3 Tips For Your Land Development Project
Sometimes it seems like every project goes over time and budget. Here are three tips to help you keep costs and programme under control. Avoid rework There are many professionals and contractors involved in land development. This is especially true during the design process. Getting it right the first time is so important. You can […]
Designing the Road to Zero
The Road to Zero: New Zealand’s Road Safety Strategy 2020-2030 contains some pretty sobering statistics, including: It focuses on making roads safer with better drivers, modern vehicles, physical improvements and speed reductions. Transport and Land Use Integration Transport regulation tends to focus on vehicles, not pedestrians, cyclists or public transport. The NZTA Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide is a […]
The Right to Adequate Housing
Buried in Attachment A for Item 5 of the Dunedin City Council Meeting Agenda from 6 May 2019 is: Action 1.4: The Council becomes a member of the ‘Cities for Adequate Housing’ and implements housing as a human right and ends homelessness in Dunedin.Housing Action Plan for Dunedin, April 2019 The Cities for Adequate Housing calls for the following five actions that […]
Drive, Park and Ride, Drive
Hamilton is moving forward with a new Transport Hub at Rotokauri. This is despite evidence from at least 2013 that Park and Rides actually encourage car use! I find the psychology of this interesting. Not all transport is created equal. If it doesn’t get you exactly where you want to go these days, what’s the point? Rotokauri […]
The Universality of Universal Design
I’m a big fan of Universal Design. Lifemark, a commercial division of CCS Disability Action, is a well known advocate for universal design in NZ. The Lifemark Design Standards focus on dwellings and are based on the following five key principles: The seven principles of universal design are much more far reaching however. They are: With 1 in 4 Kiwis limited […]
Are Townhouses a Solution to the Housing Crisis?
In May 2019 townhouses comprised 25% of all dwellings consented. But what exactly is a townhouse? Town house A tall, narrow traditional terraced house, generally having three or more floors. A multi-storey house in a modern housing development which is attached to one or more similar houses by shared walls.Google, 2019 I don’t see many of […]
Location, Location, Quality
The recently released Framework for Housing Quality from Stats NZ defines four elements of housing quality: Interestingly, the location of a house affects all four of these elements and has a significant impact on overall housing quality. Habitability Habitable houses are physically safe, secure and healthy. Environmental sustainability The design and construction of environmentally sustainable houses ensures […]
Kiwibuild, KiwiBuy and Kiwi…Land Recycling
There are currently two landmark housing programmes in New Zealand. One is the somewhat infamous Kiwibuild and the other a lesser known KiwiBuy. But there is an older approach to housing affordability not discussed much these days. Kiwibuild The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development states that KiwiBuild has three core aims: Kiwibuild homes will cost up to $650,000 in […]
Convergence of the Professions
A typical land development project involves a variety of professionals drawing from their respectively diverse bodies of knowledge. Despite this, the outcome sought by you as a developer remains a piece of land or a new building to use or sell. Achieving this outcome requires unprecedented workflow collaboration, usually under the direction of a lead […]
Economic and Demographic Divergence
Did you know that by 2043 around 75% of kiwis will be living in just 25% of our cities and districts. In fact, a third of New Zealand cities and districts are already struggling to grow. https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/our-new-society/ This means that population composition is becoming more important than population size. It also means that migration is […]