Apparently the panel undertaking the comprehensive review of the Resource Management Act has identified the main issues to be addressed and options for reform. Their assessment of urban planning (which I must say reads more like a grab bag of issues MFE have collected over the years) is:
Urban areas are struggling to keep pace with population growth.
Poorly managed urban growth has also led to increasing homelessness, worsening traffic congestion, increased environmental pollution, lack of transport choice and flattening productivity growth.
I hope this is not the sum of the analysis of what is required for a fit for purpose planning and resource management system for urban areas as they progress into the heart of the 21st century. No contemplation as to what long term pressures urban communities will face mid-century as climate change takes hold, sea levels rise, artificial intelligence becomes prevalent, population ages and capital grows faster than incomes?
The above passage from the review group’s issues and options paper is similar to a speech Minister Twyford gave last year to to the Government Economics Network (GEN) 2019 Conference.
GEN was established in 2011 to promote the better use of economics in the public sector in New Zealand. "The network aims to cater to economists and non-economists through a range of events and training opportunities focused on using economics in policy advice'.
The following are the important paragraphs from his speech.
Over the last 2 decades our housing market has experienced an accumulation of demand pressures, mainly population growth but compounded by tax settings that have encouraged a generation of investors to see rental properties as a uniquely desirable asset class.
Add to those demand pressures, abundant cheap mortgage credit, particularly after the GFC [global financial crisis that began at the end of 2007], when quantitative easing & lower interest rates saw vast amounts of low-cost capital inflating asset bubbles all over the world.
Now if our land & housing markets were elastic, and able to respond to demand, we might have seen supply ramp up.
Unfortunately those markets don’t respond well to demand.
I think there are 3 main reasons for that.
Restrictive planning rules stop the city expanding on the fringes, creating an artificial scarcity of land, and height & density rules stop the city growing up, effectively rationing floor space.
The second factor that stops our markets responding to demand is a broken system for financing infrastructure that delays or prevents developments going ahead.
The third factor is a construction industry with low productivity and dominated by small & medium enterprises, that finds it very difficult to scale up in response to demand.
The effect of these 3 things is that we have a more or less fixed supply of land & floorspace.
It is good to see reference to things like tax settings and credit availability. But does it all come down to a problem of fixed supply of land and floorspace? So we could put up with inefficient tax settings and lots of cheap credit so long as there was flexibility over housing production?
Sounds a bit like so long as you exercise lots, doesn’t matter how much or what you eat, drink or smoke (and the faster you exercise, the more you can consume).
In one conception, there is a fixed supply of land. No more land is being created within 5kms of the city centre, for example. Planning is never a fast process. It needs to be forward looking and involve mediating many interests. So the criticisms of fixed supply and slow response always have a degree of truth to them, but these criticisms have limited analytical power to them. For example, housing consents in Auckland are now at an all time high (and house prices are going up again).
A broken system of financing infrastructure - apart, that is, from the $12 billion that the government has just found?
A focus on inadequate supply of housing and over coming NIMBYs tends to miss the underlying forces and pressures.
What if demand for housing as an asset is outstripping demand for housing as a place to live? In the industrial city of the 19th and 20th centuries, land was a factor of production. Along with labour and capital, keeping costs of land down was important. Come the 21st century and land is an asset, not a factor of production. Keeping asset prices high is now the objective of capital, while keeping wages low is much easier in a globalised world with rapid advancements in technology and weakly organised labour. How do urban areas respond to ever rising land values, but stagnating incomes?
How do we respond to the gentrification of inner suburbs - the best location for redevelopment and more intensive housing. They do lend character and are the home to a bunch of foot loose knowledge workers who apparently are so important to our future prospects. Yet a bunch of other people get locked out due to the resulting prices.
Mental health is a big issue these days. Plenty of evidence that people who live in urban areas are at greater risk of mental health problems. Plenty of studies that also say that people need access to green space, that a sense of equity, of being part of a neighbourhood and a sense of safety are all important to their mental health. Folk need some stability and certainty over their immediate environment.
What about ‘Nordic planning’? Being like the Danes or Swedes is supposed to be good for a country's economic health. What about their planning system? The BBC reported it this way in 2019:
“In the Nordics, there has long been an emphasis on people in urban life, and putting them at the centre,” explains David Pinder, a professor of urban studies at Roskilde University in Denmark. Planners have prioritised liveability, sustainability, mobility and citizens’ empowerment – ideals manifest in green parks, well-lit public spaces, strong transport networks and accessible local facilities for children and the elderly.
There’s also been emphasis on building more equal societies, he says, an aim accompanied by “a strong discipline of participation” which encourages decision-makers to think about diverse groups when planning new urban areas and include them directly in discussions.
Of course plenty of criticism that Nordic planning is struggling as much as other places with issues of housing and affordability, but you wonder if the emphasis on liveability and equality provides a better starting place to tackle the issues, than our fixation on supply.
But at a broader level, if urban areas are seen as a complex private-public partnership where a well functioning public realm is critical to many ‘private’ outcomes, while well designed development is critical to the quality of the public realm, then urban management becomes much more of a two-way ‘back and forth’, rather than just ‘good housekeeping’. It is also about how to shift around the deck chairs in response to a number of issues: "If things are going to be constrained over here, then how is development to be supported and encouraged over there?"
Easy to point out some problems, harder to think of solutions. Moreover, any possible framework for urban planning needs to work in a way that is compatible with wider resource management aspirations.
Here are a few thoughts from an urban planning point of view.
Separate environmental and urban planning acts?
While attractive from a conceptual point of view this option is unlikely to be politically unacceptable: The ‘bottomliners’ (those who support a stronger environmental bottomline approach) will be worried that a stand alone urban planning act will open the door for bottom lines to be undermined or over ridden. The urban expansionists will be worried that a separate environmental act will see bottomlines drawn all over the place without consideration of the impacts on land and development markets.
The issue of ‘bottomlines’ versus a ‘balanced approach’ seems to go back a long way. Under the old wise use and management of resources objective of the Town and Country Planning Act, the criticism was that environmental issues always got traded off for short term economic gains (“we will get onto the environment once we have sorted out a few housing and transport issues first”). The RMA tried to rectify this by splitting responsibility between regional and local councils with regional councils being the environmental guardians while local councils got on and did stuff, within the limits set. That didn’t work very well. The regional councils were either seen to be too zealous (Auckland) or too weak (the rest) when it came to environmental protection. Neither criticism is really valid, but the point is that splitting responsibility added to debate, discussion and friction. The more recent move has been to put the two things together (Unitary Plans), place a time constraint on the process to force some decision making and give the job to someone who is impartial (Independent Hearings Panels).
Putting things together and trying to speed things up may work if there is a clearer set of principles to work within. So this leads onto the question of should Part 5 of the RMA be reworked?
Re work Section 5 / Part 2 of the RMA to better reflect urban issues and outcomes?
Many folk don’t like the idea of rewriting Part 2, as this will likely see years of litigation as to what it all means. Rather, just focus on speeding things up (its implementation of the RMA that is important, not the Act’s principles is the usual call), or alternatively adding a few more things into the pot by way of National Policy Statements. But isn’t it time to have a good look at the different decision making involved in natural resource management versus managing urban environments.
The RMA reform issues and options paper suggests that greater recognition should be given to the benefits of urban growth and development - that rather than see growth or change as a cost, see it as a benefit. This is a shift away from a managing negative spillovers type approach to more of a cost-benefit type approach. But it feels like a 'gaffer tape' response to a perceived problem - too much focus on the negative, so add some positive - rather than a comprehensive review.
EDS take a similar approach. They suggest that Part 2 be re written to among other things, set out - subject to a clear statement of bottom lines - that there needs to be greater recognition of the benefits of environmentally sustainable resource use (including considerations of good urban design). The benefits of environmentally sustainable social and economic development, including infrastructure, affordable housing, and a quality urban environment would need to be taken into account.
Not too sure if their suggestions go far enough.
Should the Act set out three sets of principles: one for the stewardship of natural resources, another for the management of urban resources and the third how these two outcomes should be integrated?
Here is one go:
The purpose of this Act is to promote the stewardship of natural resources and the management of physical (rural and urban) environments in an integrated and sustainable way.
For natural resources this means, where necessary, limiting their use, development, and enabling their protection in a way, or at a rate, which achieves the following:
- Sustains the potential of natural resources (excluding minerals) to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations;
- Takes into account the finite characteristics of non renewable resources ;
- Safeguards the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystems including their enhancements and restoration where that capacity is degraded; and
- Avoids, remedys or mitigates any significant adverse effects of activities on the natural environment.
For physical (rural and urban ) environments this means managing the use, development, and protection of activities and developments in these environments in a way, or at a rate, which addresses and takes into account:
- Increasing opportunities and choices for peoples and communities to provide for the foreseeable living, working, social, cultural and recreational needs;
- Maintaining and enhancing the quality of the public components of these environments;
- Promoting safe, inclusive and affordable communities;
- Ensuring efficient and equitable provision of infrastructure;
while
- promoting the stewardship of natural resources.
Well ok, not brilliant, but I think it is time that we all had a go.
Putting it together
Trying to find the right framework to put together in an integrated way the two arms of stewardship and co- management of urban environments is the tricky point.
I think one (unitary) plan for a region, or at least a group of related settlements and resources within a sub region is a good idea and should be mandated. Taking a regional or at least sub regional view helps make trade offs between bottomlines and providing for activities.
Spatial plans are seen as one technique, but spatial plans are no more or less than any other type of plan. Thinking spatially certainly helps highlight tensions and trade offs to be made. However if the plan just becomes a long shopping list of aspirations, not a well resolved set of intentions, then that is not much help. Equally, not much use if infrastructure providers (including central government) don’t buy into the process. Government never really brought into the Auckland Plan.
What about time frames - how far to look out when making plans? This is a point raised by EDS, reflecting the point that rather than look long term, many pressures mean that planning often ends up reinforcing short term thinking. The foreseeable needs of future generations is already in the Act, but something a bit meatier would help on both the protection and development side of the equation. The 100 year reference in the NZCPS to coastal hazards is helpful. The NPS-UDC has pushed out urban planning horizons to 30 years.
So a third set of principles. In achieving sustainable and integrated stewardship of natural resources and management of physical environments the following are relevant;
- Setting bottomlines needs to take into account the consequences for accommodating growth and development and may require adjustments to other settings so as to reduce flow on impacts
- Recognising that rural and urban environments constantly change and adapt and that it is managing the transitions that are critical, rather than achieving an end state
- Recognising the potential for use and development to restore and enhance natural heritage and improve social wellbeing;
- Taking a regional view of issues and responses
- Taking a long term view of effects and consequences
- Ensuring that the benefits and costs of using and developing natural and physical resources are fairly shared between people and communities now and in the future.
