Should every home in every "character suburb" be preserved? Photo / NZME
This is a transcript of Simon Wilson’s weekly newsletter Love this City – exploring the ideas and events, the reality and the potential of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
Helen Clark, the former prime minister, said at an event in Auckland last week that she lived in a “character suburb” and wouldn’t want to see it much changed. Character suburbs means suburbs full of villas: mostly, the ones that ring the central city, from Devonport round through St Marys Bay, Grey Lynn, Mt Eden and Parnell.
She also said that, when she drove down the Southern Motorway, “I’m worried by what I see there: all those sprawling new suburbs.” That was a reference to the townships in and around Drury and Pukekohe, where a population the size of Napier is expected to soon be living.
Clark was speaking at the breakfast event to mark the 15th anniversary of Auckland as a Super City. Having a single amalgamated council had been very good for Auckland, she said. But she worried about the housing.
She’s not the only one. Sir John Key was there, and he said, “We don’t want the massive skyscrapers of Hong Kong. That’s not who we are.”
But he also believed there should be viable options for new homeowners looking for “something in the $700,000 to a million range”.
Were they both contradicting themselves? Perhaps, but it seemed more like they were expressing Auckland’s housing conundrum. We need to fix the housing problem, but how, without destroying the city? Who doesn’t agree when you put it like that?
It’s not helpful to talk about Hong Kong skyscrapers: nobody’s suggesting we build like that. But nor is it helpful to say every old suburb is a “character suburb”.
Clark lives near a railway station and excellent bus routes, in a part of town dominated by nondescript low-rise commercial buildings and cottages. “Character” is a real stretch. It’s crying out for well-designed apartment blocks: for density done well.
The Environmental Defence Society hosted a conference on Wednesday called Dollars and Sense, and one of the speakers had a highly imaginative approach to the housing density question fretted over by Key and Clark a week earlier.
George Weeks is the principal transport adviser at Auckland Council. In that capacity, he advises the mayor and councillors on goings on at Auckland Transport, but on this occasion, he stressed, he was speaking in a personal capacity.
Weeks told the story of the Arna, a car invented in the 1970s by Alfa Romeo and Nissan. The bright sparks in those companies had said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could make a car with the reliability of Japanese engineering and the flair of Italian design?”
The Alfa Romeo Arna was the result. But it broke down a lot and was boring to look at, because it had Italian engineering and Japanese design.
“This,” said Weeks, “is how we’re building our cities.”
We value suburban homes with a backyard, and we also value dense living closer to the centre, where there’s good public transport. But we’ve mixed them up. Instead of building more of both those things, progress with apartment blocks on the city fringe has slowed right down while developers are cramming large houses onto tiny plots of land, cheek by jowl, miles from anywhere.
Weeks’ example was Pokeno, but the model is now the norm for subdivisions all over the country. Density on rural land, with no backyards.
Meanwhile, mid-rise apartment blocks closer to town commonly attract a chorus of complaints. If the neighbours can afford it, they use the Resource Management Act to drag the developer to the Environment Court.
At the same conference, the Ministry for the Environment’s chief executive, James Palmer, called the RMA the biggest gift to Nimbys ever. And the Minister for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, said that’s going to change (more on this soon).
“It is not true,” said Weeks, “that density means we have to do this.” His “this” was a slide of appallingly dense Hong Kong high-rises. Did he know about the Key reference?
But is there a better way? Weeks pointed to the Netherlands, where urban development focuses on terraced three-storey houses, narrow roads, lots of trees and parks and very good public transport.
“The average new house in the Netherlands,” he said, “is 43% bigger than new houses in the UK, because it’s density done well.”
Instead of designing cities that force people to drive, they make it easy not to. “The Netherlands,” he said, “is the only country in the world where the population is expected to get slimmer by 2030.”
Weeks had a four-point recipe for density done well, and many examples of it happening right here in Auckland.
1. Mixed land use
Ponsonby Central “combines many uses in one place”. The new downtown project in Christchurch will be a much bigger example of the same thing.
2. Attractive public realm
Wynyard Quarter is one example, while the new cycleways of Pt Chevalier provide the kind of upgrade that’s “essential if we want to densify”. Needs more trees, though, if you ask me.
3. Good public transport
“Density is impossible without it”, and public transport in Auckland is already much better than many people realise. In 2016, there were nine frequent services; now there are 43.
In Pukekohe, where the rail line has been electrified and reopened, there are three bus services connecting the new developments to the town centre and the railway station, and therefore to the city centre.
4. Relevant to visitors
The Catalina Bay Farmers Market at Hobsonville Point rewards locals and visitors alike.
Hobsonville Point is a planned township with many advantages, said Weeks, but it has one glaring problem. It’s stuffed full of cars because they failed to provide good public transport from the start.
Heard about tegelwippen? It’s a Dutch word: tegel means “tile” and wippen is “to pick up”. Tegelwippen is the Dutch practice, sanctioned in law, of pulling up footpath pavers and planting flowers, vegetables and even trees instead.
And it’s not just footpaths. They’re doing it in schoolyards, driveways, public squares and private gardens too. Trying to reduce the amount of urban land covered in concrete and asphalt because, as the climate crisis bites, the risk of flooding is getting worse. Sounds familiar.
They got the idea during Covid: it was something people could do outside their houses. An intercity competition developed: with no sports, maybe people wanted something to cheer for.
Residents now have the legal right to clear a strip of land half a metre wide in front of their homes and plant it as they like. They don’t need permission from the council, power company, landlord or anyone else.
In cities like Rotterdam, the council will remove the broken pavers and other rubble, even if it’s been taken from private property. All residents have to do is contact the tegeltaxi.
Since 2020, the equivalent of 235 football fields has been converted like this. They don’t just plant berms like we do because, while grass is obviously better than concrete for soaking up water, bigger plants are better at capturing and storing rainfall, and providing other pleasures. And trees provide shade as well.
How’s your berm looking?
I’ve reported recently on the controversy around the Government’s plan to raise speed limits, particularly as it affects streets near schools. One problem is that, because of poor wording in new regulations, many suburbs may end up with speed limits that, for most of the time, are higher outside schools than in other adjoining streets.
Councils in Hamilton and Dunedin have found ways to keep all but a handful of their lower speed limits around schools, but Auckland Transport, with 1500 affected streets, says it has legal advice that it can’t do the same.
Others disagree. Waiheke Local Board chair Cath Handley believes the higher speed limits won’t need to apply on the island.
She told the Gulf News in March that an apparent exemption “follows a briefing meeting held with Honourable Simeon Brown when he was both Minister of Auckland and Transport, where the chair raised several Waiheke issues. The minister showed an active interest in our rationale for retention of the changes to reduced speed limits on offshore islands, specifically Waiheke.”
One possible reason: the higher speed limits are supposed to make it “easier for people and freight to get from A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible, which will help drive economic growth and improved productivity”, according to the new Transport Minister, Chris Bishop.
It’s harder than you might think to make that proposition stick, especially on suburban roads. As I’ve reported, the Cabinet itself has never seen any evidence for it. But you’d think it was pretty much impossible on the narrow, winding roads of Waiheke.
The new Speed Rule was introduced by Brown, and Bishop says he has no plans to change it. Instead, he told Parliament on April 10 that he’s comfortable with the Hamilton and Dunedin approach.
He was asked, could speed limits of 30km/h be retained “where there is strong community support, especially around schools and aged-care facilities”?
The minister replied, “The new rule allows for that.”
He’s said it elsewhere, too. At a meeting attended by Living Streets Aotearoa (LSA) that same day, Bishop advised that other councils should look to follow the approach taken by the Hamilton City Council.
The AT board was advised of this by Safer Streets campaigners at its meeting on April 29. The next day, LSA president Tim Jones wrote to AT chief executive Dean Kimpton and board chair Richard Leggat to confirm it.
Meanwhile, in the suburbs of the inner west (including Pt Chevalier, Waterview, Mt Albert, Balmoral, Sandringham, Kingsland and Mt Eden), local board member Christina Robertson has done a “deep dive” into the way AT sets lower speed limits “near schools”.
Complying with regulations can be quite technical. But in brief, Robertson has discovered that AT used such loose definitions of “near schools” that the Hamilton and Dunedin approach seems to apply.
She’s produced the evidence, she believes, that Bishop is right.
Robertson also says that, while she limited her study to the streets in her board area, she expects the same would apply throughout the Auckland suburbs.
AT and the Auckland Council have both written to Bishop about this, asking for clarification. No word yet on the response.
It’s Road Safety Week right now, with the theme of Road Safety Heroes celebrating the work of “everyone who is working to make our roads safer and support people following crashes - from emergency services to health professionals, transport engineers to school crossing patrols, road workers to community campaigners”.
“Plenty of everyday Aucklanders are road safety heroes,” says Robertson, “as they walk their children to school, lead bike trains or advocate for safety improvements in their neighbourhood. They deserve the same heroism from the organisation whose statutory purpose is delivering a transport system that is effective, efficient and safe.”
Come on, Auckland Transport. In those communities where people have said they want the lower speed limits to stay, do the right thing and support them.
A few choice quotes from the 15th anniversary celebration of Auckland as a Super City.
Sir John Key: “People keep asking, ‘Are we there yet?’ Here’s a clue: we’ll never be there yet. There’s a saying that, if you want to eat an elephant, you do it bite by bite. We have to look at it through the lens of realism, not perfectionism.”
Deloitte boss Mike Horne disagrees. As I’ve reported previously, he says, “Auckland has been incremental in what it has achieved since becoming a Super City 15 years ago. Being incremental isn’t going to achieve what the city needs.”
Damon Salesa, AUT vice-chancellor: “Auckland isn’t a super diverse city, it’s an agglomeration of many different cities all working alongside each other. Bridging the gaps between them is the best and most effective way to build a productive economy.”
Mayor Wayne Brown: “Auckland doesn’t have Māori wards, but it does have the Independent Māori Statutory Board. The IMSB works well, but I think it may as well have seats on the governing body of council, as well as on the committees.” That would give the IMSB, now known as Houkura, full voting rights.
Here’s a good thing Auckland Transport is doing, along with the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi. Thanks to their support, EcoMatters Bike Hubs is lending e-bikes to the public for free two-week trials.
Check it out online or at any of the EcoMatters outlets around the city: in Forrest Hill, Glen Innes, New Lynn, Onehunga, Pakuranga, Grey Lynn or on Queens Wharf.
The range includes commuter bikes, off-road bikes, step-throughs, cargo bikes for kids and cargo bikes for cargo that doesn’t squeal with delight.
Some bike shops also offer free lending trials, but there’s no pressure at EcoMatters, because they don’t sell the bikes. You’ll need to go to a proper shop for that. It’s a great way to make a decision.
I know, winter is coming. But what better time to test the theory that Auckland weather is bad for riding in? You might be surprised.
Mayor Wayne Brown says it often: Auckland should make its existing roads as efficient as possible before spending millions building new ones.
Efficiency is also the transport priority of the Government and, as AT chair Richard Leggat told Minister for Auckland Simeon Brown last week, “reducing journey times” is his agency’s “main goal” too.
To this end, AT has opened public consultation on proposals to make five of the city’s busiest arterial roads more efficient.
Dominion Rd carries 25,000 vehicles a day and can’t handle any more. Peak afternoon traffic starts at 3pm and the main intersections can get completely blocked.
“The only thing we can do to speed up travel is to make the most of the space already on the road,” says Chris Martin, who’s in charge of optimising the road network.
AT wants to do this in two ways. The first is to begin the bus-only restriction in the bus lane at 3pm, instead of 4pm.
“One double-decker bus can hold up to 100 people. If more people experience a faster bus journey, that’s potentially up to 100 fewer vehicles squeezing their way down this road.”
Buses currently carry 7500 people each day along Dominion Rd, with 3000 embarking on Dominion Rd itself.
The second proposal is to ban some right-hand turns. One is just south of the Potters Park/McDonald’s intersection with Balmoral Rd, where southbound vehicles looking for a park attempt to turn right into Wiremu St.
This creates gridlock through the lights at the main intersection.
AT wants to ban right turns into Wiremu St at peak times, and do the same for Memorial Drive, near the main Mt Roskill intersection. George St, at the north end, would have a permanent right-turn ban.
Manukau Rd and Pah Rd are the busiest arterials in the city, Martin says, carrying 35,000 vehicles a day, including up to 14 buses an hour at peak times.
AT proposes to begin the T3 lane restriction at 3pm, instead of 4pm, and keep it going until 7pm. On nearby Great South Rd, the same thing is proposed for the bus lane.
In Mt Wellington, AT is working with NZTA Waka Kotahi to create new transit and heavy vehicle lanes on roads that access the motorway: Sylvia Park Rd and Mt Wellington Highway.
Martin says these roads are going to get even busier once Ikea opens later this year, and already 11% of vehicles using them are trucks and buses. “It would be fantastic to get these vehicles that are essential to our economy out of traffic and moving more efficiently.”
They want to add a new lane on Sylvia Park Rd, which will mean removing the “one or two” parks on the roadside that cause bottlenecks for everyone else. They also plan to reallocate the lanes on both sides of Mt Wellington Highway.
The transit lanes will link with existing transit lanes on Great South Rd and Atkinson Rd and complement the work NZTA is doing to improve traffic flow on to the motorway and through the Mt Wellington Highway interchange. The motorway-related work will be done at night.
Public feedback on Dominion Rd is open until May 25, for Manukau Rd until June 1 and Mt Wellington until June 8.
Auckland Writers Festival: The biggest event to fill the Aotea Centre over and over in all its venues every year is upon us again, ending Sunday evening.
Last year‘s Booker Prize-winner Samantha Harvey is here, talking about her short (136 pages) book Orbital which, yes, is set in space. The great New Zealand writer Catherine Chidgey, two books on from Tama the magpie; the great Irish writer Colm Toibin, whose latest novel Long Island heartbreakingly updates the story of his masterpiece Brooklyn; a bevy of 2025 Ockham Awards finalists and winners including the newly crowned fiction-winner Damien Wilkins, 30 years on from the last time he won; sessions on Trump, billionaires, AI and other assorted nightmares.
And a whole contingent of Nordish writers. I’m personally excited about them, because I’m chairing a session with Lars Mytting, who has written a gripping historical trilogy set in the mountains and forests, which explores the way the mythical past can overwhelm the present, and resonates in wonderful ways with storytelling here. And it’s a love story, of course.
Mytting also wrote Norwegian Wood, about chopping, stacking, drying, etc, which has become an international bestseller, so we’ll talk about that too. Axework as art, though arguably also anti-art.
I’m also talking to Covid modeller Shaun Hendy and marae leaders Kimiora Raerino and Lavinia McGee-Repia about their books on the Covid response.
And if you want to discover unknown writers who’ll knock your socks off, come along to the session I’m doing with French novelist Jean-Baptiste Del Amo and the Australian Robbie Arnott. They both write about the brutality of men and the great acts of redemption, or at least survival, we’re sometimes capable of. Arnott’s new book is a Tasmanian western, with a puma at its heart; as for Del Amo, let me just say you will never think about pig farming the same again. Festival details here.
NZ Music Month: Whatever your fancy, it’s live-performance time and they’ve got you covered. Check it out here.
And tonight in Albany, Auckland’s rugby showdown of the season so far: The Blues play Moana Pasifika with the loser quite possibly lost for the playoffs. Here for it.
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One victim's son is appealing for information about the ute involved