Planning is not Predicting

I was taking a deep dive on the Tauranga Growth Strategy recently and found a fascinating drawing by Arkhefield + Urbis. It shows ‘conceptually’ how a neighbourhood could change over 40 years from 2010 to 2050. It was a lovely drawing of single family homes gradually being replaced by more intensive housing. Unfortunately, it is […]

Wasted Planning

I’ve been really interested in recent work around waste minimisation and in particular The Truth About Plastics Recycling report by WasteMINZ. It highlights the three principles of the circular economy: It struck me that these three principles are entirely applicable to land use but I’ve never seen them in any planning documents. Designing Out Pollution Pollution […]

Trees are the Enemy of Growth

Consultation on the proposed National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity closes soon and some of the submissions by local government are fascinating. The ones I have seen (through Council Committee agendas) almost all reference a perceived tension between biodiversity protection and urban development. It’s unfortunate that such a false dichotomy exists in planning because we don’t live […]

Land Development Storytelling

The Dunedin Town Belt Story Map combines text, maps and multimedia to tell the story of the Dunedin Town Belt. I’ve been fascinated by Story Maps ever since I found out about them from the team at e-Spatial. I think that Story Maps could replace the traditional Assessment of Environmental Effects Report in the resource consent process. Microsoft Sway is a […]

Subdivision Infrastructure Basics

In most cities and districts the infrastructure requirements for subdivision are usually different from the NZ Building Code. This is because subdivision infrastructure is often shared and must last longer than the buildings it serves. It serves the land, which will be around a very long time indeed. There are some helpful rules of thumb […]

Coastlines and Shorelines

I’m really impressed with the direction of the Thames-Coromandel Shoreline Management Planning (SMP) Project. I’ll overlook the fact that participants of the summer survey go in the draw to win a petrol voucher… The project appears to be based on the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) approach. The European Union has developed eight principles of good ICZM, […]

Planning for Land Use Technology

The Christchurch City Council is proposing to regulate what they call ‘home share accommodation’ through the District Plan. This approach presumes that the resource management issue is a land use problem, when in reality it’s a technology problem. Defining home share accomodation as something different from ‘normal’ residential accommodation is a seemingly arbitrary activity based approach within […]

Bureaucratic Triage and the Climate Emergency

During 2019 five regional councils (including Auckland) and ten territorial authorities declared a ‘climate emergency’ in NZ. An emergency is a a dangerous situation requiring immediate action. It’s probably fair to say that Council’s don’t have a reputation for acting quickly. Nonetheless, a policy triage of sorts is underway to determine the order of regulation urgency. This […]

Parking Regeneration

The Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister recently used legislative power to remove parking requirements from Lyttelton in an attempt to stimulate growth. Parking requirements have long been identified as an insidious planning tool that is criticised by movements like #blackfridayparking. At any given moment there are probably over 3 million cars just parked in NZ, doing nothing. That’s at […]

Enabling Enablement

I came across the Tararua District Visitor and Walk-Cycle Strategy and Action Plan recently. One thing that struck me was the use of the word ‘enabler’ throughout. This includes with respect to the delivery of regulatory services (like resource consents). Red carpet provider: Provide regulatory services in a way that expedites and supports visitor development proposals. I’m a […]