An Equitable City is One That Allows Growth in All Areas
A situation has arisen in Melbourne.
From The Age
The selfishness that’s tearing Melbourne apart
This month Boroondara council banned new buildings of more than three storeys in 31 shopping strips in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Last year, Glen Eira council zoned about 80 per cent of its residential land to restrict growth in housing, while Bayside council zoned 83 per cent of its area to prohibit housing higher than two storeys.
These are just the latest steps that councils in Melbourne’s inner and middle suburbs, no doubt responding to the wishes of vocal residents, are taking to stop new homes being built in their area. The trend must stop if we are to keep Melbourne from becoming a divided city.
The planning system needs to prioritise new housing as a goal for all suburbs. It should not pander to residents of established suburbs who don’t want other Melburnians to get the same opportunities to live near jobs and transport that they enjoy.
Debates about housing are often conducted between residents of established suburbs who are hostile to change, and experts making worthy arguments about the benefits of increasing density. But no one speaks for the real losers from restricting population growth in established suburbs – the many Melburnians with little choice but to make their home in outer suburbs that are experiencing acute growing pains.
Planning restrictions such as those introduced by Boroondara haven’t stopped population growth. Melbourne’s population swelled by 1 million people – from 3.4 to 4.4 million – in just 12 years from 2002 to 2014.
Councils in established suburbs have pushed most of this rapid population growth to the city’s outer fringes, where it is easier to build new homes. While Melbourne’s population soared from 2002 to 2014, the populations of Boroondara, Bayside and Glen Eira grew at about 1 per cent a year, less than half the city average.
Over the same period the population in the City of Wyndham in Melbourne’s outer south-west surged by more than 100,000 people – almost 7 per cent growth a year. The populations of other outer growth areas such as Melton, Cardinia, Whittlesea and Casey also grew rapidly.
Rapid population growth stretches outer suburban roads, schools, hospitals and public transport services to the limit. In 2013 Alamanda College in Point Cook in Melbourne’s west had 422 students; by 2014 it had 806. Local roads are so congested it can take up to 40 minutes just to get out of the suburb and into bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Princes Freeway. These strains come directly from established suburbs not taking their fair share of population growth.
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Source and full article: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-selfishness-thats-tearing-melbourne-apart-20150428-1muqvp.html?stb=twt
Now where have we seen a similar situation before? Why Auckland especially with the Isthmus, North Shore, and Manurewa Local Board area.
If we are ever serious to get both housing accessibility and equability, and achieve ‘The World’s Most Liveable City‘ then all of Auckland needs to play its part.
Greenfield housing under the Special Housing Areas is under way as is limited amounts of Brownfield such as the Takanini Strategic Housing Area which I sit under (Mixed Housing Urban Zone). But in the long run we can not rely on SHA’s and the eventual zones under the Unitary Plan will need to lay the way for housing development per market demand.
That means the entire Isthmus (old Auckland City Council area), and lower North Shore should be zoned at the absolute minimum Mixed Housing Urban Zone with the Terraced and Housing and Apartment Zone doubled to what is set down in the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan. I should not see a single ounce of Single House Zone nor Mixed Housing Suburban Zone in those two areas. Not with close proximity to amenities including public transport current and future (light rail, bus lanes and the City Rail Link).
For the Manurewa Local Board area can support 8 stories along the South Mall side of its Town Centre Zone, and five on the eastern side. From there you step down gradually until you hit back to two stories in the Mixed Housing Suburban Zone. For the Manukau residential suburb that got down zoned to Mixed Housing Suburban it needs to go back to the Terraced Housing and Apartment Zone with the area so close to Manukau City Centre and the Wiri industrial complex.
In the end we all need to do our part as Auckland grows with an extra one million people on the way. This includes the Isthmus and others doing their part. How so? Cooperation in short but otherwise a short essay on its own that I might cover later on in the year.
Talking Southern Auckland 