Tag: Auckland Council

Unitary Plan Information Dump

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For Your (Tortured Reading)

 

This is a reference to quick easy access to the some of the paper trail that is being presented in the now 5-day Unitary Plan proceedings.

Remember for fast updates on the day’s proceedings, keep tabs with @BenRoss_AKL on Twitter.

 

Auckland Plan Committee 28-30 Aug Agenda

APC Recommendations

What is passed here makes up the UP that goes out for formal notification

APC Additional Information

APC Resident Zones in Seven Local Board Areas

APC: The Rural Urban Boundary

APC: RUB for Massey, Flat Bush and Takanini

APC Residential Zones in part of Rodney Local Board Area

 

The Entire Unitary Plan (Clean) Amended Version

Broken down by PDF and in chapters and sub chapters

http://www.filefactory.com/f/c610f210fe21fea0

 

I will get presentations up by the weekend. Councillor Hartly’s defeated amendments I will upload on request.

 

Unitary Plan – The Final Countdown

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VOAKL Reporting Live

Morning Auckland and beyond

 

NOTE; The Tracked Changes and Clean Version of the Amended Unitary Plan is over 600MB in size. This makes it hard to upload easily. However, I will have them up and notify you when I do.

-Ben-

 

Today starts the three day super marathon where the Councillors and the Independent Maori Statutory Board begin the final decisions on the Draft Unitary Plan. These decision will solidify the next version of the UP that will go to the Governing Body on September 5. At that September 5 meeting the Council will decide either:

  • A date on formal notification (which at the minimum can be four weeks after the Governing Body meeting itself)
  • Send the Unitary Plan back to the Auckland Plan Committee for further refinement

VOAKL will be reporting Day One live as it happens via both the blog and Facebook/Twitter.

I also have a copy of the 7000 pages of tracked changes that the Committee will be going through over the three days that I will be using to follow this line by line. I will try to get the 7000 pages up later tonight.

Comments and thoughts can be left in the comment box below. I will be moderating if required (so be civil).

 

Related articles

Here We Go – The Unitary Plan

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Final Countdown until September 5

 

September 5 is when the Governing Body of Auckland Council will formally decide whether to set a date for formal notification of the Unitary Plan (lead-in time will be four weeks if so) or, have the draft sent back to the Auckland Plan Committee for more refinement.

 

But yes, the final countdown is on with August 28-30 being the three days where the Auckland Plan Committee sets the decisions that will make up the draft Unitary Plan for September 5.

From Auckland Council:

Decisions to be made on Unitary Plan changes 

Next week councillors will make decisions on changes to the draft Auckland Unitary Plan before it is notified for public submissions.

 Changes to the plan are based on approximately 22,000 pieces of feedback received from individuals, businesses, community groups and experts, when the plan was released as a draft for 11 weeks of informal engagement. 

“Councillors together with our local board chairs have attended 22 Unitary Plan workshops in the last eight weeks to discuss issues raised by Aucklanders and to consider where changes were needed,” says Auckland Plan Committee Chair, Penny Hulse. 

“This extensive process has involved many hours of discussions and debate and we have come a long way towards resolving most of the big issues. The Auckland Plan Committee meetings are the next step in the process, where councillors will make formal decisions on the changes and a recommendation on notification.” 

Councillors have received a report outlining all key changes as well as an amended version of the draft Unitary Plan. This information is also now available to the public on Auckland Council’s website as an attachment to the Auckland Plan Committee agenda. 

The Auckland Plan Committee meetings will run from Wednesday to Friday next week (28-30 August).

 

—–ends—-

Of course I will be there all three days reporting live from Town Hall as the Council grinds its way through the formal decisions that will set the draft Unitary Plan ready for September 5 – and arguably formal notification.

The Council website containing the agenda and Section 32 Analysis (required by the Resource Management Act 1991) can be found HERE.

The agenda thus far can be found in the embed at the bottom of this post.

I have also requested a copy of the amended version of the Draft Unitary Plan that the Councillors will be discussing over the three-day period. It is formidable in size but I will see if I can upload it somehow for your viewing too.

The Agenda

 

TALKING AUCKLAND

Talking Auckland: Blog of TotaRim Consultancy Limited

TotaRim Consultancy
Bringing Well Managed Progress to Auckland and The Unitary Plan

Auckland: 2013 – YOUR CITY, YOUR CALL

 

Unitary Plan Briefing

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Quite Heavy

 

I arrived back from the Unitary Plan briefing with the Deputy Mayor and the Unitary Plan Planner – the two Pennys just a little while ago. I am still digesting the information and will have something up tomorrow for your consumption.

The briefing and my subsequent commentary on the Unitary Plan will be split into two parts:

  1. Part One will look at the Unitary Plan and where it has come thus far. Part One will also look at where next with the Unitary Plan – specifically August 28th to 30th and September 5th
  2. Part Two will look at one of the questions I asked in regards to the Unitary Plan; Could it have been slowed down. Part Two will also serve a warning against those conservative Council candidates who think slowing the Unitary Plan down is a wise idea. Simply in the name of a Better and Affordable Auckland, slowing down the Unitary Plan does nothing to achieve that. All it achieves is Central Government intervening – something the conservatives might be holding out for

 

I believe Monday I also get a digital copy at 7000 pages of “tracked changes” applied to the Unitary Plan thus far. Anyone that uses Microsoft Word well enough knows what I mean by “tracked changes.” However, the actual Unitary Plan should be around 1200 pages long at a guess – so you can breathe that bit easier.

 

Right I better knuckle down and get this two-part commentary sorted 😀

 

Really – With The Surveys?

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Seems the Centre Right are Lacking Again?

 

This keeps cropping up today thanks to Councillor Cameron Brewer:

Polls cost millions

Len Brown‘s Auckland Council has spent more than $5.1 million on pollsters and surveys in the past three years.

A council spokesman said about 60 per cent of the spending was required under law, mainly for annual planning and reporting.

 

But councillor Cameron Brewer said spending on pollsters was “out of control”.

 

Brewer said: “Think of the improvements a local park or playground could’ve enjoyed with this money. Instead it’s all gone into lining the pockets of private pollsters.”

The figures were released to Brewer under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

 

“It’s time to stop the spinning and get back to delivering core council services for ratepayers,” he said. He suspected the polling was being done for “purely political reasons”.

 

A further $212,237 has been spent on around 15,827 panellists that the council use to “have their say on a wide range of council issues, activities and plans”.

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You can read the rest over at the Herald site.

 

Seriously though is this all Cameron and candidate for mayorship Palino really think about at the moment?

While conducting polls is a vexed issue (and rightfully so), the People’s Panel to which I participate in is a straight forward exercise.

You sign up and periodically you get to fill out an electronic survey that comes into your email box. Where ever you can access the emails you can do the survey. And that means some days I might be filling one out at a lunch break in Town Hall. Most are short (although I did get a long one on parks and recreation) and relate to CORE service issues Council provide and the Right Wing blather on about.

The surveys I have done from the People’s Panel have included:

  • The Proposed Takanini Library (survey commissioned by the Local Board)
  • Parks and Recreation
  • Unitary Plan (had a few of those and a reason I was invited to the Civic Forums on the Unitary Plan)
  • Public Transport
  • The CBD

I seriously don’t see what the problem is with the People’s Panel (which do release summaries after the said survey). The surveys are designed to be quick, efficient and “portable” for when Council, the Local Boards, or even Auckland Transport are scoping out opinions.

Yes Desley (of Orakei) we can go to the Local Boards and the Local Boards can come to us. But, that can be slow and cumbersome when one needs a quick fire quantitative survey done on something. Heck even the Papakura Local Board engaged in a People’s Panel survey on the proposed Library.

I would assume my Local Board would then hold face to face or submission sessions on the Library if the survey results were in favour of the proposal.

 

So the People’s Panel has its use and I don’t mind giving my opinions to the Council in that format when they want to answer something particular. It can sure beat writing 105 page submissions and long blog posts to boot.

But, in their drive for “savings” and “core services” it would seem Brewer and Palino would cut off an actual “core service” – by denying an easy medium for Council to (you know Cameron seeming you go on about it) engage with the local or wider community.

Oh and if you wonder about the gauge of opinions, well I know the Panel would be diverse if my comments and Facebook friend Scott’s are anything to go by. Some days we would agree other days the Centre Left and Centre Right arguments (me being the “young Tory) will come out. And by looking at the Civic Forums the mix was reasonably balanced except on the geographic front where South Auckland was lacking in numbers BADLY!

 

Come on guys find better ways in getting our rates bill down – while not hobbling an engagement arm Council and running distractions on lack of hard policy…