Submission Under-way

 

And

 

Reformatting those Metropolitan Centres

 

With my submission to the draft Unitary Plan under way (and not an easy task either) I have come to the particular chapter on our Metropolitan Centres. In short I am basically doing an entire rewrite of the Metropolitan Centre concept in the draft Unitary Plan because I believe:

1.  Too many Metropolitan Zones
2. Some classed wrong as a Metropolitan Zone
3. No flexibility with height maximums (not all can take 18 storeys, while others can take more)
4. Definition needs reworking

 

My “METROPOLITAN ZONES” post gives a full break down thus far where I am going with our Metropolitan Centres. As mentioned the 10 places listed as Metropolitan were “reviewed” by me with these results so far:

[This table gives an illustration to how I would categorise the places into their respective zones (taking into account I have not finalised my new definitions yet)]

Place	Existing Zone	Existing Height Limit	My Zone	My Height
Albany	Metropolitan	18 Storey (72.5m)	As is	25 Storey
Botany	Metropolitan	18 Storey (72.5m)	Large Town Centre	10 Storey (42m)
Henderson	Metropolitan	18 Storey (72.5m)	Large Town Centre	10 Storey (42m)
Manukau	Metropolitan	18 Storey (72.5m)	City Centre Zone	26 Storeys (105m)
New Lynn	Metropolitan	18 Storey (72.5m)	As is	As is
Papakura	Metropolitan	18 Storey (72.5m)	Large Town Centre	12 Storeys (48m)
Newmarket	Metropolitan	Subject to special rules such as volcanic cone sightline	As is	As is
Sylvia Park	Metropolitan	Subject to special rules such as volcanic cone sightline	Large Town Centre	12 Storeys (50m)	Following my Auckland Plan Submission.
Takapuna	Metropolitan	Subject to special rules such as volcanic cone sightline	Large Town Centre	Per special rules set by council
Westgate/Massey	Metropolitan	Subject to special rules such as volcanic cone sightline	Subject to further consideration including North West RUB layout	Subject to further consideration including North West RUB layout

 

I have drawn up a map to give a visual feature to what I am proposing via my submission, you can see where each of the centres are in regards to Auckland:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for my own definitions of: CBD, Metropolitan Centre, Large Town Centre and Town Centre; still be worked on and will be posted here at BR:AKL once my final submission is complete.

What you can see on the map is two blue lines that outline the three distinct metropolitan areas. This stems from the “QUESTION: AUCKLAND – METROPOLIS OR MEGALOPOLIS/MEGAPOLIS” post I did recently and how we see or could change how we see Auckland. The centres per the redefinition I am drawing up and shown on the map above are more reflective of the three metropolitan decentralised concept rather than; the mono-centric model conveyed in both the Auckland Plan and draft Unitary Plan.

As I continue the submission and as my May 14 presentation draws closer, I will continue to further elaborate on my concepts – for Auckland. But for now a visual representation of my work so far.

 

BEN ROSS : AUCKLAND