A smart green city
Dave Burgess at the Dom Post reports:
Not content with its title as the coolest little capital in the world, Wellington is now hatching plans to ensure it offers the thrilling experience of a much bigger city over the next 30 years.
The Wellington 2040 City Strategy proposes using four goals to reshape the capital into a smart green city – which includes creating a “dynamic” downtown zone through a Central City Framework – over that time.
Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said the city council’s visionary document was multifaceted, and required buy-in from the community, otherwise it would never “capture Wellingtonians’ imagination or lead to success”.
There was a big focus on the central city because it provided the economic impetus for the region, was easily accessible, and was the capital’s collective playground. “It is the heart of Wellington and it’s about keeping that heart pumping.”
Among the plans for opening up a downtown zone was to revamp alleyways such as the Opera House Lane so they could be lined with cafes and bars. “It would be a much nicer use of space that is currently used by people to pee,” Ms Wade-Brown said.
That’s a good idea. The new Chews Lane has become well frequented.
New lanes could be created alongside existing buildings or built into new developments. The Oaks complex might be demolished to make way for a grassed area that would merge with Te Aro Park and Cuba Mall.
I remember when the Oaks was a happening place. Now it is a isolated ghetto.
I haven’t read the plan in detail, but I like what I see so far.
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June 16th, 2011 at 11:12 am
A well deserved plug! Only a decade ago you would have been labelled a sandal-wearing hippie for advocating for more green spaces. You may still…
June 16th, 2011 at 11:12 am
Buzz word buzz word green buzz word raise taxes buzz word.
Try taking a trip to the rural areas you hate so much, plenty of green there already. Bring your wallet, everythings really expensive because they subsidize your latee’.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:13 am
…and you’re a sandal wearing hippie.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:31 am
It’s a good vision to put forward. Nice to see an attempt at a genuine long-term plan. I seem to remember though, that a few years ago WCC came out with a similar vision thing which included moving the working port to Ngauranga and expanding the CBD into the existnig port area. To an extent that is happening with the commerical developments in the port area, but there’s no sign yet of the port moving.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Why does the city council need to have a view on the commercial potential of a Chew’s Lane-like development next to the Opera? The Council is not in a position to understand that commercial potential. Developers are. Cafe owners and retailers are. But those experts have to ask permission to undertake such developments. From the Council. So elected officials with expertise in being elected and little or none in commercial development end up deciding what gets developed. This is why NZ is poor.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:40 am
ben
You have an alternative system for managing devlopment in the city?
June 16th, 2011 at 11:41 am
mikenmild – I would like to know more about the process that sees logs – LOGS – stored on the most prime real estate in the country, the Wellington waterfront. Rough guess: $200 million of value has been destroyed by taking all of that prime real estate and putting logs there instead of houses, apartments, commercial and retail development. Whatever process it is that puts logs and not people on that real estate is broken and is making the country poorer. I’ll speculate it’s not developers who are to blame.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:44 am
mikenmild – yea, I do. A market. Which is to say an arrangement in which land owners figure out the most valuable thing they can do with their property without having to ask permission from people who have no idea. Cities operate just fine without zoning.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:46 am
“Not content with its title as the coolest little capital in the world”
Hadn’t heard that one myself. Got a good laugh out of it though.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:48 am
ben
Should there be any role for localgovernment in regulating conflicting land use?
June 16th, 2011 at 11:58 am
mikenmild – only to the extent required to protect fair use but also protected from unreasonable externalities (noise, safety). But that is limited. The Council can have no idea what the highest value use for the alley way next to Opera is. That is hubris. It is highly unlikely that the Council has selected, out of all the possible uses for that land, the highest value use, because it has no expertise on the question of what people want. Deciding in advance what shall go there, and forgoing the information that would be made available by having competing developers bid, guarantees second best (or rather 100th best) outcomes.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
No ones taken anything. That land has always belonged to teh Port. I suggest also that the land is more valuable to centreport as a commercial zone than it is to redevelop, due to its proximity to the railyards, CBD and Motorway system.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
ben
Ok, let’s have another look at that lane. It is publicly owned at present. It is underused and a Chews Lane-style redevelopment would be one option. Do you think there is any role that the conucil can play in facilitating this?
June 16th, 2011 at 12:06 pm
cabbage
I think the previous vision-type document from a few years ago aimed to unlock some of the potential of that port area, in a way that we have already seen since the 1980s, first along the Queen’s Wharf area and latterly into surplus port land. The key to further development of the area would be a viable case for the major port operations to move to Ngauranga – possibly that would be viable if the port company then developed and sold areas it vacated.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Cabbage
No ones taken anything. That land has always belonged to teh Port. I suggest also that the land is more valuable to centreport as a commercial zone than it is to redevelop, due to its proximity to the railyards, CBD and Motorway system.
I think you’re almost certainly wrong. People like living near water, and are prepared to pay a lot for it. And logs can be stored anywhere. I’m not saying anything’s been taken. I’m guessing that land misuse this serious can only be a product of faulty regulation of some kind, I just don’t know what it is.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Ok, let’s have another look at that lane. It is publicly owned at present. It is underused and a Chews Lane-style redevelopment would be one option. Do you think there is any role that the conucil can play in facilitating this?
Sure, it can put it out for tender and accept the highest bid.
Now if that sounds like its because I happen to like liberty, it is not. It is because there is a reason why the winning bidder out competed other bidders. And that reason is that she has identified a use that convinces more people to part with their money than the alternatives. That is a reliable signal of value.
Consider two plans (out of thousands). Plan A is Chews Lane. Plan B is extend the car park in the hotel there. Ok, not inspiring. Plan A developers have done the math and worked out the rent they can earn and decided the most they can bid is $500k. Plan B developer has done the math and has worked out the additional revenue more car park will get them, and decided they can bid up to $1M.
Now Plan B is uninspiring (to me, anyway), but it wins for the sole reason that developers have discovered, through competition, that Wellingtonians will pay twice as much for plan B as plan A i.e. they value it more.
Yes, there is noise in the process. But the question is what process – planning or markets – on average discovers the higher value use. Planners can try to mimic the process with research and spreadsheets, but they will fail. That is the planning problem, because discovering highest value use out of thousands of possibilities is v v hard.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Ben, jsut wait until Wgtn has its proposed earthquake and walla there will be a great desire for a dumpimg place for all the bricks and stuff. Ngauranga to the Silo’s will be a good place and will make an excellent log stand.
Actually you are right and mm is a contril freak socialist. The worldgrew without planning ruled by num nuts in socialistcouncils long before the socialists gained control. hong Kong being a good example in the 17-1800′s.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Editwon’t work
June 16th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I presume you are trolling, and don’t really need to have it explained to you that ships live in the sea; and that therefore in order to get money-making cargo on and off ships, you need to have some kind of wharf which can only be located by the sea’s edge?
Before the Thorndon container terminal was built, that whole area where all the logs are was under water. It’s only ever been a wharf, and it was built expressly for that purpose.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
RRM, no I’m not trolling, actually. It doesn’t matter how the land (or rather, the surface) came about. It’s there. And if the Wellington CBD was the only place in the country ships could dock, you might have a point. But it isn’t, and you don’t. It’s not even the only place in the harbour.
Oh and thanks for the bold type on ‘only’. As if you weren’t being condescending enough.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Auckland has been pipped at the post.
Auckland should have been promoting itself as the Blue Green playground of the world.
Instead it has been totally diverted by trains and paving and slabs. North Korea here we come. A few thoughts from Cities Matter:
http://cities-matter.blogspot.com/
If we want the world’s most liveable city we should exploit the green and blue spaces that penetrate and punctuate its distinctive form. Rather than urban containment we favour development that recognises the linear nature of Auckland’s setting, its extensive rural hinterland, dramatic coastal and bush-clad edges, and the desire of some residents and businesses to locate ‘outside the city but not too far’. A combination of low impact development and decentralised intensification allows growth while respecting the physical setting.
Green urban form could provide entrepreneurial and economic opportunities and make Auckland more attractive. Respecting geography and committing to a green city can lead to an indigenous urbanism not beholden to Europe. Auckland’s design should be about space, sea and sky; weather and vegetation; and openness. We don’t need the tight, stone-paved spaces of a Siena or Salzburg.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Yes yes, very nice, I approve.
Now what about the Mayor’s previously announced intention to ameliorate the earthquake risk posed by crappy old buildings in Wellington? I’d rather be hearing about that.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Ben said…
Which is to say an arrangement in which land owners figure out the most valuable thing they can do with their property without having to ask permission from people who have no idea.
Ben I totally agree here.
Here is a nice quote from here which is exactly the same as what you’ve stated above:
Quote:
=====
When the productive have to ask permission from the unproductive in order to produce, then you may know that your society is doomed.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Viking 2
Perhaps I should be flattered to be the recipient of your abuse; but you are wrong. I’m not opposed to market-based development. I just think that the community can put a few basic rules around it. Actually, I liked ben’s comments – without private sector initiative very little of use would be built. We would possibly just differ to the extent that a local (or central) government can contribute by providing the best set of rules.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Re the log storage area.
That area was man made (c1970) as the result of years of carting fill from Ngauranga Gorge. Although the Greens weren’t even thought of then the sandal wearers were screaming & protesting about the filling in of Wellington Harbour when they could spare time from screaming about Manapouri.
Imagine the protests if the area to the north were to be filled.
June 16th, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Useless Bureaucrats
and
Whose Bloody Land is it Anyway
June 16th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
No Ben it’s not the only place in the north island that ships could tie up.
At the time it was built, however, it seemed like a pretty good place to do it.
The beach at Petone is a bit shallow for big ships you see. The beach at Paraparaumu – ditto. You are getting a bit too far from the city as well up there.
So it wasn’t some malign conspiracy to ruin everyone’s quality of life. And it wasn’t a monumental cock-up by complete idiots doing something that anyone should have been able to see was clearly stupid.
At the time, it made sense to build a deep-water container port in Wellington Harbour next to the railway yards in Thorndon. That really really really is all there is to it!
June 16th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
The port could be relocated, most easily to Ngauranga/Kaiwharawhars, but Seaview is also a possibility and was investigated in the 1940s. It would all have to do with a suitable business justification, based on unlocking the unrealised value of the present port land.
June 16th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
RRM
No Ben it’s not the only place in the north island that ships could tie up.
Oh. So maybe its not automatically clear that tying ships here is the best use, since there are alternatives.
You are getting a bit too far from the city as well up there.
Which is my point. You couldn’t possibly know, from the comfort of your high chair, whether putting passengers in Petone and apartments in the CBD, or logs, adds or destroys value. For that you need a market. The fact that log storage is what that land is being used for strongly suggests to me the rules are preventing better uses emerging. I might be wrong. I just want to know what the process that leads to logs is. I strongly doubt it is better to store logs on such prime land than to put them just about anywhere else.
I am not saying there is a conspiracy or some malicious intent or a cock up actually. I am saying I suspect land use rules are preventing the land being put to higher value uses.
And value is forward looking. The port may have added value at that location when it was built, but that is irrelevant to the question of the highest value use for the land today.
You’re asshole RRM for persisting with that condescending tone. Like only an idiot would look at logs on a $100 million piece of prime real estate and think there might be a better way.
June 16th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Right ben, the only way to see whether there is a better use for the log-pile land is to develop a costed case for an alternative. I suspect that it could be viable to move the port operations to a new site and redevelop the old, but we’d be looking at a huge investment up front before significant profits came to be realised. I think it will happen one day; our forebears had the gumption to reclaim land for the current port, so it could be done again.
June 16th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Cafes and bars are no deterrent to the likes of Andrew Williams
June 16th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Ben, the port company owns (and created) the land and at this point in time it considers that the highest and best use it has for the land is to use it for log storage. Unless someone comes along with squillions to buy the land off them (a market approach), then surely the port company is entitled to use the land for whatever purpose it likes.
I think the location is more to do with the fact that logs are heavy, you need ships with deep draft to carry them and that part of the port is the one with the deepest moorings (above 11m below the waterline, which is why the cruise ships dock there as well), and the port facilities exist to enable easy loading. Short of recreating the port at another location in the harbour. Sounds like you’re suggesting closing down the port completely – which has significant flow on effects, including for the forest industry where those trees come from.
I’m not convinced that apartments would flourish there, so far away from the town centre – It’s at least a kilometre into town, past commercial buildings and a railyard. Just because it’s on the waterfront doesn’t mean it’s automatically an attractive location
June 16th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Crazy
I think you read ben’s comments wrong. He’s not saying the port should be shifted, he’s just saying it could if a better alternative use for the land made commercial senses.
It would be a great location for all sort sof development, and I think you would find that the railyards would move too – they are only in the current location because that’s where the port is!
June 16th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
“It would all have to do with a suitable business justification, based on unlocking the unrealised value of the present port land.”
And that’s the point – the cost of relocating the port, including reclaiming the land, moving cranes etc are likely to far exceed the economic benefits from the move in a city with the population of Wellington (there’s unlikely to be enough development to justify the move). Relocation is an expensive exercise. For example, the movement of the port at Aqaba, Jordan was estimated to cost $600m US – is there going to be enough development and population growth in Wellington to justify such a move.
June 16th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
That’s a huge call. Why don’t you find out?
Or maybe it’s as simple as the port company sees [not moving] as a preferable alternative to [moving]?
It is a huge site, they are only using a small corner of it for logs that are waiting to go on ships. I’d say there’s more to their overall economic equation than just those log racks.
June 16th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
And Ben – if you are going to continue drip feeding Economics 101 to us as though you think it is some kind of stunning revelation to us, please don’t act surprised when you get treated like a noob.
June 16th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
I know what a boob is so what’s a noob? Please.
you should all realise that until the waterfront was extended the shore was way back by the hills. Go look up the history of reclaiming the land the city sits on. Have a look at some of the old photo’s that exist. There was just about no land there.
Wgtn is short of flat land so why not build out along the side of the motorway? No reason except the greenies really.
And probably earthquakes so when yours arrives you will then have plenty of fill to do the job.
June 17th, 2011 at 7:50 am
“When the productive need to ask permission from the unproductive in order to produce, then you may know that your culture is doomed.”-Ayn Rand
….
“When the sacredness of property is talked of, it should always be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land: it is the inheritance of the whole species.” John Stuart Mill
http://www.interest.co.nz/rural-news/53668/opinion-land-crisis
June 17th, 2011 at 7:58 am
hj
Kind of a contrast in those quotations, isn’t there?
June 17th, 2011 at 8:30 am
Developers seeking to find the maximum value in the wakatipu basin are finding opposition from locals:
It seems property developers again want to expand Arrowtown’s urban areas, with an appeal lodged with the Environment Court challenging the planning commisioners’ decisions. QLDC conducted rigourous consultationourt on these plan changes, with meetings with and submissions from hundreds of residents and ratepayers, before coming down with a well-balanced decision in the best interests of the district as a whole.
Now there’s another attack on the Arrowtown boundary and a desire for urban growth elsewhere. Do we want housing over the whole Wakatipu basin? Once again action is needed. ……..
Dame Elizabeth Hanan
Arrowtown
——————————–
“”The isolation and silence are magic,” Wolfrum says. “When you’re hiking, all alone, and it’s getting dark, you imagine things. It’s like a fairy tale sometimes. The nature makes you feel like a child again.”
Up the road in Queenstown, nature is in full flight.
Queenstown advertises itself as “The Adventure Capital of the World,” where you can bungy jump, heli-ski, jet-boat, or sky-dive. The confines of the modest town can no longer accommodate the throng of thrill-seekers. Soaring mountains still fringe the lake, but condos are creeping along the shore, a snake of traffic clogs the road into town, and Louis Vuitton has set up shop along with Global Culture, a clothes store.
If your idea of a holiday is a seething mass of cars and people, topped off by a cacophony of helicopters, Queenstown may be for you. Otherwise, it serves only as a warning of the perils of overdevelopment.
“Queenstown used to be nice, but it’s a mess, now,” Verduyn says, as we continue our trip down the Upper Clutha. “We don’t want to get like that.”"
http://articles.boston.com/2004-11-07/travel/29202644_1_new-zealand-dolphin-tea-tree/3
June 18th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
I notice a lot of references to Chews Lane here. Anyone been down there after 9pm on a Friday/Saturday (and Thursday in the summer) and listened to the drunks? Have you seen the dog ends all over the place, blocking the drains, and often a nice pile of puke in a corner somewhere, and a broken tree here and there. It is not the nice up-market place they touted a few years ago when it was being built.
The 3C bar, which was supposed to be an up market place for well-to-do Wellingtonians to go for a quiet drink and meal, is just another Kiwi drinking hole. Gotham could be a nice cafe, but they also pander to the drunks. Both 3C and Gotham play impossibly loud music and serve people drinks long after they are already intoxicated.
Chews Lane is fast becoming Chews Alley, and if this smart green city is to come about, someone needs to do something about the Kiwi drunk culture. Equivalent al fresco bars in Europe would not allow the shouting, abuse and scruffiness that you can see in Chews Lane now.
And look at Manners and Courtney – a disgrace, all those mottled pavements from spat gum. That gets a big fine in some civilised countries.
Have you ever been to the opera or ballet? I dress better than most of the patrons when I go to a sunday barbecue.
What’s the good of a smart city with scruffy people?
June 19th, 2011 at 6:16 pm
And I note that a French guy has today been beaten up in Courtney Place. I wonder what his memory will be of the “Smart Green city”.