Auckland Council

Len Brown is being castigated for his draft Unitary Plan, and rightly so.

He knows he is in trouble because now at every public meeting there is a small army of paid council officials handing out hastily prepared documents in an attempt to counter the opponents of the Unitary Plan.

One wonders though why the $30 million rate-payer funded spin doctors are even being deployed to defend the plan…I thought it was supposed to be a draft? Surely the process of public submissions is so people can voice their support or otherwise? Why the need to defend the plan?

Unless of course we were all supposed to meekly submit and prostrate before the Night Mayor for his luminary vision for Auckland.

Len Brown is also being very sneaky and furtive over some aspects of the Unitary Plan. Like his plans for stealth tax.

You have to look very carefully to find this, because you see it is not included anyway in the section of the Council website that deals with the Unitary Plan…instead it is hidden in a little traversed area called the Rural Urban Boundary, where there is a link to an Addendum to the Unitary Plan.  Read more »

The Planning Parrot writes:

Again the Night-Mayor Brown’s team of merry men have come up with a crazy idea that has been inserted in the draft Auckland Unitary Plan.

Section 3.1.3.2 Air quality under the heading “Air Discharge from transport” states:

Require applications for land use consent or designation for a high traffic-generating activity to demonstrate that:

a. Air discharges from vehicles have been assessed using best practice methods, such as modelling and monitoring, appropriate to the scale of the discharge and any potential adverse effects;

b. The combined concentrations of air discharges arising from the activity and and back ground levels will not cause adverse effects on human health or on regional or local air quality, and will meet the AAAQS;

c. Easy access to public transport is provided so that people have an alternative to private vehicles;

d. Access to and the layout and design of land use or activity facilities walking or cycling as a practical alternative to the use of private motor vehicles for trips to/from the activity”.  Read more »

Public anger is growing against Len Brown and his endless ratepayer funded spin.

A public meeting of about 500 people has told the Auckland Council to rethink its intensification plans for the city, start listening to communities and stop spinning.

The biggest display of opposition to the council’s plans saw hundreds of people fill the Takapuna Grammar School hall yesterday calling for a rethink on a new planning rulebook for the city – or Unitary Plan.  Read more »

Planning Parrot says:

Who will hold Auckland Council Officers accountable for breaking the law?

Auckland Council is like a citizen. It is required to adhere to the same laws that govern our nation and every person in it.

Whilst Council is afforded certain rights and functions through legislation that empower it, that power is not unlimited.

In fact it is very limited.

Those limitations are the essential boundaries specifically created in law to protect people and property from Council. In doing this the law ensures that Councils and their delegates (council officers) are bound in their duties.

Without which we would experience law-less Councils and authoritarianism.

So what happens to Councils and their officers when they break the law?  Read more »

Another post by the Planning Parrot:

Yet again, clearly nobody gets it when it comes to property.

Property developers who “sit and wait” for land values to increase have been sent a clear signal that the Government will act to bring more housing into the market, Finance Minister Bill English says.

The Government last week announced new measures to increase the supply of housing, including the ability to take control of planning and consents for new houses if councils were too slow in freeing up land.

The Budget measures come after the Government signed an accord with Auckland Council which aims to add a further 39,000 houses to the region over the next three years – more than double the 15,000 new units built over the last three years.

Mr English told TVNZ’s Q+A programme this morning that the legislation sent a clear signal to property developers who were sitting on land.

I’m not sure where Bill English is coming from. It is their land not the governments. If they want to sit on it forever then so what. Has he forgotten National’s core values, especially the part about freedom and choice?  Read more »

Another post from the Policy Parrot

A few weeks back a US based major planning institution published an article on-line about the fallacy of planning and specifically how planning documents mostly never result in success.

Those documents are relegated to the consigns of the ‘million dollar shelf‘.

Here in Auckland the Council has produced two very expensive documents:

1. The Auckland Plan;

2. The draft Unitary Plan.

Could it be that both of these documents are imminently due to be stacked away on some shelf, forgotten and gathering dust?  Read more »

Unitary Plan – two story promise handout, more lies from the council

Len Brown’s unitary plan lies are coming back to haunt him. Together with his spin weasels they have been telling people that they can’t read what is in the unitary plan or that they are too stupid to understand it.

But understand it and read they can and what they are finding out is that Len Brown is lying. Where Len Brown claims 7% of Auckland for apartment the reality is over 50%.

Half of suburban Auckland could be built up with three-storey apartments and residents will have no say when developers move into their street.

After nine weeks of telling Aucklanders the maximum height of “small-scale apartment buildings” in neighbourhoods was two storeys, the Auckland Council has admitted the height limit is three storeys.

Three-storey apartments are possible in the “mixed housing” zone in the city’s new planning rulebook. The zone covers 49 per cent of urban Auckland and most suburban streets have some degree of mixed housing.

The council has also told the Weekend Herald that developers can apply to exceed the four, five and six-storey height limits in the terraced housing and apartment zones, which make up 7 per cent of urban Auckland close to town centres in the draft Unitary Plan.

It gets worse…the unitary plan allows for non-notification.

Last night, Penny Pirrit, head of regional and local planning, denied the council had not been upfront with Aucklanders over the maximum heights in the two zones, saying the figures given were what was permitted as of right and, like now, developers could apply to build higher.

“At the moment [in the mixed housing zone] the plan says as a permitted activity it is 8m but there is the opportunity to go to 10m,” she said.

Ms Pirrit said applications to increase the height to 10m were a non-notified restricted discretionary activity, which meant they would be decided by officers with no input from residents.

Once again we see a council officer telling us that Len Brown when he said 7% wasn’t wrong…except he was.

When will Len Brown start telling the truth to Auckland residents? When will he go on television and announce his resignation for such deceit?

Len Brown must be in serious trouble if Brian Rudman is taking time out from writing about liberal elite arts and theatres to kick Len Brown in the nads.

On Tuesday, Auckland Council issued a rather plaintive rebuttal of the “misinformation” that was being spread regarding the draft Auckland Unitary Plan. The “myths”, we were told, were “causing misunderstanding and unnecessary concern amongst our communities”.

The next day, Mayor Len Brown was in full retreat, signalling a major rethink of parts of the plan, particularly about the proposed siting of high-rise apartments. While it’s too early to suggest these are signs the battle for an intensified city is lost, it does indicate it’s going to take more than a myth-breaking press release to persuade “our communities” Mayor Brown’s vision is the way to go.

If there is misinformation abroad, there’s a simple explanation. When you have an information vacuum, the laws of nature ensure it quickly fills up with gossip, rumour and, for want of a better word, misinformation.  Read more »

The Planning Parrot writes:

Whilst Mayor Brown stubbornly continues to press on with the Unitary Plan he also continues to not listen to anyone. And he refuses to look around to see who is lurking and waiting for him to make a mistake (that is perhaps inevitable) if the Unitary plan as drafted succeeds.

The property industry has warned since the submission process on the Auckland Plan that if the Mayor continues to press for a compact city that includes a draconian RUB (Rural Urban Boundary) then it risks forcing the building and developing industry to consider other locations which will have the effect of dragging people from Auckland as they seek a more affordable lifestyle and business a viable alternative base.

It’s blatantly apparent where those locations are. Auckland is bounded by three predatory and desperate Regional Councils who can see the opportunity a compact Auckland city offers them.

The Waikato, Tauranga and Kaipara Councils are growth hungry.

During the Auckland Plan process Environment Waikato Councillors and Policy planners attended workshops and submitted on the Auckland Plan, endorsing it’s compact strategy.

Of course they would wouldn’t they?  Read more »

I was emailed this letter this morning and it has now been posted on The Auckland Council’s Unitary Plan Facebook page.

Basically Len is Lying again. Currently less than 1% of Auckland is Apartments, he is claiming 7% of Auckland can become Apartments BUT the plan actually allows 56% of Auckland to become Apartments.

To Leighton Smith,

I am a kiwi now living in AKL after 25 years overseas. One great aspect about returning is that Auckland hasn’t fundamentally changed after 25 years.

The Unitary Plan (UP) in its present form would make Auckland unrecognizable to somebody returning after 25 years absence.

Currently Auckland has less than 1% of its area covered by apartments. The UP will change that – with 56% of the Auckland area provided for apartments.

The council is mis-informing the public with its 7% coverage figure. What is not public knowledge is that the new Mixed Housing Zone provides for 10m height permitting 3 storeys of apartments. The min size is 30 sq m. The land size must be > 1200 sq m and frontage must be 20m.   Read more »