Category: Hot Discussion

An issue causing hot discussion either here in the blog or in the wider community

Jostling Over Roading Projects

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So This One or This One

 

Cruising through the media outlets this morning I saw this pop up over the East-West Link verse the “Holiday Highway.”

From the NZ Herald

City business lobby prefers freight route

By Mathew Dearnaley 5:30 AM Wednesday Feb 26, 2014

Group says Onehunga-East Tamaki truck corridor more urgent than Govt’s pet road.

Auckland’s main business lobby says a freight corridor through the industrial belt from Onehunga to East Tamaki is far more urgent than the Government’s $760 million “road of national significance” to Warkworth.

But the Auckland Business Forum has admitted erring in a submission on the extension of the Northern Motorway from Puhoi, for which it says predicted economic benefits are far below what a freight road beside the Manukau Harbour would deliver.

The submission claims incorrectly that there are estimated benefits of $4 to $6 for every $1 which the freight link may cost to build – even though a route has yet to be determined, and a likely price is unknown.

That compares with just 60c to $1.10 which the Transport Agency expects to gain from the motorway extension from the Johnstones Hill toll road tunnels to the northern side of Warkworth.

When questioned by the Herald about the southern freight road estimate, business forum project co-ordinator Tony Garnier said it appeared to be incorrect and would need amending in evidence to a board of inquiry hearing in April into the agency’s planning applications for the northern project.

…

You can read the full article over at the Herald site.

 

I am wondering though if there is simmering tension with the allocation of limited funds and resources to large road projects.

That said we could make the limited funds stretch further with some more sane projects such as these two here:

In other news the combined Governing Body and Local Boards are meeting in the Aotea Centre today to ‘set the scene’ for the 2015-2025 Long Term Plan – the master Council budget document

 

 

Council Submission to Unitary Plan

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You Can Hear Those Deliberations This Thursday

 

As I made a brief note in the Main Council to Review CCOs this morning as well as in Unitary Plan Update last week, Auckland Council is preparing its submission to the Unitary Plan.

From Auckland Council:

Council to finalise submission on Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan

 

Auckland Council’s submission on the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan will be finalised in open council meetings this week.

A draft of the submission will be discussed at the Unitary Plan Committee tomorrow. Committee chair Alf Filipaina says the scale and size of the proposed plan, and the new legislation that guides the submission and hearings process, meant a council submission was appropriate.

“Following notification, the next step was to go back and review everything in the proposed plan. Our submission covers the corrections and refinements found in this review, but not policy changes, as it is up to Aucklanders to have their say on the proposed plan and make their own suggestions for changes.”

All submissions on the plan need to be in by 5pm on Friday 28 February. These will then be coded and published online by the end of May, along with summary reports of the decisions requested in them.

There will then be a round of further submissions in mid-2014, where people will have an opportunity to address any of the points raised – including those raised in the council submission – to say whether or not they agree.

Councillor Filipaina says, “The further submissions phase is all about people having a chance to look at what others have said and respond. It’s especially useful if someone has said something that affects your property – it’s then your opportunity to get what you think across to the hearings panel.”

The Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel, led by Judge David Kirkpatrick, will set out the process for the hearings once it has assessed the volume and extent of submissions, as well as the topics they cover.

 

Issues covered in the council submission include:

  • –       More accurately defining Public Open Space zones
  • –       Addressing inconsistencies in the zoning of some parcels of land based on flood risk data
  • –       Clarification of how provisions that protect sites of value to mana whenua should be interpreted
  • –       Amending some of the extent of Significant Ecological Areas, where these are found to no longer be appropriate
  • –       Including new precincts and/or rules  as a result of recent Environment Court decisions
  • –       Correcting areas of inconsistent numbering
  • –       Corrections to some heritage overlays
  • –       Correcting zoning errors for some individual sites

 

The council website – www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/unitaryplan – has a range of material Aucklanders can use to find out more about the plan and help them to have their say:

—ends—

Agenda containing the Council’s submission

 

My Own Submission

 

 

Main Council to Review CCOs

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Council Controlled Organisations to be reviewed

 

As Mayor Len Brown said in the elections last year, the Council Controlled Organisations (the CCO’s) were to be reviewed by the main Council. The CCO’s include (but not limited to):

  • Auckland Transport
  • Watercare
  • Auckland Council Investment Limited
  • Auckland Council Property Limited
  • Waterfront Auckland
  • ATEED

From Auckland Council on the review:

Council to review super-city organisations

24/02/2014

Auckland councillors will be asked to approve the draft terms of reference and timeline for a wide-ranging review of Council-Controlled Organisations (CCOs) at the next Governing Body meeting on 27 February, says Mayor Len Brown. The draft terms of reference can be found here (item 12, page 9).

Len Brown said: “Our CCOs deliver a huge range of services for Aucklanders, from water management, to major events, through to the big improvements we’re making in public transport. We need to ensure that as ratepayer owned and funded organisations, they are as lean and efficient as possible, with no waste and no duplication of effort.”

A key election pledge from Len Brown, the CCO review will aim to ensure Aucklanders are getting value for money from the seven council controlled organisations set up during amalgamation, and that they are fully accountable to ratepayers and elected representatives.

Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse, Chair of the CCO Governance and Monitoring Committee said:

“Having had three years to work with the CCOs, we are at an ideal point to assess how well CCOs are performing on behalf of our communities, and to look at potential changes where they are needed across council. The review will assess what worked well in the first term and what we could do better going forward.
 
“It is very important that while the review is going on we continue to work with our CCOs to deliver for Auckland.”

Councillors, local board members, CCOs and the Independent Maori Statutory Board have all been given an opportunity to provide feedback on the review’s draft terms of reference. These groups have also contributed to the development of two CCO current state assessment reports that councillors will receive ahead of the Governing Body meeting.

The seven CCOs are Auckland Tourism Events Economic Development (ATEED), Auckland Transport (AT), Watercare, Auckland Council Investments Limited (ACIL), Auckland Council Property Limited (ACPL), Waterfront Auckland, and Regional Facilities Auckland (RFA).

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http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/newseventsculture/OurAuckland/mediareleases/Pages/CouncilToReviewSuper-CityOrganisations.aspx

 

The Governing Body Agenda which outlines the Terms of Reference for the CCO Review (and the Governing Body’s submission to the Unitary Plan)

 

Another post will be drawn up on the Council’s Unitary Plan Submission

 

How About Some Savings and Adjustments Before New Taxes

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NZCID Not Really Making its Case Palatable with Auckland Citizens

 

The New Zealand Council of Infrastructure Development (NZCID) commissioned an independent “review” into an apparent lack of city shaping infrastructure. The report by the international consulting firm SGS Economics and Planning is embedded as a PDF at the bottom of this post.

Below is the subsequent press release from NZCID on the “review:”

Study identifies “lack of city shaping infrastructure investment”

Friday, 21 February, 2014 – 17:51

An independent review of Auckland’s planning framework by international consulting firm SGS Economics and Planning released today identifies a lack of city shaping infrastructure investment as the principal impediment to achieving a quality compact city. The report recommends that the productivity benefit from investment, demand management and urban intensification needs to establish the case for expanded co-investment and policy reform by Central Government.

“We commissioned this study to gain a better understanding of how successfully programmes, policies and investment plans developed over the past three years by the Council are delivering on the Auckland Plan vision to make the city the World’s Most Liveable,” said Stephen Selwood CEO of the New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development.

“SGS found that governance reforms have equipped Auckland with the most evolved metropolitan governance structure of any city in Australasia.

“Auckland has a united voice on regional issues and has the critical mass to make trajectory shifting decisions in its own right.

“The Auckland Plan sets out a compelling and demonstrably achievable vision for Auckland’s spatial development.

“However, SGS found that the Auckland Plan objective of a quality compact city was unlikely to be achieved without increased investment in city shaping infrastructure, identification of the means to fund that investment and policy reform to support road pricing and value capture mechanisms.

“On current plans there simply is not sufficient investment in transport infrastructure to support a transition to an efficient and competitive higher density urban form, Selwood said.

“To reverse many decades of low-density, motor-vehicle oriented growth will take much more than the city rail link and other projects prioritised in the Auckland Plan.

“This finding helps explain why transport modelling of future land use and transport investment completed last year showed Auckland’s congestion worsening significantly over the course of the next thirty years, even with all proposed investment committed.

“But rather than retracting the compact city vision, SGS call for analysis of the productivity benefit that is expected from urban transformation. Where the Auckland Plan vision can be shown to boost national productivity, GDP and aggregate tax revenues there is a strong case for co-investment from central government. Increased economic performance more generally also substantiates the case for new funding sources, such as road pricing and value capture, which are key to achieving the Auckland Plan vision.

“Better understanding of these benefits may also help foster community and local board support, which has so far been an impediment to the scale of intensification proposed.

“We hope that this report will stimulate a joint Government and Council work programme to identify the productivity dividend that can be achieved through optimal investment in city shaping infrastructure. In NZCID’s view, this requires vast improvement in integrating transport investment and land use development, including more targeted densification to support major investment in public transport, and implementation of road pricing and value capture mechanisms.

“While the united Auckland Council is making great progress, stronger alignment and unity of purpose between central government and the Council is needed if the productive potential of Auckland is to be truly realised,” Selwood says.

Source: http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/study-identifies-lack-city-shaping-infrastructure-investment/5/182215

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Long story short I rather have some savings done first with our gold-plated transport infrastructure investment program (the Integrated Transport Program) before we start playing around searching for new “taxes.”

Transport Blog spells out the case with their Congestion Free Network case on how to achieve those savings that would not require such extra taxes as the NZCID are promoting. Further more the Congestion Free Network while being cheaper actually helps de-congest Auckland’s Transport network where the current ITP proposals that have a current $15 billion funding gap (and what the NZCID want (the ITP)) while congestion still gets worse in 2030…

I wonder if NZCID like the Chamber of Commerce are annoyed after the East-West Link gold-plated proposal got scaled back significantly after people power convinced AT to do that scale back. Suppose we will never know as such.

 

The SGS Review