Category: Planning

Looking at all things planning.
Check the Sub Categories for more specific forms of planning

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

 

 

News from Auckland Transport

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Some News from Auckland Transport

 

Two releases from Auckland Transport, one on customer service and the other on public transport patronage:

 

From AT on the Customer Service Group:

‘Customers the focus’ at Auckland Transport

Tuesday, 25 February, 2014 – 16:53

The Board of Auckland Transport today established a Customer Focus Committee (CFC), which will drive continuous customer service and customer experience improvements throughout the business.

Mark Gilbert (pictured), who has a background in senior management that incorporated marketing and customer service roles, will Chair the committee.

He says it will provide oversight and advice on a range of initiatives from project planning and market research to implementation. A major priority is an increase in public transport patronage. “Our overarching vision is to put an excellent customer experience at the heart of everything we do” he says.

“We aim to provide outstanding customer service, every time and be a trusted and positive contributor to the lives of all Aucklanders.“That means a greater emphasis on customer needs and wants no matter what part of the organisation or its services they are engaging with.” The CFC is a full committee of the Board, with all AT Directors invited to attend. It will meet monthly, beginning in March.

—-ends—

 

And on the Public Transport Patronage (AT’s report is below the presser):

Jump in Auckland public transport patronage

Tuesday, 25 February, 2014 – 16:40

January saw a jump of three point three per cent in the number of people using public transport in Auckland. The number of trips on rail was up seven point six per cent in January compared to the same month last year.

Auckland Transport’s Group Manager, Public Transport, Mark Lambert says the increase for rail is pleasing considering the disruption to services in January because of on-going work to electrify the rail network.The Northern Express bus service saw a rise in patronage of seven per cent, while the number using all other bus services was up just under five per cent compared to January 2013. Auckland Transport has been running promotions to encourage more people on the North Shore to use the Northern Express. Ferry patronage was down in January. One of the reasons for the drop in the numbers using ferries was the poor weather over the holiday period.

On an average weekday some 236,000 trips are taken on public transport in the region and Aucklanders are now travelling on more than 200,000 AT HOP cards.

 

The Accompanying Report

 

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

 

 

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

—ends—

 

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

 

AT February Agenda Out

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And a lot of it is behind closed doors

 

Auckland Transport had released their monthly agenda onto their website. They have both the Open and Closed Agenda which you can see below:

Open Agenda

Love to know what this Customer Focus Committee is. Suppose we will find out soon enough

The Closed Agenda

Yes that is quite a lot on the closed agenda. I have noticed Mill Road is back up so I wonder what is on the table this time. Unfortunately it is the Confidential Section of the report so unless it is leaked we won’t be knowing any time soon.

The individual items from the open agenda: http://at.govt.nz/about-us/our-role-organisation/meetings-minutes/

 

[Update] I saw this in the usual email post from Transport Blog this morning in regards to the AT Rail Strategy which I have mentioned before:

From Transport Blog

The other paper gives is the forward programme for the board showing what is coming up for them to discuss/decide on. Naturally the next few meetings are more fleshed out than those 4-5 months out. Some projects that I picked up were.

  • In March the closed session will see papers on AMETI, Mill Rd, Dominion Rd, integrated fares, replacing parking ticket machines, selling the diesel trains. At the capital review committee a few weeks before three is also a paper on AT’s rail strategy.
  • In April there will be closed session discussion on the seawall in the city centre, SMART (rail to the airport), Mill Rd (again), AT’s rail strategy, Papakura – Pukekohe electrification,

Next month (I’ll need to follow-up with Peter Clark) the long-awaited Rail Strategy should be released which included the Manukau Rail South Link Business Case Study. All eyes from Southern Auckland will be watching to see what AT come back with for the link the South is patiently waiting for.

Source: http://transportblog.co.nz/2014/02/24/ats-feb-board-meeting/

Slowly getting there with the Manukau South Rail Link
Slowly getting there with the Manukau South Rail Link

 

 

 

Auckland Economic Performance Improving #1

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Auckland Council “Investments” Performing Well

 

The Mayor delivered a speech this morning to the Greater East Tamaki Business Association on Auckland’s Economy improving and set to boom. I will be getting a post up on that speech later. In the mean time you might have seen in the media this morning Port of Auckland, and Precinct Properties posting their results.

From Auckland Council on those results:

Waterfront businesses leading the way in Auckland’s economic transformation 

A boost in profits for two key Auckland companies shows the economic potential that the central city and waterfront can offer Auckland, say Mayor Len Brown and Councillor Penny Webster chair of the Finance and Performance Committee. The pair welcomed the Ports of Auckland announcement today that its half-yearly net profit after tax is up 70 per cent. It comes the day after Precinct Properties announced a 67 per cent lift for the same period.  Len Brown said: “These results reinforce the opportunities we are seeing for transformative growth in Auckland’s economy. Ports of Auckland has taken great strides to increase its productivity and output over the past year, and as a result ratepayers will benefit from an interim dividend of $20.94m.

 

“Precinct Properties is a great example of the private sector keen to work with the council in the transformation of the city – bringing significant new investments and an enthusiasm to align their developments with the CRL.” 

Penny Webster said: “I’m very pleased with the Ports result on the back of the Auckland International Airport dividend. The interim dividend is nearly double last year’s, with steadily increasing freight volumes as POA has begun to see the benefits of its restructuring. ” 

Both welcomed Precinct Properties’ discussions with Waterfront Auckland to be potentially involved in Wynyard Central, a key element of the regeneration of Auckland’s downtown waterfront.

—–ends—-

 

That Auckland still has a way to go before its economic performance is where it should be.