Wellington City Council staff reinsert 797 villas into District Plan proposal, despite Council vote to reduce character-protected zone by 72%; Govt restores cuts to new Dunedin hospital
A democratic deficit in action: Most leafy low population density NIMBY Auckland suburbs are disinclined to share access to natural resources, shopping villages, free parking and other public amenities including proximity to the CBD. In all likelyhood these low dense areas have a greater investment in taxpayer paid public amenities (e.g. roads, underground power, parks etc) per capita Their residents often offer spurious arguements about protecting the environment and facitiously argue for heritage status, on the basis of the existance of a few older run down building when it is clear that many of the distinctive heritage homes have long been replaced by modern building.
As the recent article in the Spinoff concuded (https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/23-09-2021/the-costs-of-nimbyism): “ We can’t keep appeasing nimbys and meet our obligations to house people adequately. We have to build a lot more housing, but particularly smaller and denser units close to work, transport and other amenities”.
This objective can be achieved either by accepting more four story buildings (as shown in the article) near parks or beaches or by building high rise buildings with four appartments per story on a group of four sections to achieve large open spaces between each other. Perhaps the solution lies in amending the city’s rating system so that low population density privileges are properly reflected in the costs that others have to bear when when they are forced to live in concentrated housing developments in inconveniant locations. In Auckland the increased rate charge could be easily implemented through an appropriate definition of the assessed “Natural Environment – Non Business” rate to reflect an accurate valuation of the advantages of being a NIMBY.
Re Blenheim's request for consent for a duplex. Definition of a duplex has two living units attached to each other, either next to each other as townhouses, condominiums or above each other like apartments.
So this “doubling of density” would have adverse effects on the amenity values and character of the street, such as extra noise and reducing neighbours’ privacy. Concerns were in line with neighbours who opposed it over concerns of increased noise and traffic, shade from the building’s height, parking congestion, and the building’s appearance.
Let's say the street has forty houses in it; that's now forty one. Forty one is not double forty. - Year One arithmetic. Extra noise? If an existing street dweller's teenage child gets their drivers licence and buys a car ... Hmmm, which is noisier? Shade from the building's height might affect a neighbour's sun for an hour or two. As for the other thirty nine properties in the street. Parking congestion - refer to comments re teenager.
That leaves the building's appearance as a valid argument. An astute developer would not make the mistake of putting up an eyesore unless it was the only way to fit a duplex onto a piece of land that isn't big enough for one.
Could I suggest an additional consideration re “character precincts”, beyond the collective economic interests of those who live in character houses and may (or may not) hope to profit from their resale: they make large parts of a city more pleasant to look at, walk or drive or bike through. They give pleasure to, and their trees help clean the air for, many of us who cannot afford to live in or own them. Remove enough of them and you change the feel of a city radically, and sometimes unpleasantly depending on what is built in their place. What is lost is the thing that makes people want to visit and revisit a city - the “That photo must be Wellington” factor. the question is what if any weight should be given to aesthetics and trees.
Not suggesting there’s a simple solution, but I’ve observed in European cities that quite a number of old dwellings can be replaced with new builds without noticeable harm to the character of the streets if they are scattered rather than clumped. The principal operating seems to be that once, say, one in seven houses in a street have been replaced by modern builds, any subsequent deterioration of the housing stock has to be addressed by repairs, or rebuilding in the traditional or dominant style of the area. In some places this means near-replication of traditional styles, in others retaining some features and especially the dominant proportions in the facade design. May or may not be a good thing in various respects, but it takes account of two things: that we look at the outsides of our houses far less than others do, and that what they see affects their well-being and the perceived amenity of the city.
Then, of course there are the trees, in yards and sometimes on generous berms, grabbing carbon and sopping up rainwater before it reaches the over-taxed drains.
But of course we need densification, for reasons beyond dispute. My question is, could a more cautious approach add useful amounts of housing capacity in these areas without utterly obliterating the prevailing character? Is there no possibility between retaining all the villas and bowling them all?
Seems we may need a clear out of planners who don't want density and traffic engineers who are only interested in cars. I guess decades of status quo about "what good looks like" is hard to shift. I'd love to know what our mayor, Tory Whanau , plans to do about those rogue planners. Perhaps she might come on a Hoon and tell us?
Hi Bernard. Generally find your info great. Heritage status is getting a bit of bad rap though. It's important that we keep living built heritage within our environments from all periods of our historical development, as we will then build a city of interest and character (I'm from Auckland which is hardly great, but when I visit Tauranga it feels lobotomized - literally nothing pre-1960). Heritage is good, in that will, if maintained increasingly enrich our lives. In my opinion the problem is town planning and the law; too dogmatic, too concerned with zones, massive difficulties in achieving even the most rudimentary change. We also focus on environmental effects on others, because our planning rules are predicated on the idea that we need to borrow light and air from our neighbour's site in order to make our building habitable. There are other heritage models of development that don't require this - think Rome or Florence for example. We do need to create space for densification, but we need better models and a more wide-ranging debate on this matter, but ditching heritage and not understanding it's psychological importance to us all is a mistake.
Please maintain your focus on the planning process. Just one of many examples is the way Housing and Business Assessments and related advice of economic experts introduce huge biases against relatively disadvantaged 0cohorts.
Having lived in a 4 hundred year old house & a couple of apartments behind old facades in The Hague, I can tell you that behind the old brick outer wall, there are many, many modern warm apartments. Keep some old villas but build homes where people work. We need some green spaces & gardens too plus good PT & cycling infrastructure.
Bit late in the thread, but just to say thank goodness we have a fixer in charge of Auckland and not another useless hugger. Touchy feely bollocks OUT; Get Stuff Done - IN
Anyone who traveled European cities will have a good laugh at these "character" homes. Can some be considered as character or having important vlaue? Yes. Most, and certainly in the case of this specific development in Blenheim certainly not. Here is the link to a Twitter post with images:
NIMBYs should really get over themselves and stop forcing young people out of this country or they risk not having the population to look after them when they need help, and rightly so.
And the voting public should start demanding councils do their job properly. If the CEO can't control staff then the CEO needs to go. They eran way beyond what they deliver.
You might want to use the CCCFA example when you do an interview with ComCom on how they will channel their inner Kahn, they recognise the benefits of the council actions but still feel they have to issue a warning notice. I wonder what the response would have been if council had not, totally of their own free will of course, paid back all that interest?
"Secondly, council officials appointed over the years by these councillors representing villa owners can overturn or subvert any attempts to densify zoning rules. "
I don't really understand what you mean here Bernard. First I didn't think Councillors appointed the staffers you are talking about, and secondly, staff was acting _against_ the wishes of councillors i.e. the councillors were NOT representing the villa owners. ?
I appreciate Jake Tame's interview style. I'm sure some people find it badgering, but on the other hand I'm convinced Kieran McAnulty came more prepared because he knew Jake wouldn't let up until he'd given a straight answer.
It traverses gentrification, NIMBYism, social, cultural and health inequities, the impact of corporate tenants ... an 'intimate feature documentary focusing on one of the USA's most iconic and income divided zip codes, Venice CA 90291.' As I watched it I reflected back on our own country's trajectory in terms of housing and other inequities. Lessons to be learned!
I'd like to see Labour put forward a tax switch proposal that reduces lower end income taxes in exchange for something on capital gains/wealth/land but won't get my hopes up too much...
Practitioners veto.
A democratic deficit in action: Most leafy low population density NIMBY Auckland suburbs are disinclined to share access to natural resources, shopping villages, free parking and other public amenities including proximity to the CBD. In all likelyhood these low dense areas have a greater investment in taxpayer paid public amenities (e.g. roads, underground power, parks etc) per capita Their residents often offer spurious arguements about protecting the environment and facitiously argue for heritage status, on the basis of the existance of a few older run down building when it is clear that many of the distinctive heritage homes have long been replaced by modern building.
As the recent article in the Spinoff concuded (https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/23-09-2021/the-costs-of-nimbyism): “ We can’t keep appeasing nimbys and meet our obligations to house people adequately. We have to build a lot more housing, but particularly smaller and denser units close to work, transport and other amenities”.
This objective can be achieved either by accepting more four story buildings (as shown in the article) near parks or beaches or by building high rise buildings with four appartments per story on a group of four sections to achieve large open spaces between each other. Perhaps the solution lies in amending the city’s rating system so that low population density privileges are properly reflected in the costs that others have to bear when when they are forced to live in concentrated housing developments in inconveniant locations. In Auckland the increased rate charge could be easily implemented through an appropriate definition of the assessed “Natural Environment – Non Business” rate to reflect an accurate valuation of the advantages of being a NIMBY.
Re Blenheim's request for consent for a duplex. Definition of a duplex has two living units attached to each other, either next to each other as townhouses, condominiums or above each other like apartments.
So this “doubling of density” would have adverse effects on the amenity values and character of the street, such as extra noise and reducing neighbours’ privacy. Concerns were in line with neighbours who opposed it over concerns of increased noise and traffic, shade from the building’s height, parking congestion, and the building’s appearance.
Let's say the street has forty houses in it; that's now forty one. Forty one is not double forty. - Year One arithmetic. Extra noise? If an existing street dweller's teenage child gets their drivers licence and buys a car ... Hmmm, which is noisier? Shade from the building's height might affect a neighbour's sun for an hour or two. As for the other thirty nine properties in the street. Parking congestion - refer to comments re teenager.
That leaves the building's appearance as a valid argument. An astute developer would not make the mistake of putting up an eyesore unless it was the only way to fit a duplex onto a piece of land that isn't big enough for one.
Could I suggest an additional consideration re “character precincts”, beyond the collective economic interests of those who live in character houses and may (or may not) hope to profit from their resale: they make large parts of a city more pleasant to look at, walk or drive or bike through. They give pleasure to, and their trees help clean the air for, many of us who cannot afford to live in or own them. Remove enough of them and you change the feel of a city radically, and sometimes unpleasantly depending on what is built in their place. What is lost is the thing that makes people want to visit and revisit a city - the “That photo must be Wellington” factor. the question is what if any weight should be given to aesthetics and trees.
Not suggesting there’s a simple solution, but I’ve observed in European cities that quite a number of old dwellings can be replaced with new builds without noticeable harm to the character of the streets if they are scattered rather than clumped. The principal operating seems to be that once, say, one in seven houses in a street have been replaced by modern builds, any subsequent deterioration of the housing stock has to be addressed by repairs, or rebuilding in the traditional or dominant style of the area. In some places this means near-replication of traditional styles, in others retaining some features and especially the dominant proportions in the facade design. May or may not be a good thing in various respects, but it takes account of two things: that we look at the outsides of our houses far less than others do, and that what they see affects their well-being and the perceived amenity of the city.
Then, of course there are the trees, in yards and sometimes on generous berms, grabbing carbon and sopping up rainwater before it reaches the over-taxed drains.
But of course we need densification, for reasons beyond dispute. My question is, could a more cautious approach add useful amounts of housing capacity in these areas without utterly obliterating the prevailing character? Is there no possibility between retaining all the villas and bowling them all?
Seems we may need a clear out of planners who don't want density and traffic engineers who are only interested in cars. I guess decades of status quo about "what good looks like" is hard to shift. I'd love to know what our mayor, Tory Whanau , plans to do about those rogue planners. Perhaps she might come on a Hoon and tell us?
Hi Bernard. Generally find your info great. Heritage status is getting a bit of bad rap though. It's important that we keep living built heritage within our environments from all periods of our historical development, as we will then build a city of interest and character (I'm from Auckland which is hardly great, but when I visit Tauranga it feels lobotomized - literally nothing pre-1960). Heritage is good, in that will, if maintained increasingly enrich our lives. In my opinion the problem is town planning and the law; too dogmatic, too concerned with zones, massive difficulties in achieving even the most rudimentary change. We also focus on environmental effects on others, because our planning rules are predicated on the idea that we need to borrow light and air from our neighbour's site in order to make our building habitable. There are other heritage models of development that don't require this - think Rome or Florence for example. We do need to create space for densification, but we need better models and a more wide-ranging debate on this matter, but ditching heritage and not understanding it's psychological importance to us all is a mistake.
Please maintain your focus on the planning process. Just one of many examples is the way Housing and Business Assessments and related advice of economic experts introduce huge biases against relatively disadvantaged 0cohorts.
Happy for you to open up to public
Having lived in a 4 hundred year old house & a couple of apartments behind old facades in The Hague, I can tell you that behind the old brick outer wall, there are many, many modern warm apartments. Keep some old villas but build homes where people work. We need some green spaces & gardens too plus good PT & cycling infrastructure.
Bit late in the thread, but just to say thank goodness we have a fixer in charge of Auckland and not another useless hugger. Touchy feely bollocks OUT; Get Stuff Done - IN
Anyone who traveled European cities will have a good laugh at these "character" homes. Can some be considered as character or having important vlaue? Yes. Most, and certainly in the case of this specific development in Blenheim certainly not. Here is the link to a Twitter post with images:
https://twitter.com/matty_prasad/status/1647764582633709568?t=iVQOtuD3iDdcdV04F0ysrg&s=19
NIMBYs should really get over themselves and stop forcing young people out of this country or they risk not having the population to look after them when they need help, and rightly so.
And the voting public should start demanding councils do their job properly. If the CEO can't control staff then the CEO needs to go. They eran way beyond what they deliver.
Hi Bernard
You might want to use the CCCFA example when you do an interview with ComCom on how they will channel their inner Kahn, they recognise the benefits of the council actions but still feel they have to issue a warning notice. I wonder what the response would have been if council had not, totally of their own free will of course, paid back all that interest?
"Secondly, council officials appointed over the years by these councillors representing villa owners can overturn or subvert any attempts to densify zoning rules. "
I don't really understand what you mean here Bernard. First I didn't think Councillors appointed the staffers you are talking about, and secondly, staff was acting _against_ the wishes of councillors i.e. the councillors were NOT representing the villa owners. ?
I appreciate Jake Tame's interview style. I'm sure some people find it badgering, but on the other hand I'm convinced Kieran McAnulty came more prepared because he knew Jake wouldn't let up until he'd given a straight answer.
I didn't really want to watch it - but I did: An Autopsy of American Inequality. I think it's an important film. So I reckon its' perspectives are worthy of your 1hr 31min investment too. It is free-to-air on waterbear.com: https://www.waterbear.com/watch/unzipped-an-autopsy-of-american-inequality
It traverses gentrification, NIMBYism, social, cultural and health inequities, the impact of corporate tenants ... an 'intimate feature documentary focusing on one of the USA's most iconic and income divided zip codes, Venice CA 90291.' As I watched it I reflected back on our own country's trajectory in terms of housing and other inequities. Lessons to be learned!
I'd like to see Labour put forward a tax switch proposal that reduces lower end income taxes in exchange for something on capital gains/wealth/land but won't get my hopes up too much...