The report of the RMA reform panel “New directions for resource management in New Zealand” is out. First a note of caution. Previous RMA reform proposals have involved many reports on many topics. Often what gets picked up is some of the easy stuff. This time around, we are told that it will be a comprehensive review.
A Natural and Built Environment Act is proposed, along with a Spatial Planning Act and a Managed Retreat and Climate Change Adaptation Act. No mention of the fate of current ‘add ons’ like the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Protection Act, Special Housing Areas, or Covid fast track. And what about the Urban Development Act that enables Urban Development Authorities to bypass the RMA (or its replacement) by establishing their own streamlined planning and consenting process? Not too sure how this all adds up to an integrated approach; the trick is going to be which plan gets developed first.
My pick would be the any plan under the Managed Retreat and Climate Change Act should be sorted out first, then any special area plans (like Waitakere Ranges and plans prepared by UDAs) be drawn up, along with identification of ‘limits’ under the Natural and Built Environment Act. Spatial plans can then be developed and agreed within this context, with relevant remaining details then filled out in the combined plans under the Natural and Built Environment Act.
Sounds exhausting, but then the alternative could be a whole bunch of plans being prepared at the same time, all bumping up against each other.
Looking at the review report, I think the Panel have had too big a job in too little time. I would have thought, given the size of the project, it would have been broken down into a range of sub tasks and working groups to tease out issues and options before some sort of combination process. To me there is a lack of depth as to urban planning issues, and I think that has arisen from the scale of the project. The report feels like it has found its feet over management of natural resources, with talk of limits, improvements, better methods of allocation and a focus on outcomes. These concepts look like they have been rolled over into the urban sphere without much thought.
In search of a purpose for urban planning.
The main issue I have is that there is a lack of a firm foundation for urban planning. The reform proposals repeat the common concerns over urban plans being unresponsive to demands, too slow to change and adapt, adding too much cost and delay, captured by special interest groups and NIMBYS.
But this is a reactive approach. It does fit nicely into a bigger narrative: ‘ease up on urban areas, tighten up on the natural environment’. But it is not a forward looking approach.
The following purpose for the new Act is proposed:
Any definition of quality? Or what is an 'enhancement' (positive for me, but negative for you)? These are broad concepts that need to be operationalised. The following doesnt go very far.
A different set of plan making principles apply to urban areas to those for the natural environment (although it is not clear how they are reconciled when some much of our urban environments are intertwined with natural environments - coastal area, streams, maunga, bush filled gullies). Nevertheless, this is a good start - to recognise the differences between managing finite stocks of natural resources versus the ebb and flows of physical resources found in cities.
The urban planning principles are:
No reference to amenity. This is deliberate, as maintaining amenity is used as the cloak for ‘don’t touch my neighbourhood’. But yet what is the replacement? The even less-defined and more emotive term: ‘quality’.
Apart from being ill defined, improving the quality of the urban environment is not really a sound basis upon which to manage urban resources. Everyone agrees with better quality, so it is understandable that this ‘outcome’ is reached for when trying to find a place to stand. But public policy requires some sort of ‘failure’ or ‘problem’ to be identified upon which action to curtail or shape private actions can be justified, and poor quality development has never featured strongly as a reason to intervene in urban environments.
But neither is saying that planning has got caught up in a big cobweb of NIMBYs a sound basis upon which to build a new approach.
The Review group acknowledge that urban planning is a complex mediation between public and private interests, over space and over time. But they are worried about plans getting caught up in the detail:
Our view is that to achieve good environmental outcomes and make the greatest contribution to the overall wellbeing of communities, urban planning should be more focused on setting the high-level patterns of land use for urban development and less focused on developing the elaborate and overly complex regulatory controls that are characteristic of current district plans. In the words of Jane Jacobs, urban planning is a science of “organised complexity.
The best response to this complexity is to combine strategic direction with simple rules. The ‘outcomes’ set to guide urban planning should therefore recognise the dynamic nature of urban areas, ensure development capacity is available for growth and change, and ensure that the way in which overall urban form contributes to wellbeing is broadly understood.
Somehow this feels like a bit of a cop out. Where have we heard the call for a ‘few simple rules’ before? A few simple rules usually come accompanied by a large does of discretion to administer them. Reduction of that discretion requires more detailed, place-based rules.
Of course Jane Jacobs' recipe for urban success actually relies upon attention to details; details like windows overlooking streets, short city blocks to generate movement, access to a range of old and new premises to enable mixed uses. We can add a visually stimulating and safe urban environment to that list. These are not qualities that are easily ascribed in a high-level plan and a few simple rules.
Jane Jacobs was writing at the time of large scale, state-led urban redevelopment that saw block-busting, ‘towers-in-space’ replace older row houses and walk up apartments; and a jumble of local shops and live work units. No wonder she referred to the complexity of urban environments that were being destroyed by a ‘few simple rules’. But it was more than just a call for an understanding that urban environments are complex; this complexity needed nurturing. Complexity did not necessarily spring forth naturally, nor did it continue to replicate by itself.
Things have moved on from the 50s and 60s. The fourth industrial revolution is taking hold, kicked along by covid 19. Work and home are blurring, the neighbourhood is taking on a more central role in city structure than the old dichotomy of the centre and suburb. Work and incomes are becoming more precarious.
What about the following as rationales for intervention in this emerging urban environment:
• Managing the accumulation of many small positive and negative changes
• Fixing up other messes
• Tackling concentration and inequity
• Greening the city
• Helping make trade offs
• Future effects - taking a long term view.
What do I mean?
Accumulation of many small positive effects.
Cities change incrementally, site by site. While we may get caught up in the excitement of spatial planning for a region, cities morph and change constantly with or without spatial planning. Much of urban planning has to involve micro management of this change. A few simple rules will not cut it. If cities die by a 1000 cuts, then they flourish by a 1000 small acts of kindness. Perhaps reference to positive enhancements is helpful here, but the Act needs to tackle how to anticipate and manage many small, cumulative changes.
Fixing up other messes
Much of that larger scale urban change is driven by distorted signals sent out by other activities: poorly priced transport systems generate sprawl and ruin neighbourhoods with traffic; obesogenic environments filled with too much sugar and junk food and not enough options for walking and cycling see streets and lots filled with car-orientated developments; financial systems poorly tuned drive up house prices, creating huge incentives for landowners to protect their patch, and a retreat from building of affordable homes. Planning has to be a counterbalance to these forces. It may be a second best counter balance compared to tackling the underlying causes, but at least urban planning is trying to help reduce these adverse pressures and signals in what should be an integrated way.
Tackling concentration and inequity
As the economy becomes more unequal, productivity falls and markets become dominated by a few big players, so do cities. Options for people to climb the economic ladder reduce. The middle classes are stuck. There is a need for urban environments to be more democratic and to actively support choice and opportunities. If planning in the 20th century was about exclusion and separation of uses, is planning in the 21st century about the active inclusion of a greater mix of uses and activities in all neighbourhoods?
Greening the city
This is more than just protecting the remnant natural environments left in cities. This is about mental health. It is about cities environments being restorative. As work conditions become more ‘flexible’ and less certain, populations become more diverse culturally and in age range, the city environment becomes the balm which helps to smooth nerves and promote community interaction. We have seen a glimpse of what is possible in the first covid 19 lock down. Having accessible green ‘elements’ close by, in all neighbourhood becomes ever more important.
Helping make trade offs
Planning is about making purposeful trade offs for the above types of community benefits where necessary; rather than leaving trade offs to be made by market processes. This is a public process, it also one that needs a high degree of discipline and guidance, otherwise decision making is open to many imperfections. As our understanding of environments improve and the digital revolution takes hold, the old claim that markets make faster and better decisions than people sitting around a table becomes less relevant. Sure, public decision making needs to be confined to where it matters, but that is not the only role of a planning act. It must also spell out how to make trade offs within those confines. Section 6 of the RMA may not have been perfect, but by stating somethings are more important than others, decision making was improved. It is hard to see in the reform proposals anything which clearly says: ‘in an urban environment, these values are more important than those.’
Taking a long term view
This is also about how decisions are made. So many pressures support the status quo, taking a short term view of change. Planning has to be forced to take a long term view, otherwise planning can end up being used to shore up the short term.
Back to the issue of what is urban quality.
Interestingly, the discussion document that described the draft NPS-UD referred to a list of urban qualities, as follows:
The preamble to the NPS-UD would contain a wider description of things that contribute to
quality environments. This could include:
• reducing the impact on the natural environment
• using ecologically sensitive design
• enhancing safety and good health
• promoting resilience to the impacts of natural hazards
• providing a range of transport options
• reflecting historical and cultural heritage in the urban environment.
Not a bad list. But none of this has been picked up in the NPS-UD nor the proposals for the new Act.Why?
