Who is to blame or do both need to adapt better?

No sooner had the announcement about National Standardised Zones come out into the public sphere, do we see a gripe about the Planning system going lopsided.

An article from Newsroom today illustrated a couple of examples. One being about car parks being replaced with gardens, the other about front doors.

From Newsroom

Auckland Council planners’ flip-flopping on carparks for Mount Albert townhouses cost developer Williams Corporation about $8 million in sales, its general manager says.

“The urban designer deemed that it was better amenity for owners to have two lawn areas or two garden areas and no carpark in the suburb,” Kathryn Marshall says. “So they made us change that.”

The company had pre-sold eight to 10 houses; all of the buyers pulled out when the carparks were removed. Williams Corporation considered suing the council. “We lost all of our sales, and it affected the economics of our development just because one designer had an arbitrary opinion.”

AND

And Christchurch city planners told the company three different things about which way the front doors should face on an Armagh St development, Marshall says.

One city designer wanted the doors facing each other so people could greet each other across the driveway; another wanted them clustered so neighbours could gather and chat; another wanted them offset for privacy.

‘Out of control’ council planners face reform

Auckland Council are certainly known to disable development through design nitpicking. PC79 has certainly made that worse along the way.

But it has me thinking, will National Standardised Zones knock out a lot of this design nitpicking that Council should have little business in, as it subsequently holds developments up?

The Japanese standardised zones are broad what is possible but also specific in outcomes at the higher level. Mixed Use makes a play in most non industrial zones which gives Tokyo those very unique spatial forms!

But back to Aotearoa and standardised zoning. Will it prevent the problems seen in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch?

It might or rather it should. Bearing in mind it goes both ways with ensuring designs are up to snuff as well.

I am of the opinion that with Standardised Zones should also come standardised designs for each of the at least urban zones (not industrial). That way you can pull one off the shelf for the zone and BOOM no Resource Consent nor Building Consent needed. Just pay the infrastructure fee and away you go. If you wish for Bespoke (as my house was), this can still happen, just prepare for those consents and subsequent fees (as we had to). The point being, flexibility between standardised, and bespoke are possible with pro’s and con’s of each side!

Looking at Standardised Designs matching their Standardised Zones in Cities Skylines 2