The 3 x 3 Bill

Here are my initial thoughts on the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and other Amendments Bill) - 'the 3 X 3 Bill'.

A prime driver of the Bill is stated to be that while there are multiple reasons for the growth in house prices, a key structural issue is that the market is not building enough houses in the places needed.

At a city-wide level, Auckland is building more houses than population growth. Interest.co.nz report (note 1) that their latest analysis of housing supply and demand suggests the number of new homes being consented has been exceeding the demand for new housing created by population growth for at least the last three years.

Interest.co.nz also suggests that while a shortage of housing may have built up in some areas, particularly in Auckland, more than three years ago, historical shortfall between supply and demand is now likely to have been substantially diminished, if not wiped out.

Given current build rates, it might now be argued that the proposed Housing Supply Bill is about getting ready for the next housing crises, when supply again lags demand, rather than solving the current housing crises. That is, with the Bill in place there will be fewer barriers in the way of a faster supply response in the future, perhaps once the borders are open again and migrants arrive in large numbers again. But this future orientation means that there is time to:

• fully assess costs and benefits

• better define areas that can be ‘excluded’

• allow for a staged roll out

• better calibrate the proposed standards (the MDRS)

• explore alternative housing typologies.

Even if enough houses are now being built at the macro level and there is capacity to meet foreseeable needs, there  is still an argument that within the city, there may be a miss match between supply and demand in various suburbs. 

Analysis supporting the Bill notes that despite being in very high demand inner city suburbs have experienced a low level of development to date. Recent evidence in this area is strongest for Auckland. Work by the Auckland Council Chief Economist Unit has shown that inner-city suburbs like Herne Bay, St Mary’s Bay, Grey Lynn, Mount Eden, and Remuera have not had an increase in housing density compared to suburbs with lower land value. This indicates the AUP’s single house zone and other low-density zones in these high demand areas are constraining housing supply, choice, and affordability.

There are good reasons why capacity is constrained in inner suburbs. The slow rate of house building is a deliberate planning strategy. 

The first reason is character. The inner city environment is an essential element of Auckland's built environment, which has been described as 'the most extensive range of timbered housing with its classical details and mouldings in the world'. Auckland’s inner city suburbs are distinctive and very important to the city’s sense of place. 

The second reason is infrastructure capacity. Whether it be street capacity (with most roads only 20m wide), open spaces or combined stormwater and wastewater networks, inner city areas typically have infrastructure scaled to historical patterns and densities of growth. While much of this infrastructure is old and needs replacing the costs of this are very high. Examples in Auckland include:

• Retrofitting trams – $10 billion for one route.

• Central wastewater interceptor – $1.4 million.

The proposal for light rail running along (under) Dominion Road highlights the problems of providing additional transport capacity in the inner isthmus. There are limits to what additional capacity a bus-based system can provide. Road space is also needed for cyclists,  more street trees and better facilities for pedestrians. The Dominion Road light rail ‘solution’ involves adding new capacity (going underground), not reallocating existing capacity. While it is good extra transport capacity is being added, it is a strategy that is unlikely to be replicated elsewhere due to the costs. 

The central interceptor is designed to significantly reduce the major wet weather overflows in areas of central Auckland that have (and will continue to have) combined sewer and stormwater systems. Overflows currently occur at 122 locations within the central interceptor catchment area, in some cases on more than 100 occasions a year, with a combined annual modelled volume of discharge of 2,200,000 m3 of diluted wastewater to local streams, and then out to the Waitemata Harbour. 

With the interceptor in place, while there is expected to be a significant reductions of the major wastewater overflows, overflows will still occur in the Meola Creek catchment as well as other overflows which discharge into the Motions and Whau catchments. 

It is unclear what growth assumptions were made when the central interceptor was designed and upon which the predictions as to reduced overflows are based, but it would not be unexpected to find that the design assumed maintenance of the current densities found in inner suburbs due to the special character areas applying. It is very unlikely that it was assumed that all residential sites could have three dwellings on them.  

While transport congestion can perhaps be tolerated, continuing to pollute harbour waters (even at a reduced rate) seems a desultory  method of managing urban growth. 

On this issue of infrastructure constraints, the Regulatory Impact Statement for the 3 X 3 Bill is very weak. The following is noted in relation to infrastructure costs:

Medium – infrastructure servicing is expensive but there is limited evidence on the infrastructure pressures which would be triggered by rezoning and subsequent uptake of development opportunities

Despite this lack of information, the Bill assumes that infrastructure can be addressed.  This is a major assumption.

The regulatory impact statement makes no mention of the loss of older character areas. ‘Protection’ of these areas does create an exclusive living environment, but the stock of bungalows and villas is a finite resource.  

Despite these concerns, if the inner suburbs are ‘the problem’ and are to be the location of much more housing, then the MDRS typology is the completely wrong typology to apply. 

Urban Environments 

The application of the three storey rule to all ‘urban environments’ is cumbersome. Urban environments in tier 1 areas cover a range of settlements, with places like Pokeno in the northern Waikato and Te Awamutu in Waipa both technically part of the Hamilton urban environment and therefore subject to the MDRS, as well as inner city Auckland and Wellington. 

A more graduated response is needed for this range of settlements. 

If the population of local authorities is plotted against the percentage of dwellings that are attached (as a proxy for housing density), then there is a steady rise in density as population increases. 

 

Figure 1: Housing density versus population 

For settlements of under 50,000 people, there is very little incentive to pursue more intensive development due to the limited spatial extent of the settlement. Most homes are in a short drive of central areas and amenities. There is limited transport disadvantage from living on the edge compared to the centre. This can be seen in land values which do not vary much between inner and outer areas. 

A two unit-two storey standard is likely to be more than sufficient to match demand and urban conditions for these smaller settlements. This is even if the desire is to shift the red trend line in Figure 1 ‘north’. That is, encourage more compact forms of growth. A 20,000 person township doubling to a 40,000 person township is likely to see only a small increase in the number of attached dwellings.  

Mid range city’s above 50,000 people start to show more variability in density. Some of this will be due to geographic factors, including the amount of land able to be built on. Even in these centres, a 3 storey / 3 unit standard is probably unwarranted across the whole of the urban environment. A split approach is more likely to fit the context, such as:

• Within 3km of the centre – 3 storeys and 3 units

• More than 3kms of the centre – 2 storeys and 2 units. 

Three units in a two storey format (a '2 by 3 dwelling') sitting within a ‘garden suburb’ setting. Although not contemporary in design, the principle is valid.  

Turning to the big cities, the 3 storey/3 unit model would be most appropriate for the middle ring of suburbs in the metropolitan centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, but even then some flexibility is warranted.  The two outliers on the right hand side in Figure 1 are Wellington at the top and Christchurch at the bottom. The difference in the percentage of dwellings attached is likely to reflect the different geographic characteristics, with Christchurch located on a large flat plain and Wellington confined by large hills. Auckland is not included in the graph due to its size. 

At the other end of the scale to the smaller settlements  – such as inner city areas of the three major metros -  the MDRS are not the correct typology to apply. In fact, in many cases the MDRS will lead to the under utilisation of scarce land resources. While there are options for Councils to provide more permissive standards than those set out in the MDRS, the building typologies appropriate for inner areas of large cities relate more to larger and taller apartments. These raise much different design issues to the building form that drives the MDRS.  

Infrastructure capacity and costs

The qualifying matters are too limiting – in particular infrastructure capacity is not mentioned as a reason to hold back on applying the MDRS. This relates to three waters infrastructure in particular but also land hungry social infrastructure like educational facilities, open space and the like that will need to be expanded and upgraded. 

The absence of infrastructure being a listed as qualifying matter in the NPS-UD may have been appropriate as the NPS-UD tried to concentrate redevelopment / intensification into defined areas, with the ability for infrastructure upgrades to be directed to these areas. The MDRS applies city wide. This makes the upgrading and replacement task much bigger. 

In relation to infrastructure, the Housing Supply Bill appears to assume that either there is spare capacity in current networks that can be efficiently used to accommodate new brownfields development, or where there is insufficient capacity, councils will be able to redirect existing investment towards the intensification areas or develop new sources of funding to finance the required upgrades. To this end, the Housing Supply Bill amends RMA provisions relating to financial contributions as one possible funding tool, for example. 

The regulatory impact statement that accompanied the NPS-UD noted that:

Local authorities will be most directly affected, as they are responsible for planning and providing public infrastructure. Some local authorities as infrastructure providers may face substantial financial costs, largely as a result of revealed demand, that will need to be funded and financed. These costs will then be passed onto others, be it through rates, development contributions or other mechanisms. There will also be opportunity costs associated with these financial costs.

In general, it is held that infrastructure costs tend to be higher for ‘greenfield’ developments on the urban fringe than for ‘infill’ or ‘brownfield’ development in existing urban areas. This reflects the assumption that existing urban areas often, but not always, have existing infrastructure with spare capacity with the ability for that infrastructure to be adapted or expanded to cope with additional growth. Having said that, intensification is also likely to increase demands on ‘land hungry’ infrastructure like open space and community facilities in areas subject to intensification, with the costs of retrofitting these types of activities being very high. 

Higher density development can add further efficiencies / economies of scale to assist with upgrading and replacement of existing infrastructure. On the face of it, more brownfields development and less greenfields development should ‘save’ the community money in the long run. 

However, others have noted that there is a U-shaped relationship between density and per-capita public spending, meaning that spending initially decreases and then increases again as density rises . This can be occasioned by the need to replace older infrastructure in established areas as density increases. While this infrastructure may need replacing at some stage, intensification can bring forward the timing of when replacement is needed.

Part of the challenge of investment in large scale brownfield infrastructure is therefore the accumulated costs of deferred maintenance over periods of decades where maintenance has been under funded. The timing of large payments to cover these costs during infrastructure upgrades may be affected by faster than expected brownfield development, but the costs themselves are not seen to be attributable to the intensification policy as they would also exist under the status quo. 

But funding this replacement and/or upgrade can be complicated. Typically, councils borrow money (or raise equity) to pay for the up-front costs of infrastructure development, and then pay back lenders (or investors) from future user charges. 

Many councils face debt limits that constrain their ability to borrow to fund infrastructure. Off-balance sheet financing vehicles like IFF arrangements increase costs and impose additional risks. If development occurs more slowly than expected, then financing costs will rise. This will in turn increase the per-user cost to provide infrastructure.

Councils ability to get users to pay is also constrained. Development contribution policies generally note that not all growth-related projects can be funded from development contributions. A development contribution can only be levied where it can be demonstrated that the effect of the development, either alone or in combination with other developments, is to require new or additional assets or assets of increased capacity, and as a consequence, council incurs capital expenditure to provide that infrastructure. This means that new development can only contribute a small proportion of costs of necessary upgrades, with the bulk of costs to be covered by existing ratepayers. 

An appropriate funding mechanism will need to be in place in advance of the zoning changes. If not, the MDRS may just be an idea on paper, as no meaningful development could ensue.

The Housing Supply Bill should provide a mechanism for stage implementation of the MDRS so to allow for infrastructure upgrades to be identified, funded and rolled out. One technique would be to allow for deferment of the standards taking legal effect if the area within which they are applied is identified in Council’s Infrastructure Strategy as lacking capacity. The area could be ‘unlocked’ once appropriate commitments are made in the Council’s Long Term Plan.   

Qualifying matters: Special Character 

The requirement for a site by site assessment of ‘special character’ values to support exclusion of these areas from the MDRS is far too onerous. Auckland’s collection of villas and bungalows in inner city areas is a unique characteristic of the city. It is the largest collection of wooden villas and bungalows in the world. The benefit to the city’s character arises from the collective grouping, rather than individual buildings. The benefit is hard to measure. 

Given that the Auckland Unitary Plan has recently made, through a public process, a series of trade offs such that many character areas can be retained while sufficient housing capacity is still provided to meet housing demands, it is  not justified why these ‘trade offs’ need to be ‘re-justified’ through a much more administratively driven process.  Where plans have recently been prepared, then these plan provisions should stand and not have to be fought over again.

Nevertheless, it is appropriate to consider what compensating measures can be taken to adjust density settings to accommodate lower density development close to central areas. This is the central point made by the regulatory impact analysis for the Bill; that in Auckland in particular density is now higher in the middle and outer suburbs than the inner suburbs. This creates costs (but reflects a substantial benefit in terms of character and amenity). 

To keep the special character areas (they after all do provide choice – even if exclusive) while allowing more development in inner city areas requires a different urban typology to that advanced by the MDRS. In Auckland, we can already begin to see a pattern emerging of apartments on the ridgelines, with the bungalows and villas in the valleys and slopes. This is not a new idea.  So rather than ‘upzone’ the villas and bungalows, I think we need to ‘up-zone’ the ridgelines.

It also shouldn’t be forgotten that we have a substantial central area population (in excess of 40,000 people) in part because of the constraints that apply to the immediate inner ring of suburbs. These people may not live in the special character suburbs, but they have access to the same environments, amenities, and services. 

If the special character areas also mean that some demand for housing is 'displaced' to the next (middle) ring of suburbs, is that such a bad outcome? Doesnt that demand help create well-functioning neighbourhoods? 

Suburban context

The MDRS are going to be (perhaps) most used in the middle ring of suburbs. 

The medium density housing examples shown on the HUD website are all of larger sites, including sites with substantial frontages, yet we know most sites in the suburbs are only 16 to 20m wide and 30m to 35m deep or so – 500m2 to 700m2.  These sites are not well suited to terrace type housing, low rise apartment buildings enabled by the MDRS.

Diagrams produced by MfE support this point.  Both examples shown below occupy only about 25% of the site, when building coverage may be up to 50%, while height is less than the 11m possible for one of the schemes. 

 

Yet, even with these ‘slimmed down’ examples, the issue of interfaces with adjacent sites (dwellings and outdoor areas) is clear. Replication of the same form of new 3 storey, side on buildings on adjoining sites will compound the issues; it does not remove the problems. 

The following aerial shows a traditional NZ pattern of development with built form orientated to the street, with private back  yards to the rear. 

 

Housing is closely spaced along the street frontage, with outlook orientated to the street or the rear garden. There are few windows facing side boundaries. These houses could be a single dwelling, or two or three flats.  The bulk of the building is towards the front of the site. 

 

Garaging, off street parking is retrofitted. 

In Europe this pattern of ‘perimeter block’ development is taken to another level, with 4 to 6 storey apartment buildings ringing the exterior face of a street block. No on-site car parking is provided, and apartments built up to the street edge.  NZ’s experience is of a more modest type of perimeter form of development, with individual houses on narrow plots, with front yards for trees and gardens, as well as off-street parking pads. 

In contrast to this well understood urban pattern, the MDRS enables a ‘side on’ form of development. 

Across the road from the three villas is a more recent series of flats. 

These are orientated with outlook to the neighbours property. 

 

The building is not offensive. The aesthetics is not the issue. Rather this arrangement reduces privacy and increases overlooking. It reduces amenity. By allowing three storeys as of right, the extent of overlooking over adjacent sites is increased considerably. 

The side on rows of units may be ok if they were on sloping sites where they could form more of a terrace type approach with units overlooking the roofs of the units down the hill. 

Another important aspect not covered by the MDRS is lack of green elements. New Zealand has a strong attachment to ‘garden suburbs’. This does not mean low level housing and lots of lawns. Rather it is positioning dwellings so that trees and shrubs have some visual presence, both in terms of front yards, but also rear yards. Sizeable trees provide visual interest, they help to provide scale to 3 storey development and people react positively to green elements (they are known to reduce stress and improve mental health).

The Deco two to three storey apartment building shown below sits well in its environment. Height is  orientated to the street (in this case a corner). A 5m wide front yard provides space for mature trees to be established.  There is balance between built form and landscape. 

 

In contrast to the above example, below is a more recent ‘3 unit’ development on a suburban site in the next suburb over from the Deco apartments. To fit the 3 units in, the front unit is about 2m off the street edge, with its outdoor living court between the house and the street. There is no room for any substantial landscape treatment. The road itself provides some space for trees, but like all roads, road space is under competition from buses, cars, bikes, pedestrians and in the future, parked cars.  

 

I think the MDRS need to be reworked to better reflect key liveability criteria, while still allowing greater density. For example:

More bulk at the front, less at the rear;

• 8m plus 60 degrees for front 15m of a site, then drop back to 3m plus 45 degrees 

• larger back yards (6m) – while still allowing more bulk to the front

Larger outlook spaces for primary living space, (6m by 4m) – reduced overlooking/privacy impacts through greater set back, incentivise orientation to street or rear yard

More green space / elements:

• front yard landscape requirement

• building coverage limited to 40% (not 50%), but corner sites could go up to 50%, while rear sites             kept back at 30%

• general tree protection to be brought back in. 

The last point – general tree protection – relates to previous changes to the RMA which removed the ability for district plans to control the removal of larger trees on private land. The building coverage allowed by the changes will substantially increase pressure to remove what large trees remain, but limited yard space means that few large trees are likely to be replanted.   This change will fundamentally alter the amenity of residential areas. 

Additional standards

It is not clear if the MDRS allows for additional controls / standards, for example:. 

• Nothing about limiting high front fences and visual interactions with open space for example. 

• Can ground floors be dominated by garages (probably)? 

• What about riparian yards and costal yard set backs? 

It would be helpful if the Bill specified that other forms of standards are valid (even if they are a form of building standard). 

Provide scope for additional controls that either:

• Do not reduce density, but lead to better outcomes, such as low front fencing; control on extent of blank walls / garages facing street; noise insultation on busy roads; on-site stormwater management; or

• Protect specified natural features such as riparian margins and coastal yard set backs without needing to justify the use of these standards through specific analysis. Many of the pohutkawas along coastal edges will be 'protected' becuase of coastal yard set backs, for example. 

Notes 

1: https://www.interest.co.nz/property/112958/2021-looks-year-housing-supply-caught-demand-most-places-greg-ninness-reports

 

NPS-UD Back to the Future

The draft proposals for the Natural and Built Environment Act, as well as documents like the National Policy Statement on Urban Development spark thoughts about the extent to which town planning is kind of turning full circle and coming back to its roots. 

Often it is interesting to look back to see what previous planning schemes aimed to achieve, in times when planning was more overtly about city building, rather than 'effects management'.  

The map below is from the 1961 district scheme for (the old, pre amalgamation) Auckland City. The city hugged the coastal edge; inland where the boroughs like Newmarket, Mt Eden and Mt Roskill.

The plan was prepared under the 1953 Town and Country Planning Act.  The general purpose of district schemes under that Act (section 18) was managing the development of the area to which the scheme relates (including, where necessary, the replanning and reconstruction of any area therein that has already been subdivided and built on) in such a way as will most effectively tend to promote and safeguard the health, safety and convenience, and the economic and general welfare of its inhabitants, and the amenities of every part of the area.

Maybe the proposed Natural and Built Environment Act could take a lead from this purpose statement: planning is about development and redevelopment, but in a way that promotes health, safety, convenience, welfare and amenities, not just more houses.   

The map shows three residential zones – B (yellow), C (brown) and D (orange). Not too sure what happened to the Residential A zone. It looks like the western side of Ponsonby (along the line of John Street, St Marys Bay and Arch Hill were all in the Residential C zone, along with Parnell. The ‘D” zone was confined to the eastern edge of the Central Area.

Other zones included a Burnt Cray Products Zones (in Avondale) while the Freemans Bay ‘Reclamation’ area looks rather ominous.

 

The zone  framework for B , C and D was pretty simple. 

Dwelling houses, semi-detached houses and apartment houses where possible in all three zones. So plenty of housing choices.  "Apartment house" meant any residential building which contains two or more household units and includes a block of flats. An apartment building did need a site with an area of 24 perches (about 600m2) in area. 

Maximum height of buildings went from 30 feet (9m) in Residential B zone, to 50 feet (15m) in Residential C and 100ft (30m) in Residential D. A simple graduation of height away from the central area was foreseen. No need for density in the suburbs.  

Building coverage in Residential B zone was 40%, but corner sites could go up to 50%, while rear sites where 30%. In the Residential C zone this coverage increased to 50%, 60% and 40% respectively. 

Density for residential buildings was limited to 50 persons per acre in the Residential B zone. This rose to 100 persons per acre in Residential C zone and 200 persons per acre in the Residential D zone. 

It is not clear from the scheme how residential density was measured at a site level. A rough guess is 50 persons per acre is equal to 6 or 7 dwellings per hectare in the B zone, and 13 to 14 dwellings per hectare in the C zone. 

In a rough sort of way, the zoning pattern in the 1961 plan is what the National Policy Statement on Urban Capacity is trying to achieve – more density close to the city centre. So if the 1961 scheme had been implemented, with Ponsonby and Parnell sprouting 3 to 4 storey apartment buildings and Symonds Street with 8 storey apartments, would we have the housing crises of today? 

Special Character was yet to be identified as a matter that should constrain redevelopment. The inner suburbs were yet to be gentrified, and if anything, there was concerns that Ponsonby may turn into a slum, so redevelopment was seen to be a good thing. Certainly Freemans Bay was seen as an area in need of redevelopment. Hence the special development area. 

The NPS-UD doesn't think much of Special Character. How would Auckland look if the 1961 scheme had been followed through? Perhaps it is a good thing that there is always a gap between aspiration and reality in planning.  

Retention of the inner suburbs has forced a focus on residential intensification in the central area, as well as in the suburbs outside the inner area. These are not bad outcomes.  Could it be said to be a win-win-win? Character retained, a busier Central Area and more activity in the outer suburbs?

Natural and Built Environment Act

The disclosure draft of the Natural and Built Environment Act is out for comment. What does it mean for urban design and urban environments?

In short: the natural environment gets ‘environmental limits’; the urban environment gets ‘flexibility’? 

The new Act will all be about positive outcomes, backed up by a monolithic sounding National Planning Framework.

Outcome (k) of the draft Act is:

Urban areas that are well functioning and responsive to growth and other changes  including by enabling a range of economic, social and cultural activities and ensuring a resilient urban form with good transport links within and beyond the urban area.

How will this outcome  be translated into the required National Planning Framework? What is a well functioning urban area - one with lots of choice and lots of competition between developers, landlords and owners?  Good transport links - something big and fast with lots of capacity? A motorway for one city and a rapid transit system for another? As for resilient urban form, resilient to what?

Top of the head comment would be that urban design has not found its way into the outcomes, despite the Randerson report seeking quality urban environments. Previous communication had said urban design would be pursued. Well, no sight of it in the disclosure draft.

Perhaps the National Planning Framework? But clause 13 does not list the quality of the built environment in its list of compulsory matters. 

The Parliamentary Paper that accompanies the exposure draft mutters darkly about ‘subjective' amenity assessments. Such matters will be banished! 

The new world order is about clear and defined 'limits' (and by implication clear and defined 'no limits'). Wishy washy urban design doesnt fit this mould.

Setting limits

The bill and the associated commentary feels very reactive - “the RMA failed to deliver a better natural environment and made urban environments worse and this is how we think we can patch up the failures of the last 30 years: We will set limits! 

But environmental limits could be set under the RMA and have slowly crept in. Section 6 of the RMA tried to set a bunch of 'limits', as did the Coastal Policy Statement. You could say that the National Policy Statement on Urban Development set another type of limit - a limit on low density development near rapid transit. So limits are not necessarily a new concept. 

The real questions  are how to set the limit - where to draw the lines - and how strong will the limit be? Does the new act help in defining limits? Apart from saying that the National Planning Framework may sort things out, there is a dearth of guidance on how to set limits and who is going to be involved in this process. Where do the incentives to set limits lie? 

Under the RMA it was mostly a regional council function to set environmental limits - regional councils were supposed to be the environmental watchdogs. But very few did set limits because most regional councils are dominated by rural interests who had limited interest in setting limits. Furthermore, new  stressors on the environment are often not easy to anticipate. Was the ‘dairy conversion’ boom of the early 2000s anticipated by any plan?  So limits often come in after the fact when it is hard to claw back lost ground.  

Limits may be set by the national planning framework or (more likely) left to regional planning committees. Will a Combined Plan prepared by a regional committee better support limit setting? One theory might say a combined plan is more likely to see limits watered down as room is made for necessary development and economic change.  The old Auckland Regional Council had an urban base and it tried to set an environmental limit in the form of the Metropolitan Urban Limit. The limit soon got turned into a stretchy rubber band. Much will depend upon the final make up of the regional planning committees that will formulate the new plans. Where will the balance of power lie?  Perhaps the membership of the committee should be on a population weighted basis. Does there need to be some form of independent public good defender in the mix? And how to represent future generations? 

And what about restoration and enhancement of degraded environments? The stronger call these days is to fix up inherited problems, rather thsn just stop new ones developing. What are the mechanisms to restore environments? 

Where is urban design?

The absence of any reference to the quality of the urban environment is a stunning (but deliberate?) omission. Given 85% of us live in towns and cities, and the built environment is so important to people’s health and well being and sense of safety you would have thought that the government would be worried not just about the stability of the financial sector from skyrocketing house prices, but also the impact of urban environments on police, education, health and social welfare budgets.

We have come a long way in a few years. Dial back to a National lead government and a 2010 discussion document on building competitive towns and cities. The following was stated:

If poorly managed, economic growth and our responses to it can have negative impacts. This poses a challenge for growing towns and cities: that is, how to enhance the positive outcomes that come from a high quality, liveable, economically productive natural and built urban environment, while mitigating or avoiding negative consequences, such as congestion or adverse impacts on the natural environment. 

Good planning and urban design can play a significant role in delivering and maintaining the high quality urban services and amenities, including public space, which are crucial to cities’ long-term attractiveness and competitiveness and quality of life. 

However, the environmental effects-based nature of the RMA, as the primary land-use planning legislation, does not easily allow this. In an urban context, the RMA has limited capacity to adequately consider the value created by urban development and good urban design compared to what already exists, or to support positive impacts of development on the built environment, beyond effects on amenity values. In particular, RMA practice emphasises the management of the effects on the natural environment. Creating and managing an urban environment which may not already exist, or is in the process of being created, is assessed in the same way as the existing natural environment. This tends to encourage a reactive, risk-averse approach that seeks to maintain the status quo, regardless of wider benefits which may be achieved from what is proposed. As such, the RMA does not effectively facilitate the achievement of long-term, efficient and integrated planning and urban design outcomes.  

So we have shifted from good planning and urban design helping to support liveability and economic development to no planning and no urban design being the best way of supporting liveability and economic growth? And this under a Labour government? 

The fear of the political power of the NIMBY to block any growth or change seems to have spooked the writers of the bill. Best to go around them, rather than try to placate them with vague references to good design. So much for public participation as a corner stone in any environmental management system. But perhaps more importantly, references to more  choices and good transport links between cities could just generate a whole new round of sprawl, big boxes and haphazard apartments, rather than the hoped for clean, green compact city that supports greenhouse gas emissions and reduces per capita demands on infrastructure spend.  How does the NPS-UD match up with outcome (K) and (L)? 

Too many outcomes?

As many have noted, the list of outcomes in section 8 of the exposure draft is long.  There is no hierarchy as there is with sections 6 and 7 of the RMA.  No guidance is provided on the resolution of conflicts. What gives when one outcome butts up against another - infrastructure needs to cross a significant natural area;  an urban area wants to push out into good soils? Limits will be breached. Supporting more choices for consumers in the range and type of housing to be enabled is a good thing, provided it occurs within a solid framework Okura didn’t get urbanised because of the landscape values present and the Plan (and the Act) saying that the landscape values were important enough to keep. Would the new section 8 ‘protect’ Okura, given landscapes are a human construct not a bio physical thing and will not be subject to a limit? 

Section 8 feels like an attempt to sell the Act to both sides of the debate as a win-win.  Under the RMA the narrative was that for the environmentalist, adverse effects on the environment will have to be mitigated; for the developer, you can go anywhere provided you mitigate your effects. The language may have changed to limits rather than mitigation but the message seems the same: resource users will be limited by limits,  but limits will be limited in their scope. 

Setting aside the big conflicts between development and protection, what about the nitty gritty of a new taller building being inserted into a low rise suburb? Any guidance on how to address this, what effects to take into account or discount, how to rate and evaluate different effects? Rather than simplify things by trying to say most ‘urban’ effects are no longer relevant, I get the feeling that the absence of direction will just amplify debate and discourse, rather than resolve conflicts. 

Plans will never be able to resolve all conflicts.  The hope that many activities will be permitted or prohibited is unlikely to play out. There will always be a larger middle ground of probably/possible activities. The mechanics of consent decision making will be critical.

Well functioning urban neighbourhoods

 

Do we need well functioning neighbourhoods rather than well functioning urban environments?

As the RMA reforms take shape (or not), the question of the purpose of urban planning is no doubt going to be debated. Currently, the proposed objective of the new planning act appears to be well functioning urban environments. Whether this is well functioning in social, economic and environmental terms is yet to be sorted.

But is the ideal of a well functioning city too broad to offer much guidance as to what is the rationale for much urban planning and asscoiated interventions?  

While spatial planning may deal with the big picture items of city structure, it is down at the neighbourhood level that things happen. It is at this level that many small, incremental changes occur, some for the better, some for the worse. 

Should the proposed Spatial Planning Act deal with well functioning urban areas and the Natural and Built Environment Act aim to support well functioning neighbourhoods? At the neighbourhood level, urban planning is more about urban design, cumulative effects and people’s day to day interactions with their environments. It is not about urban expansion versus intensification, or about nodes and corridors.  

The neighbourhood has long been a core element of city planning. The concept of the residential neighbourhood could be said to be one of the greatest inventions of urban planning. The amenity (and stability) benefits provided by a neighbourhood where potentially incompatible activities are constrained or actively excluded are important and shouldn't be taken for granted. But neighbourhoods are complex things. We need a more sophisticated understanding of neighbourhoods and how to manage them. 

There are many signs that neighbourhoods are important to social and economic outcomes: 

• Well functioning neighbourhoods build social capital
• Covid has given a boost to working from home and probably soon for many, working for part of the week at least in your neighbourhood. 
• As the population ages, then the neighbourhood needs to accommodate people as they age in place
• As economies decarbonise and travelling longer distances gets more expensive, then people are going to become more reliant on their  local environment in meeting their needs
• Mental health is supported by a high qaulity public realm in the neighbourhood. 

But how do we define what is a well functioning neighbourhood and how do we get across the notion that for all neighbourhoods, there will always be a degree of change? 

Two concepts with some contemporary currency are:

• The complete neighbourhood
• The 15minute neighbourhood

These can be described as neighbourhoods where one has safe and convenient access to the goods and services needed in daily life. This includes a variety of housing options, local stores and other commercial services, public open spaces and recreational facilities, affordable active transportation options and civic amenities. An important element of a complete neighbourhood is that it is built at a walkable and bikeable human scale, and meets the needs of people of all ages and abilities.

The 15 minute neighbourhood is all the rage at the moment. The new London Plan has the concept as a core idea - people should be able to access most services and activities they need within a 15 walk, bike or bus ride. The core principles of a 15-minute city are said to be:

• Residents of every neighbourhood have easy access to goods and services, particularly groceries, fresh food and healthcare.
• Every neighbourhood has a variety of housing types, of different sizes and levels of affordability, to accommodate many types of households and enable more people to live closer to where they work.
• Residents of every neighbourhood are able to breathe clean air, free of harmful air pollutants, there are green spaces for everyone to enjoy.
• More people can work close to home or remotely, thanks to the presence of smaller-scale offices, retail and hospitality, and co-working spaces.

But perhaps this is too much of an insular view of neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods need to interconnect and overlap. The big benefit of cities is the agglomeration benefits of many people coming together from many different neighbourhoods. But nevertheless people identify with their neighbourhood. As Jane Jacobs says:

But for all the innate extroversion of city neighbourhoods, it fails to follow that city people can therefore get along magically without neighbourhoods. Even the most urbane citizen does care about the atmosphere of the street and district where he lives, no matter how much choice he has of pursuits outside it, and the common run of city people do depend greatly on their neighbourhood for the kind of everyday lives they lead.

Well functioning  neighbourhoods have a degree of self organisation to them - people look out for one another. They invest time in their local house, street and local community to the benefit of all. 

Planning for well functioning neighbourhoods is different from handing planning over to the locals (neighbourhood planning). It is also not about stopping change. But here is one of the great paradoxes of neighbourhoods - how to build social capital through stability while allowing for the inevitable ebb and flow of city growth. Back to Jane Jacobs:

To be sure, a good city neighbourhood can absorb new comers into itself, both newcomers by choice and immigrants settling by expediency and it can protect a reasonable amount of transient population too. But these increments or displacements have to be gradual. If self government in the place is to work, underlying any float of population must be a continuity of people who have forged neighbourhood networks.  These networks are a city’s irreplaceable social capital. Whenever the capital is lost, from whatever cause, the income from it disappears.  

What are the remedies to maintain social capital while allowing change: 

• Good streets
• Active frontages
• Mix of uses
• Older and newer buildings
• Gradual change.

How does planning support these qualities? Perhaps the biggest issue to get right is the last one. To quote Jane Jacobs yet again:

City building that has a solid footing produces continual and gradual change, building complex diversifications. Growth of diversity itself is created by means of changes dependent upon each other to build increasingly effective combinations of uses. All city building that retains staying power after its novelty has gone and that preserves the freedom of streets and upholds citizens self management, requires that its locality be able to adapt, keep up to date, keep interesting, keep convenient and this in turn requires a myriad of gradual, constant, close grained changes.

So rather than have policies that say:

“that the planned urban built form in … RMA planning documents may involve significant changes to an area, and those changes: (i) may detract from amenity values appreciated by some people but improve amenity values appreciated by other people, communities, and future generations, including by providing increased and varied housing densities and types; and (ii) are not, of themselves, an adverse effect”

Perhaps they should say: 

“that changes to urban built form that involve gradual, constant adjustments that increase the diversity and complexity of uses and buildings in communities are not, of themselves, an adverse effect, but rather are a positive effect that should be supported”.

Urban planning and the reform of the RMA 2

RMA reform proposals have taken another step with release of the programme for the reform and associated Cabinet papers. The press release that accompanied the programme says that the new Natural and Built Environment Act will be more focused on natural environmental outcomes and less on subjective amenity matters that favour the status quo. Better urban design will be “pursued”. 

What that means for urban environments is not clear.  

The image below is snipped from the Cabinet paper on the reforms. It is part of the proposed section on "outcomes". The new Act will all be about achieving positive outcomes.  

Reference to the features and characteristics that contribute to urban quality is crossed out. So too is sustainable use of the built environment. Outcomes for the built environment are listed as:

• Sufficient development capacity
• Housing supply and choice.

Will urban design just be tacked onto the calls for more land and greater housing capacity ?  But well functioning urban environments are not the same as well functioning land and housing markets that produce lots of nice looking houses.

To put it somewhat differently, a market economy is not the same as a market society. To borrow someone elses words (see Note 1):

The difference is this: A well functioning market economy is a tool—a valuable and effective tool—for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavor. It’s a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market.

What is needed to ensure well functioning land markets is increasingly redefining what is a well functioning urban environment. But where do qualities like all neighbourhoods providing mixed uses, accommodating mixed incomes, providing accessible and safe open spaces and streets, fit in? We may moan about terms like character and identity, but these subjective qualities are vital to a modern city  where most jobs are involved in services (including tourism and events), creativity and 'technology'. These qualities will not spring forth from a well functioning land market. In fact they are qualities that can easily be eroded as markets seek to devour the public realm. 

Why such a focus on market-based processes to defining urban outcomes? Part of the appeal of markets is that they don’t pass judgment on the preferences they satisfy. They don’t ask whether some ways of valuing goods are higher, or worthier, than others. 

To this could be added that markets do not arbitrarily pick winners and losers through administrative decisions; markets also collect and process lots of information quickly.   Back  to the article quoted above:

This nonjudgmental stance toward values lies at the heart of market reasoning, and explains much of its appeal. But our reluctance to engage in moral and spiritual argument, together with our embrace of markets, has exacted a heavy price: it has drained public discourse of moral and civic energy, and contributed to the technocratic, managerial politics afflicting many societies today.

While a bit strong perhaps, somehow we need to draw a line between the urban economy and urban society. Urban planning and urban design is not just about ensuring efficient urban economies, it is also about supporting well functioning urban communities.

We live in cities because of the social and economic benefits that they bring. It is easy to let slip the conditions that support social benefits and focus on the economic. Granted, lack of affordable housing is a social issue as much as it is an economic issue, but rendering down of urban planning to the one act of ensuring sufficient supply of housing opportunities presents a very bleak view of urban planning and urban communities.  Are urban communities so dysfunctional that they shouldn't be given tools to help shape the social life of  cities? 

Does the RMA reform proposals take forward the debate about where the boundary is between well functioning urban economies and well functioning urban communities? Will the new Act support the type of planning needed to deliver the patterns of urban land use set out in the National Policy Statement on Urban Development - 6 storey apartments close to centres and transit lines? That level of urban intensity needs good, detailed design and a strong 'partnership' between public and private space.  It also requires a degree of 'micro-management'. Urban environments are all about small incremental changes - positive and negative. Will  the Act allow for consideration of these cumulative effects?

Firstly, under the new Act, it looks like urban environments will need to operate within bio-physical limits. The Cabinet paper states that environmental limits have become ‘bio physical’ limits. These limits cover freshwater, coastal waters, air, soils, biodiversity, and terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Bio physical limits help support well functioning urban environments. But this is just a stronger articulation of the bottom line approach to management of the natural environment  that was part of the RMA. It is not a new approach. 

Long-standing social constructs of outstanding landscapes, historic heritage and coastal environments are to be recognised in the new Act.  But these constructs result in limits on urban development and expansion.  This is section 6 of the RMA re-housed.

Is the call for ‘outcomes’ a recognition of the need for something more than a well functioning urban land market that operates within bio physical limits? But what are these outcomes to be achieved?

Management of the built environment seems to be stripped back to ‘more housing options, more quickly’ . The Cabinet paper explains :

The Panel recommended listing as an outcome the enhancement of features and characteristics that contribute to the quality of the built environment’. While it was not the Panel’s intention, I consider the inclusion could perpetuate subjective amenity values hindering development. This has therefore been removed from Appendix One. 

However I do recognise that urban design considerations do contribute to well functioning urban areas. These matters are more appropriately addressed at a lower level in the NBA such as through the National Planning Framework. 

Hopefully, this statement means that urban design is not seen to be a bunch of subjective assessments of amenity. This is a step forward, but perhaps urban designers better quickly redefine what they mean when they refer to character and identity’. Of course it is possible to jazz up ‘character’ to refer instead to the scale, massing, grain and rhythm of the built form, or something similar. 

Is the reference to well functioning urban areas (rather than markets) a hint of a wider scope for planning and urban design? But will outcomes extend down to the small scale matters like front fence heights, building set backs and front doors being visible from the street, features which contribute so much to the quality and functionality of neighbourhoods?   

Finally, the strategic integration of infrastructure with land use is basically the same as Sec 30 of the RMA: “the strategic integration of infrastructure with land use through objectives, policies, and methods”. That injunction hasn’t got us very far. There is always the fear that anything too directive about ‘integration’ will mean that land use development will be held up by slow infrastructure roll-out, rather than infrastructure supporting fast roll out of urban development.  

So is the end result more market and less society?  Feels that way. 

Note 1: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/what-isnt-for-sale/308902/

Urban design and reform of the RMA

Some more thoughts on the replacement to the RMA and the possible role of urban design in the new Act. A central feature of the reform panel's report on the RMA is the call for 'urban quality'. Does the call for urban quality not place urban design in the centre of the action? 

First up, urban planning has always responded to the pressures of the day:

1. The Victorian city and its densely packed housing close to polluting industry. The planning response: separate out land uses and control housing density
2. The post war city of motorways, suburbia and subsidised sprawl - response: better protect the natural environment (streams, bush, landscapes), develop sub regional hubs, structure planning
3. The post industrial city of the late 20th Century of infill, redevelopment, gentrification and consumerism - heritage zones, design controls, tree protection, view shafts, mixed uses (which is where urban design started to come into focus).

The interesting thing is how each wave has added layers of response onto previous layers. Is the  panel’s call for urban quality a further iteration of this trend of addition, or is it a replacement of  accumulated layers?

But either way are quality urban environments what we need to respond to today’s urban pressures and issues? Constrained supply of housing and too many road blocks to urban redevelopment are seen to be the pressures of the day, pushing up house prices. In one view, in response market forces should become more prevalent in the determination of land use location, density and mix. This will help ensure sufficient and adequate supply of housing, apparently. The call then goes out to make sure it is quality development - where ever and what ever it is.  This will keep the NIMBYs at bay. But does 'quality urban environments' sound like a very middle class aspiration? 

But why do we think market processes will not deliver quality. And what happened to overall urban functionality, equity and long term efficiency?

I'm  a bit worried that the RMA reforms will play out along a simple dichotomy:

Better protect the natural environment, but loosen up on the urban areas. 

People like simple solutions and this one always sounds fair and balanced. More rules and intervention in one sphere, but less in another.

But loosen up in the urban sphere? Loosen up may be right for some circumstances. It is time to have a look at the accumulated layers, and perhaps remove some, but new layers need to be developed to deal with future issues.

The trick to any RMA reforms will be in defining the limits of planning in an urban context. There are defined principles to limit market processes as they relate to the natural environment (bottom lines, fair allocation within limits, managing use of public resources), but come to the urban environment and there are much less clear cut boundaries. The RMA attempted to control urban planning by limiting intervention to the management of externalities. But that never limited constant calls for more planning to control and promote outcomes. Defining the role of urban planning has to involve some sort of consensus on how far it can go.  The call for ‘quality’ is a simplistic response to this need, and will lock debate about urban planning into a very narrow field.   

In previous posts I have looked at urban design and how it relates to plans developed under the Resource Management Act. Urban design has come along way in the past 20 years, but has struggled to find a ‘home’ under the RMA. This is because the qualities and characteristics of urban environments that support social and economic well being are much wider than just managing negative externalities. They are also much wider than a simple notion of 'quality'. Good urban environments are complex:

• People’s interactions with the built environment is physical, emotional and cerebral
• Interactions are both positive and negative.
• They tend to be small-scale, cumulative and accumulate
• The public-private interface is critical
• Open space, mixed uses, housing choices, connectivity are all critical to well functioning urban environments.

If anything, todays urban pressures are all about addressing a narrowing of urban choices (the downsides of a more market - or less government - approach?). Equity is being eroded, long term consequences are being downplayed and choices narrowed as private space takes over from public space. There is a growing concentration of urban resources in fewer and fewer hands and a longer tail of people and neighbourhoods being left behind. The old technique of a strong public sector to counterbalance the pressures of a strong private sector no longer works. Calls for more competition to help rein in the concentration of private interests and improve market-based choices tends to see concentration increase, rather than get dispersed.  More housing supply is not translating into more supply of modestly priced housing, for example. 

 How do these thoughts match up with the proposed replacement RMA? Lets start with the purpose:

(1) The purpose of this Act is to enhance the quality of the environment to support the wellbeing of present and future generations and to recognise the concept of Te Mana o te Taiao. 

Wellbeing is wide ranging: 

 In this Act wellbeing includes the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of people and communities and their health and safety.

Promotion of quality urban environments sounds like a more comfortable starting point for management of urban environments than avoidance and mitigation of adverse effects.  Depends on the outcomes of course. But can a quality urban environment deliver a healthy and safe urban environment for all, for example? Is the reference to 'quality' too confining? Shouldn't a safe and healthy urban environment that can be enjoyed by all be an objective in itself?   So too with housing choice and affordability.  

To achieve the outcome, the review report on the RMA suggests a shift towards outcomes. 

(2) The purpose of this Act is to be achieved by ensuring that: 

(a) positive outcomes for the environment are identified and promoted; 

(b) the use, development and protection of natural and built environments is within environmental limits and is sustainable; and 

(c) the adverse effects of activities on the environment are avoided, remedied or mitigated. 

The obvious problem is that positive outcomes are to be ‘promoted’ while negative effects are avoided or mitigated. Avoidance and mitigation are a lot more definitive terms than ‘promotion’. How are positive outcomes to be ‘promoted”? Promotion involves some sense of active facilitation, but perhaps no more than some marketing. Are positive outcomes to be promoted by enabling them to occur, but not requiring them? 

But then, what is a positive outcome? Is it an improvement over the current state? Is more choice a positive outcome? 

What is meant by the word 'environment'?

(3) In this Act environment includes– 

(a) ecosystems and their constituent parts; 

(b) people and communities; and 

(c) natural and built environments whether in urban or rural areas. 

So promotion of positive outcomes can include something positive for a community? Is a shared sense of place/identity through the coherent design of the built environment a positive outcome (like a Special Character Area, but then dont these special character areas lock up supply options?). 

To assist in achieving the purpose of this Act, those exercising functions and powers under it must provide for the following ‘outcomes’:

Built environment:

(f) enhancement of features and characteristics that contribute to the quality of the built environment; 

(g) sustainable use and development of the natural and built environment in urban areas including the capacity to respond to growth and change; 

(h) availability of development capacity for housing and business purposes to meet expected demand; 

(i) strategic integration of infrastructure with land use.

So does promotion of environments that support urban well-being get reduced to "lots of  capacity for ‘quality’ development?". 

I think this bit of the possible Act needs serious consideration. 

There needs to be some form of definition or explanation of features that contribute to the functionality of the built environment, of which quality is one aspect. This is very wide ranging, spanning from sense of safety to aesthetics with everything in between. 

The built environment is also a vast space covering public, private and semi public/private spaces. Should the reference to qualities be more confined to the public components of the built environment (streets, open spaces, public buildings) or perhaps to the public areas and their interface with private spaces? 

There is a danger that the more comprehensive attempts to incorporate positive outcomes become, the less defined the outcomes become and less support is provided to their incorporation. The alternative is to take up the language of bottom lines and limits and say that developments in urban environments should incorporate some basic features that support quality public environments and do not detract or reduce these values.   

And by the way,  the strategic integration of infrastructure provision with land use and development has to be  linked to funding arrangements. Structure plans and rezonings should only be advanced after infrastructure needs, costs and funding obligations have been determined and agreed. Otherwise, there is not going to be any 'integration'.