Nope. Try Inefficient use of existing retail land first
So Cameron Brewer says we are desperately short on retail land and has a whinge about it in the Herald as seen (in extract) below:
Desperate shortage’ of retail space, says Auckland councillor
10:25 AM Thursday Jul 24, 2014. Anne Gibson
Auckland is suffering a desperate shortage of land for business expansion and retailing with a “critical short supply” of large format shopping space, says one Auckland councillor.
Cameron Brewer told the Property Council’s retail conference how the city’s retail space was forecast to expand from 3.9 million square metres to 5.7 million sq m by 2041 to keep pace with population growth, as an extra 700,000 people would have arrived by then.
“There’s insatiable demand so some of us at the council are concerned and critical of business land supply in Auckland,” he said, citing Colliers International and the Property Council as also speaking out about the problem.
As an illustration of the sector’s growth, Brewer said retail employment growth was set to increase by 26 per cent in the next 30 years.
…
People doubted decentralised locations like Albany initially, he (Campbell Barbour, general manager of NZ Retail Property Group which owns the Milford mall and Westgate) said, but they had been proved wrong.
DNZ Property Group bought land at Westgate for a new 30,000sq m internal mall and NZ Retail Property Group was about to start building a new bulk retail centre for Harvey Norman, Briscoes, Warehouse Stationary and many others.
Mr Barbour is correct in regards to decentralised locations like Albany and Manukau. Manukau after years of decline from the 1990’s until recently has gone through an upsurge of patronage again and is on the way in being redeveloped into something more people friendly over time. That said the City Centre is also enjoying a resurgence as well.
As for DNZ I will get another post up on them and their opposition to the Super Metropolitan Centre concept which Albany was initially flagged for.
As with Councillor Cameron Brewer, I wonder if he really has an idea on land use around the City at all. Him posing with a North Shore candidate in the Local Government 2013 elections at Albany Mall showcasing it as a excellent example of urban planning and design really says something else.
For those not familiar with Albany Mall and surrounding area which is deemed a Metropolitan Centre under the Unitary Plan here is a photo of it:
Northern Busway Uni Station. Also Albany Metropolitan Centre Source: Supplied
Quite a bit of spare land and land taken up by car parks there.
Here are some more examples of inefficient land use with our retail sector
Manukau City Centre (60 – 67% of all commercial land is in car parks)
Manukau City Centre Area
Westgate (note the land used for parking. New development to the north will be similar in regards to land set aside for parking)
Westgate Metropolitan Centre land use
Botany Town Centre (Sylvia Park is not much better but points for lots of parking on the roof of their massive complex as well as a multi story parking building at the Cinema’s end)
Botany Metropolitan Centre
If I look at places like Henderson and New Lynn there are plenty of vacant stores up for lease and no one taking up those leases either.
So to Councillor Brewer and those commercial property developers pushing for more Greenfield land to be opened up for your “malls” and bulk retail stores:
So DNZ, Westfield, AMP and Cameron Brewer want more retail land? How about use what you have first that is covered in surface car parking
What do you get when cross a Social Liberal Green MP with a Neo Liberal Think Tank? Usually chaos and a pile of teeth gnashing? Actually no. Social and Neo Lib‘s usually get along pretty well on most aspects. Sure there are always differences on the level of “state intervention” but they wont be at each other throats compared to facing off with Social and Neo Conservatives.
So where am I going with this?
Yesterday in a Stuff business opinion piece, Green MP Julie-Ann Genter and the New Zealand Initiative were pretty much agreeing that we need to allow the freer market to cater for urban marking needs and liberalise our planning laws around parking provisions. Meaning removing parking minimums.
OPINION: There should be no free parking. The market should decide and it should be user-pays.
These radical ideas were put forth last week at a Law & Economics Association of New Zealand event.
They may seem radical to the general public, but being thinkers at an economic think tank that advocates for market-based solutions, we found them hardly radical or surprising.
What we did find surprising though was who was promoting them: a Green Party MP. It seems that the political spectrum is not so much a straight line but a loop. For some ideas, it’s not a question of right wing or left wing, but a question of right or wrong.
Julie Anne Genter is a proponent of a market-based solution for a problem that is a horribly inefficient waste of valuable land. It is uneconomic, it is anti-environmental, it is free parking.
For the record, Genter isn’t anti-cars per se. She isn’t all about telling people not to drive. She’s more about deregulating so that transport options are economically neutral, and letting the market (ie people) decide.
Basically how to convert that current inefficient use of car parking into something more economically and socially productive: more retail, more green space, more hang out spaces, more office space and more residential space. All on land chewed up by that free parking.
Oh and where did that surface parking go? It is still there. Just UNDERGROUND where it belongs with more productive “facilities” over the top. Win win win for everyone. Now only if those opposing the Super Metropolitan Centre zone concept which would allow that kind of development would just realise this – especially as it is very good for business with increased patronage. Right Scentre (ex Westfield), AMP and DNZ Property Group?
Note the other opposing submissions on the Super Metropolitan Centre Zone: from what I can see they are more about clarity of definitions, implications to near by industrial zones, and flight path implications. Something I perfectly understand and am happy to enter dialogue in the Unitary Plan Pre Hearings and normal Hearings to work through. As for the two others I am not particular interested in patch protection. Scentre was an odd one though as the Super Metropolitan Centre Zone does not add complexity but removes it with stripping down of Development Controls (in comparison to the standard Metropolitan Centre Zone) to allow the freer market to provide better choices according to supplier (the property owner in the Super Metropolitan Centre) and the demander (the consumer). Scentre has malls in Manukau and Albany which are where the two Super Metropolitan Centre zones are in Auckland. More on this when I comment on the further submissions I have received to my own in regards to the Unitary Plan.
Talking Southern Auckland 