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the existance of a few older run down building when it is clear that many of the distinctive heritage homes have long been replaced by modern building.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.
Lets not confuse the two issues. Why not go after land bankers starting on those land owners with covenants to keep the competition out (e.g. Supermakert owners, Z energy, and the like). NZ established a pretty good formula back in the 1880s where large land owners were asked to value their land for rating purposes, with the local authority having the right to buy the land at that valuation if it was deemed it was needed for strategic city development. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1819941.pdf
Likewise the local authoities should go after 40, 000 homeowners who don’t want to rent their empty “investment” homes. They could apply an additional avoided rental tax computed on a the income tax rate based on the rent they could have received.
The old and established areas of Sth Alk and West Alk are being hammered with intensification. The leafy areas don't stack up as the land is too exp. Otherwise, we (me being the first on my own 1,000m2 double-grammar home site), would convert into high density. With all due respect, you guys are commenting on property development without understanding what it takes to make a project stack up. Drive down Paritai Drive and there are several tower cranes on NZ's most expensive street as it stacks up! So there is infill housing where it is financial.
Paul I think you are missing the point. If the good folk of Remuera are not willing to pay their fair share of the cost of extending Auckland infrastructure out to Pukekohe and Albany, or moving other Aucklanders out of flood prone areas, it would would be pretty easy to sell off the Remuera low rent golf course to make a new housing development stack up in their NIMBY territory.
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?
Bear in mind Janet that no-one is forced to replace their villa with a townhouse or apartment complex. This change will happen gradually over time in most places. Having lived in my fair share of draughty, mouldy, gave me asthma villas in Wellington, I would far prefer we start accommodating people in denser, insulated and healthier homes. I am also a professional gardener and can attest than 9/10 home occupiers give zero care to their outdoor spaces. There will always be mouldy old villas in small towns and city fringes to buy if the density gets too much. Change is hard but I'm afraid we're all going to have to get used to this.
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?
The question is are they rouge planners, or the sensible ones. I decimate suburbs for a profitable living, providing homes with no carparks and watch people park on the paths, pull down fences and park on the front lawn. And these are on main arterial routes like Mt Eden Road. Maybe planning rules need to go one step further, where you are not allowed to buy or own a car, if you buy one of these units.
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.
Facades & using bits of the past is just fine! I love how the Britomart Hotel used old bricks & other bits & bobs. I would love to see more apartments like that. In terms of Office conversions though windows must be openable unlike my sons uni flat in Welly!
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.
True. It's so often that I see this character argument being rolled out when the houses it refers to are literal shitholes. It's the character of the land value these people are trying to protect and about time they admit to it.
I agree the character homes are mostly not worth anything. Why do people assume new buildings can have no character? I am sad that the Old Souls of Chch fought tooth and nail you get their cathedral rebuilt as before. My mum was from Coventry and so we followed the building of the new cathedral there after the bombing. It provided wonderful work for then contemporary creatives. I’d like to see that approach to our current towns/ cities
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!
Thanks PerfectlyFrank for the link - hard to get on to but into it now. I note that many of the homeless have lived there a long time and been pushed out as it became a desirable place for wealthier people to take over. This happens over and over again - I still have a clear image of Ponsonby back in the 60s when I lived in Pt Chev area. I don’t know how to stop the richer pushing the poorer out.
The closing of mental hospitals. Legacy of the 1980's in the Western world. Glimpses of several people on the street in Venice CA who are disturbed and untreated. One man found support and success and now helps out. The film is about two families who tried, through art, to make it. The chilling fact is that the change in this society, perpetuated by policies designed to capture privileged voters, is paralleled in NZ society in 2023. And yes, Bernard, it boils down to denial of the human right of safe housing.
One of the reasons I recommended that film is that it covers I think with rare bravery, the tangled complex mess of multiple inequities and how the soul of a place, a community can be lost in favour of the select few who benefit financially. One of the civic leaders who spoke said "we've underestimated the force of poverty" - that's a powerful reflection. Inadequacy is a tsunami rather than the odd rainy day. On the flipside I'd say we've underestimated the force of the commercial determinants of health.
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...
Lately they seem to be making a habit out of ruling out (or giving up on) things they’ve previously proposed. CGT, affordable housing, climate emergency action...
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.
Thanks John. Nice idea. And great link. Cheers
Hi John
Maybe change the ratio of rates between land value and capital value.
If three quarters of the rates were based on land value that bid leafy section with a high land value in a nimby suburb would have a nice rates bill.
A side benefit would please Bernard because it would also discourage land bankers from land banking.
Lets not confuse the two issues. Why not go after land bankers starting on those land owners with covenants to keep the competition out (e.g. Supermakert owners, Z energy, and the like). NZ established a pretty good formula back in the 1880s where large land owners were asked to value their land for rating purposes, with the local authority having the right to buy the land at that valuation if it was deemed it was needed for strategic city development. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1819941.pdf
Likewise the local authoities should go after 40, 000 homeowners who don’t want to rent their empty “investment” homes. They could apply an additional avoided rental tax computed on a the income tax rate based on the rent they could have received.
The old and established areas of Sth Alk and West Alk are being hammered with intensification. The leafy areas don't stack up as the land is too exp. Otherwise, we (me being the first on my own 1,000m2 double-grammar home site), would convert into high density. With all due respect, you guys are commenting on property development without understanding what it takes to make a project stack up. Drive down Paritai Drive and there are several tower cranes on NZ's most expensive street as it stacks up! So there is infill housing where it is financial.
Paul I think you are missing the point. If the good folk of Remuera are not willing to pay their fair share of the cost of extending Auckland infrastructure out to Pukekohe and Albany, or moving other Aucklanders out of flood prone areas, it would would be pretty easy to sell off the Remuera low rent golf course to make a new housing development stack up in their NIMBY territory.
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?
Bear in mind Janet that no-one is forced to replace their villa with a townhouse or apartment complex. This change will happen gradually over time in most places. Having lived in my fair share of draughty, mouldy, gave me asthma villas in Wellington, I would far prefer we start accommodating people in denser, insulated and healthier homes. I am also a professional gardener and can attest than 9/10 home occupiers give zero care to their outdoor spaces. There will always be mouldy old villas in small towns and city fringes to buy if the density gets too much. Change is hard but I'm afraid we're all going to have to get used to this.
Villas can be renovated so they are not damp, mouldy and too cold in winter and too hot in summer. At lower cost that pulling down and replace.
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?
The question is are they rouge planners, or the sensible ones. I decimate suburbs for a profitable living, providing homes with no carparks and watch people park on the paths, pull down fences and park on the front lawn. And these are on main arterial routes like Mt Eden Road. Maybe planning rules need to go one step further, where you are not allowed to buy or own a car, if you buy one of these units.
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.
Maybe not enough brick buildings in Wellington or Auckland. The old wooden villas are a waste of space IMUO.
Facades & using bits of the past is just fine! I love how the Britomart Hotel used old bricks & other bits & bobs. I would love to see more apartments like that. In terms of Office conversions though windows must be openable unlike my sons uni flat in Welly!
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 Merav
OMG, all those "character" houses need is an old car up on blocks on the front lawn!
True. It's so often that I see this character argument being rolled out when the houses it refers to are literal shitholes. It's the character of the land value these people are trying to protect and about time they admit to it.
I agree the character homes are mostly not worth anything. Why do people assume new buildings can have no character? I am sad that the Old Souls of Chch fought tooth and nail you get their cathedral rebuilt as before. My mum was from Coventry and so we followed the building of the new cathedral there after the bombing. It provided wonderful work for then contemporary creatives. I’d like to see that approach to our current towns/ cities
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!
Thanks PerfectlyFrank for the link - hard to get on to but into it now. I note that many of the homeless have lived there a long time and been pushed out as it became a desirable place for wealthier people to take over. This happens over and over again - I still have a clear image of Ponsonby back in the 60s when I lived in Pt Chev area. I don’t know how to stop the richer pushing the poorer out.
Glad you eventually made it onto waterbear :) it's got some quirky and fascinating and moving stories there.
The closing of mental hospitals. Legacy of the 1980's in the Western world. Glimpses of several people on the street in Venice CA who are disturbed and untreated. One man found support and success and now helps out. The film is about two families who tried, through art, to make it. The chilling fact is that the change in this society, perpetuated by policies designed to capture privileged voters, is paralleled in NZ society in 2023. And yes, Bernard, it boils down to denial of the human right of safe housing.
One of the reasons I recommended that film is that it covers I think with rare bravery, the tangled complex mess of multiple inequities and how the soul of a place, a community can be lost in favour of the select few who benefit financially. One of the civic leaders who spoke said "we've underestimated the force of poverty" - that's a powerful reflection. Inadequacy is a tsunami rather than the odd rainy day. On the flipside I'd say we've underestimated the force of the commercial determinants of health.
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...
If Labour and National is all our political scene is about, you will remain disappointed. Read the policies of the minor parties.
Yes but Labour are slightly less likely to rule it out if they propose it
Lately they seem to be making a habit out of ruling out (or giving up on) things they’ve previously proposed. CGT, affordable housing, climate emergency action...