Need investment not delays and penny-pinching The Annual Plan 2017/2018 (annual Council budget document) is now out for consultation until March 27. If you wish to give your input … Continue reading Have Your Say for the Council Annual Budget: Why I went with the 3.5% Rates Rise
Government ideology gets in the way Yesterday at the National Party Conference in Christchurch the Prime Minister delivered a speech that the members were both non receptive to while it … Continue reading Government Infrastructure Loan A Flop #NZPols
Have your say From Shape Auckland – Auckland Council Development Contributions Policy Status: Open. Closing date:21/04/2016 Area: Auckland-wide About The contributions policy sets out the capital projects the council will fund … Continue reading Feedback Sought for Development Contributions Policy
Council sets up fund to help develop infrastructure From Auckland Council: New council infrastructure fund to unlock housing Auckland Council has enabled a new local residential growth fund to be … Continue reading New Council Infrastructure Fund to Be Established #AKLPols
Was the SHA really needed when the employment hubs weren’t ready Note on the Glenbrook Special Housing Area: I will be doing more follow-up on that particular SHA as soon … Continue reading More on the Drury Special Housing Area
From the New South Wales State Government which has handed down its Budget today:
The Hon. Rob Stokes MP, Minister for Planning 23 Jun 2015
Planning Minister Rob Stokes today announced that the NSW Budget will invest $1 billion over four years in planning for the homes, jobs and services NSW needs for the future and making the system simpler and more efficient.
This is part of the NSW Government’s record $4.5 billion investment in the Planning and Environment cluster over four years.
Mr Stokes said the Budget outlines a clear plan for funding infrastructure where it is needed to help create vibrant communities across NSW.
“Providing record funding for infrastructure and amenity is accompanying record levels of housing supply in NSW and will help to put downward pressure on house prices,” Mr Stokes said.
In 2015-16, the NSW Government will invest:
“We are investing in a simpler online system by building the Planning Portal – taking the paperwork out of planning for homeowners and businesses.
“The budget provides funding to establish the Greater Sydney Commission which will act to bring a better coordinated approach to planning across metropolitan Sydney.”
For more information please visit www.budget.nsw.gov.au
Interactive Mapping the Budget tool highlights the key areas of spend. You can use the map to explore projects across planning regions and Local Government Areas (LGA), or filter by project type.
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I wonder how things would be handled if we have such Planning Ministries like New South Wales and Victoria. Especially as both State Governments are working through Sydney and Melbourne Plans, and committing billions to infrastructure such as heavy rail.
Meanwhile in New Zealand……
Council Preferring Urban Special Housing Areas We know Auckland Council has entered a stoush (though no fault of its own) with the “less-than-there” Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith over Council deferring … Continue reading Council Defers Greenfield SHAs In Preference for Urban SHAs
Not quite what people were looking for Another item tucked away into the Auckland Development Committee agenda this Thursday is the long-awaited Cost of Residential Servicing Study. I believe … Continue reading Cost of Residential Servicing Report Before Committee – UPDATED
Earlier this week the Auditor General released a rather damning report against both our central and local governments about addressing infrastructure needs for New Zealand (not just Auckland). Now by infrastructure I am talking about physical which includes but often most forgotten until something goes wrong fresh water, waste water, and storm water.
This extract from Bob Dey:
Mrs Provost warned that population shifts could make some communities unable to continue paying to maintain basic services such as sewers & water supply, while growth in others – such as Auckland – would need to match housing, working & services very carefully to avoid failure.
New Zealand’s economy for the past 200 years has been mostly about growth, although removal of some services such as post offices from rural towns, starting in the 1980s, was a warning about what might befall small communities.
Mrs Provost’s report, Water & roads: Funding & management challenges, was presented to Parliament yesterday, along with findings from research carried out by the NZ Institute of Economic Research that provides an historical perspective of local government investment trends, the forecast investment outlook and observations on differences in investment between regions.
The economic research showed infrastructure investment came in waves, creating investment “echoes”, and that large renewal cycles were pending.
Ironically, there’s been a tendency to underspend infrastructure budgets. Mrs Provost gave some explanation of this – that visible assets such as roads did need more frequent renewal than underground pipes. But, in short, her report can be summed up thus:
Implicit in the report is a requirement to examine funding: Underground infrastructure is funded locally, roads & bridges nationally.
……
Source and full post: http://www.propbd.co.nz/auditor-general-issues-blunt-warning-infrastructure/
The Auditor General’s Infrastructure Report can be seen below:
Further commentary on this at a subsequent podcast
And so the Isthmus is no longer powerless with power restored to all but a few hundred homes as of this morning.
For full details (and saving me repeating a lot of it) you can read the Herald article here (as well as see the damage): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11338075
And so with the Crisis over and the response teams doing a very fine job (and so I send thanks), the job of teeth gnashing (the inquiry) will begin.
However, I do wonder if the inquiry will be somewhat pointless as unless it was truly an Act of God that set the cables alight we I am suspicious again of: Failure in planning, governance and investment.
From what I can see from the Herald this morning in the above linked article it seems already it might be just that.
Let me put it this way. Go watch the second Matrix Movie where they attempt to enter the building where Neo will find the Architect. They need to shut the power down to the building or the self destruct triggers. So they blow up a power station which initially causes the black out until the smart grid reroutes power very quickly. The back up was shut down manually after that but that was caused by man-made (well Niobe) interference.
Point?
Large advanced cities have smart grids that reroute power in the event such as what Auckland just went through. Granted that Otahuhu Power Station and substation got reinforced and that the new cabling rerouted power back to the City Centre however, Penrose is still a choke point and it again (last was 2012) blacked out a large portion of the Isthmus. After the 1998 and especially after 2006 sagas this should not happen of we truly invested in a true smart grid system. AND we should not be paying a cent more on our power bills to get such a system. No Prime Minister, your advice should have been to tell the AECT (read the Herald article on who they are) to forego the $300m dividend paid out to consumers for five years and have that dividend money invested back into the grid until we have a true smart grid.
However, knowing New Zealand we will do the teeth gnashing and within three years maybe another blackout on the Isthmus…
Consider ourselves lucky we don’t operation commercial nuclear power stations…..
Talking Southern Auckland 