The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Is the plan for a greater Auckland Council a panacea for all that is wrong with Auckland or is it a pill that is too bitter to swallow? The National led government and the Minister for Local Government, Rodney Hide will have some hard thinking to do. They will need figure what to throw out and what to embrace or they could simply use the report as a doorstop.

What are the good parts? A united council working as one for the region to fix the problems that have long bedevilled Auckland, such as a myriad of plans and polices for the delivery of water, roading , public transport, sports facilities, and land use, is probably good.

Apart from that, what we have been presented with, however, will please no one. The local in local government has been gutted. Community boards, loath or love them, have provided a measure of grassroots government to local communities. Replacing community boards in Manukau, there are eight, with one Local Council serving 387,000 people from Otahuhu in the north to Drury in the south and stretching from Mangere to Pakuranga – with about the same power as a community board, is no longer government at a local level. This local community will go cap in hand to the BIG Auckland Council for its funding. Woes betide a local council which falls foul of the BIG Auckland Council.

However, the BIG Auckland Council will be able to save the planet and downtown Auckland. Since the Council will be BIG let’s consider how it will save the planet. Auckland, we’re informed, uses too much energy, because it covers a large area. Therefore the prescription is to make it a compact city with people living around railway stations, foregoing their cars and saving the earth from anthropogenic global warming. People will, of course, like their small energy efficient apartments because they will be designed by an Urban Design Panel which amazingly enough will know where and how you will want to live. And, if they disapprove of where you live, the Urban Design Agency will kick you out of your home and acquire the land it’s on compulsorily.

Downtown Auckland will also be saved. Because it is deemed the centre of Auckland by the BIG Auckland Council it will have its own Community Board – no Community Board for Pakuranga and Howick but, hallelujah, local grassroots government to save the Auckland CBD. The reason for this is simple. The Commissioners have not looked forward to what a modern Western city looks like but have chosen instead to look at late nineteenth century- early twentieth century city models. Old cities where people were less mobile than today tended to gravitate around a well defined city centre – Auckland used to be like this. This type of city is described as mono centric. Today people are more mobile than they have ever been and as a result our cities have become poly centric with residential, commercial and retail scattered over a much larger area. Downtown Auckland faces stiff competition from other retail and commercial centres. While outlying shopping centres flourish, the Auckland CBD withers. The Commission has decreed that this must stop and the BIG Auckland Council will see that it does inserting draconian anti-competitive clauses into its district plan. Don’t believe it – Wellington City Council is doing just that to ward off competition from outlying centres.

And let’s not forget the Commission has made a pronouncement, “The Auckland Town Hall should be the symbolic centre for the Auckland Council”.
The BIG Auckland Council will be wise and all knowing so they will solve all social problems and set up a Social Issues Board which will develop a Social Well-Being Strategy and Implementation/Funding Plan. There, that should solve all Auckland’s social ills!

The elections for the BIG Auckland Council will not be for people that you will know from your local community but for ten people who in all likelihood will have the wherewithal to run an election campaign in an area with a population 35 times bigger than the average parliamentary electorate. Therefore there is no guarantee that Howick or Pakuranga will see anyone from these areas on the BIG Auckland Council. There will be two councillors elected from within the Manukau Local Council area but given the voting pattern of Manukau it is more than likely those would come from the western or southern part of the Local Council area. What’s more there will be three places reserved for Maori – one whom will be an appointed, not an elected member. There is very likely to be a cry of “no taxation without representation”.
The new councillors who will more than likely be remote from the people of Pakuranga and Howick will put in place a new district plan which, going on past performance, of the present councils will take three to five years to become operative. There will be no private plan changes during this time and there will be no right of appeal to the Environment Court of any aspects of the BIG Auckland Council’s District Plan.

Economic development plays a large role in the BIG Auckland Council’s plans however whilst the Rugby World Cup will bring some economic benefits in the long term business must be able to plan and have some certainty. The report provides no certainty with private plan changes on hold and ongoing restrictions on the supply of land for development business will look to a friendlier environment in which to invest. This is something that we just cannot afford during times of recession.

The Report is very much a mixed bag, but on balance is unlikely to solve Auckland’s problems.