Back from Manukau Southern Forum

 

And Heck We Have Some Work

 

I was at the first half of the Manukau Civic Forum at the old Manukau City Council today where we covered the The Clunker’s residential and business zones today. I had to cut short the forum today however as I had previous engagements with family over a nice big wet lunch at home! 😀

My acknowledgements to Labour MP and Manurewa Electorate MP – Louisa Wall, and to Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse who were present today at the forum that looked pretty much at Southern Auckland’s future through the Unitary Plan or as I call it – The Clunker.

 

But as I said I was there and giving full feedback on residential zones and business zones where six points came about (three from each zone + an actual bonus point from the residential zone in terms of socio-economic). My mind is a tad rusty but there were (so I might be able only to rattle a few off):

 

For Residential

• Must take into account socio-economics when applying the residential zones to Auckland. Places like Southern and Western Auckland do have lower socio-economic zones and might have different reactions to intensification set out in the Unitary Plan. In short Auckland with 4 storeys and above for our centres could be looking at failed residential blocks (often terms with Brutalist and large concrete towers in the Thatcher Era) seen in England and New York that had all sorts of social problems when those apartments and towers had a majority of low socio-economic residents living in them. The Clunker needs to be responsive in its development to make sure any intensification will not have negative impacts on our lower socio-economic citizens. It would not be simply fair to them as they have the least capacity to adapt  or move away from any intensified areas
• Separation of Terrace Housing and (proper) Apartments.  I made the call that we need to separate out terrace housing away from apartments proper in the Unitary Plan. Bung terrace housing and apartments together in a single zone does not allow flexibility in zoning and could result in over intensification of an area. Thus in my opinion a separation is needed into two distinct zones which are the following:
  • Medium Density One: terrace housing and maximum three storey walk up apartments
  • Medium Density Two: Apartments from four to eight storeys (anything above is hitting high density) 
• Emphasis on height limits. The group could better identify the types of housing according to height limits imposed
• Urban design function. Mandatory, voluntary, somewhere in between, where does mandatory urban design for a development kick in (currently it is for all apartments and anything with more than five dwellings on a single lot

 

For Business Zones

• Industry names and descriptions are fine. Might throw in a “medium” industry (the UP has light and heavy) to give further diversification to industrial zones
• The names in the business zone section of The Clunker apart from Town and Local Centre are absolutely useless and mean nothing to people. Also too many zones and needs simplification down (so merge) even further
• Metropolitan Centres. This was an interesting topic and got quite a debate going on the value and number of them in the Unitary Plan:
  • Is ten metropolitan zones too many?
  • What is really a metropolitan zone?
    • It was deemed by the table I was on (I rose the idea and the table agreed) that Manukau is not a metropolitan centre that can be compared to the other listed. That in fact Manukau is a (Pasifika) (stand-alone) (sub regional) Hub in its own right, the CBD of Southern Auckland (everything south of Otahuhu) and as a result it should hold the same status as the Auckland CBD per the Unitary and Auckland Plans
  • Are some Metropolitan Zones not really suitable as Metropolitan Zones and should either have the height limit lowered (say from 18 to 15 storeys) or even downgraded to Town Centre status
• Height limits – are they wrong for some centres
• Transport: we agreed on parking maximums rather than minimums but heck almighty Auckland Transport needs to be proactive rather reactive in its transport as we need the transport system in place before ANY centre is developed!

 

And this is where we got to in our feedback today – on the table I was at. I would like to note that residents participating were outnumbered by 2.3 planners to 1 resident today which was somewhat daunting. We also did not to get to speak about the southern Greenfield zones ( The Southern Rural Urban Boundary) which I wanted to quite a bit. Hopefully next month’s RUB meetings with the communities might go some way in allowing me to give feed back there.

 

However today was good  – but never long enough at 4 hours (you honestly need a heavy lunch and need 6 hours to get any where close to this – 20 mins a session is just way to short – especially when I get going!)!

I do wonder why however no one from Auckland Transport is present so at least they have a clue in what us residents want with our zones and resultant transport. Australia and America build the transport link then the urban development. Auckland does the exact opposite and we wonder why the city is buggered with its transport. So again any reason why AT are not present at these UP meetings?

 

Hope there is more opportunities for verbal feedback before I give my written feedback next month

 

BEN ROSS : AUCKLAND