Short term, 3-year electoral thinking rather than 100-year generational thinking means we can not have nice stuff like intercity rail! Executive Summary This briefing document outlines a strategic shift for … Continue reading Briefing: Transforming New Zealand’s Transit: The Japanese Integrated Development Model
Intercity Rail Concept Waiting in the Wings for our Politics Just to Say Yes rather than our Culture of NO! Auckland is currently a city “imploding” under the weight of … Continue reading Why Auckland’s Transit Future Isn’t a “Bullet Train”—It’s a Japanese Blueprint
The National Policy Statement-Urban Development, and Standardised Zones might have the final say! The celebration from certain quarters in regards to Minister Chris Bishop apparently downgrading Plan Change 120 could … Continue reading PC120 Downgrade Not a Victory for NIMBYs as They Think It Was
We have the Law, we have the National Spatial Plan, now for the Regional Spatial Plan In the previous post we met; Maia, Tane, Alex, and Kahu. The four characters … Continue reading Time for that 30-Year Regional Spatial Plan
Where Planning Policy meets the end-user, aka YOU! With my submission on the Planning Bill now with the Environment Select Committee, I am moving focus from Planning Theory to boots … Continue reading Interacting with Planning: Those Standardised Zones!
From Planning Legislative Theory, to Actual Design Place-Led Placemaking! With my submission for the Planning Bill now with the Environment Select Committee (My Submission to the New Zealand Planning Bill … Continue reading Introducing our Design-Led Placemaking: Ambassadors Maia, Tane, Kahu and Alex
Continuing from Legislative Theory to on-the-ground Design-Led Placemaking Situation: Look out your window and be honest: you are looking at a design failure. For most of us, the street below … Continue reading The Urban Upgrade: 5 Radical Truths Hidden in the Future of Our Cities
Moving from Legislative Theory to Design-Led Practice on the Ground For decades, our cities have been designed as “dormitory suburbs”—monolithic zones that function merely as storage for people and cars. … Continue reading The Urban Operating System: 5 Surprising Ways Aotearoa is Rewriting the Rules of the City
Rewrite of large parts of the Bill as Public Domain goes Missing in Private Property Frenzy DONE! After five weeks and 171 pages later, I have completed my submission to … Continue reading My Submission to the New Zealand Planning Bill – 2026
Submission Highlights Context as per my opening remarks in my main submission: The basic premise of my submission is doing what Minister Bishop has stated more than once, to emulate … Continue reading Strategic Analysis of my Aotearoa Planning Bill 2025 Submission, and the Japanese Hydraulic Model
Talking Southern Auckland 