kilometres travelled per capita by between 5 and 12%. A study by the Stockholm Environment Institute highlights that urban planning for compact urban form can reduce emissions by 5% by 2030 and 6% by 2050. However, the potential to achieve emissions from land use change is slow, buildings typically last between 50-100 years and infrastructure lasts for at least 100 years. Therefore, we need to ensure a stronger and more deliberate relationship between urban planning, design and transport immediately. Ensuring this happens at planning stage is more effective than retrofitting transport needs

So all too hard to achieve a high density compact urban form in 8 years? Probably. But can we at least enable more mixed uses in neighbourhoods? As cars become more costly to use, and people have to walk or cycle more, then demand will come on for more services close by.  

Talk of mixed uses may mean a jumble of industrial and service activities interspersed with apartments. Noise, lights, late night activity can be expected.  But what if the aim was more local, small retail uses and services? 

If you map the location of supermarkets (as determined by Open Source Maps) and apply a 1.2km buffer around them, then large areas of the city are relatively close to supermarkets, but there are also areas with no coverage

What are the conditions for more local activities? We can speculate that things like the following will help:

• There are more people living in the catchment

• There is a mix of customers 

• There are cheap options to rent space.

The NPS-UD / MDRS has kicked along the intensification aspect, but should it be more targetted? Should the areas with limited coverage of supermarkets be prioritised for more housing (to help build up the catchment). But the areas with limited coverage tend to be on the edges and probably also have more limited public transport options.

Covid has helped with a wider range of customers as more people work from home. Anecdotal evidence: my barber says that their busy time is now during the week when many at home workers drop in for a haircut, in contrast to pre covid when the weekend was their busy time. 

What remains is the cost of finding and renting non-residential space in residential areas. 

Most neighbourhoods will have a small neighbourhood or local centre zone that may be accessible by foot or bike. But often rents are high and expansion options are limited. Sometimes the shops may look a bit run down, and there is some hope that by concentrating retail into the centres, demand will be higher and with it more likelihood that shops will be occupied.  But as we know, keeping a tight rein on supply of floorspace pushes up rents and land values. 

There may be concern that opening up more retail options will just see more cheap liquor stores, fast food joints and vap shops. 

Then there is a dreaded car orientated strip mall development along main roads – the disjointed collection of cheap box-like buildings with prominent parking lots visible from the street, with multiple driveways, large signs and a few sad looking trees. 

But is it time to set these concerns aside and expand out beyond the centre? To allow for a wider range of compatible activities in residential areas.  More fundamentally, should the concept of a retail / centres hierarchy be set aside. The concept of the central city as the main hub and a pattern of strong sub regional hubs was a response to a car centric transport system. Likewise town centres anchored on a ‘drive-to-supermarket’ to drive foot traffic and cross over shopping trips. Is the need now to enable dispersion of retail rather than their concentration? 

In the revised version of the Auckland Unitary Plan’s Residential Mixed housing Urban zone (a zone that now covers the better part of the urban area thanks to MDRS), dairies up to 100m2 gross floor area per site and restaurants and cafes up to 100m² gross floor area per site are restricted discretionary activities. The revised Residential Terrace Housing and Apartment Building zone is pretty much the same.

What about offices, small workplaces and other forms of retail?  These all require discretionary resource consent. 

The range of compatible uses in residential area needs to be managed, but more options need to be enabled than current.  

But there are some issues to work through. Perhaps most important to safe, convivial street environments that support walking, cycling and public transport is how to activate ground floors to create pleasant, safe streets for pedestrians and to support the local economy. More specifically, should there be minimum ground-floor heights or minimum ground floor spaces for new developments so that active, street-facing uses at ground level on every neighbourhood’s main street are supported. Again, this requires an adjustment of planning rules.

The 3-storey format of the Mixed Housing Urban zone does not suit mixed uses with buildings, but some form of horizontal mixed use is likely to emerge as some sites redevelop for housing and some residual sites get taken over for commercial and service activities.

The multi-storey Terrace Housing and Apartment Building zone is more adaptable for mixed uses. But vertical mixed use is not easy to achieve – there will be uncertainty about whether ground floor commercial spaces can be let; while owners and tenants of upper floor apartments will be worried about what activities may operate downstairs. Demand for more local services will build over time, but there is likely to be a lag between demand and supply. In the interim, new development may foreclose future, better options.  

I think there is a need for some RNAS to go alongside the MDRS – Residential Neighbourhood Activity Standards to go with the Medium Density Residential Standards.