Viewpoint – To grow, or not to grow?

There has always been a strong debate about how Auckland should grow – compact urban city vs urban sprawl. The Unitary Plan seemed like a done deal. It zoned much of the rural land in Dairy Flat and Wainui Future Urban and, when urbanised, those areas would be home to 100,000 plus new residents. 

However, following recent weather events, the suitability of urbanising that area is now being questioned (HM June 26). Council’s draft Future Development Strategy (FDS) for Auckland is proposing to push out urbanisation of Wainui and Dairy Flat from 2030 to past 2050 and recommends the area is subject to further investigation due to natural hazards such as flood plains, slope instability and the billions required for infrastructure. If the strategy is adopted, this may result in several future urban areas being rezoned back to rural.

There are polarising views in the community about this draft strategy, with developers and many landowners understandably strongly opposing it. What has complicated the issue, is that the Supporting Growth team which is a collaboration between Auckland Transport, Waka Kotahi and Auckland Council, has started the route protection process for the integrated transport networks for Dairy Flat, including the rapid transport network through the area. Hundreds of Dairy Flat residents have received letters from the Supporting Growth team as part of the Notice of Requirement (NOR) process. 

These integrated transport projects will cost billions and they are not costed or funded. Many residents feel that the FDS should have been finalised first, before millions are spent on the NOR process for Dairy Flat, especially if the area is rezoned back to rural. 

The NOR process has been extremely stressful for affected residents, with many not receiving the initial correspondence advising them they were part of the study area. Equally distressing for some future urban landowners is the impact on property prices if the FDS strategy is adopted.

In the past, we have allowed subdivisions in Auckland in areas of natural hazards such as flood plains. Engineering solutions have not always been successful, especially when based on historical 1-in-100-year flood calculations. Many areas that were recently flooded in Rodney this year were new subdivisions. In some cases, subdivisions on flood plains diverted flood waters onto neighbouring properties.

However, developers are confident that they can mitigate flood risk when urbanising green field areas.

The cost of the infrastructure is one thing that can’t be debated. Greenfield development costs billions and developer contributions don’t come close to funding even the basic infrastructure (roading, waste and water). However, when urbanising greenfield areas on a large scale, we can’t just focus on the infrastructure within the development – the surrounding road networks and connections need to be upgraded to cope with the thousands of extra cars on the road. Rapid public transport networks need to be built to move thousands of residents around. 

How this infrastructure is to be funded is an unanswered question and becoming a hot topic in the upcoming general election. However, council’s financial woes are well documented; the cash-strapped council doesn’t even have the financial means to fund the operating costs of its current community facilities in the long term, let alone build new ones to make new urban areas livable.

Submissions have now closed on the draft FDS and feedback is being considered and changes made. It is expected to be adopted by the Governing Body in late 2023.