Auckland Council Research Articles

Auckland: Rescaled governance and post-suburban politics

The nature and politics of urban development in Auckland have undergone rapid transformation following amalgamation of eight separate authorities in 2010. Institutions governing metropolitan planning and infrastructure provision were rescaled to form the Auckland ‘Super City’ Council in 2010, with an ambitious vision to become the world's most liveable city and ongoing political contestation between the local and central government. Amalgamation of Auckland's governance was conceived and imposed by the central government as part of a broader economic strategy for “competitive cities”. However, Auckland Council's first strategic plan adopted a contrasting agenda, centred around the goal of “liveability”. Auckland's recent developments illustrate the challenges of a distinctly post-suburban polity. The majority of employment is located in suburban areas and the city has variegated and overlapping patterns in spatial form generated through inconsistent infrastructure interventions across local and national authorities. Conflicting urban policy agenda at national and local scales shows a tension between the pursuit of economic development and provision for collective needs. The politics of post-suburban development create specific challenges for Auckland's governance. Liveability and economic competitiveness are treated as complementary terms in political rhetoric, however trade-offs emerge at a smaller spatial scales. Public concern over housing affordability and risks to the financial stability of New Zealand's economy have led to central government intervention and renegotiation of authority between different tiers of government for land use and infrastructure provision. Auckland's position as New Zealand's largest city and economic centre frequently blurs the distinction between issues of local and national significance. Auckland's governance challenges are not unique, however the current tensions are exacerbated by its dominance in a small and geographically-isolated nation.

Future implications of urban intensification on residential water demand

Over recent decades Auckland, New Zealand, metropolitan area has vastly expanded as a result of rapid population growth and low-density housing developments. In order to manage the uncontrolled low-density urban sprawl, Auckland Council proposed a compact city model through promoting higher density housing developments. In order to understand the implications of this transition on future residential water demand, this study first evaluated water consumption in three major housing types in Auckland including single houses, low-rise and high-rise apartments. Using the geographic information system, the water consumption information, estimated from a large sample of 60,000 dwellings across Auckland, was subsequently integrated with the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan outlining the future housing composition over different areas in Auckland. Through developing different growth scenarios, the study showed that the housing transition from single houses to more intensified multi-unit houses cannot considerably affect the average per capita water consumption in Auckland.

Auckland Council: is it too big to last?

Auckland is a city-region under intense political pressure. Migration and development are transforming streetscapes and communities. Local government has to plan and budget for significant investments in infrastructure as the city grows, and there is no strategy that pleases all sectors of residents at once. Property owners love their rising asset wealth, but central government is under pressure to address homelessness and home affordability. The Reserve Bank and the Treasury, moreover, watch Auckland’s over-heated housing market nervously, as it poses risk to the whole economy (Makhlouf, 2016).

Seismic risk management of a large public facilities portfolio: a New Zealand case study

Purpose The purpose of this article is to assist facilities asset managers who are dealing with regulatory environments pertaining to earthquakes and buildings. These professionals can learn a great deal from the successes and short-comings of a case study programme from the Auckland Council Property Department (ACPD), which manages the public facilities portfolio for the largest local administrative region in New Zealand in both population and landmass. Design/methodology/approach ACPD has initiated its response to New Zealand’s earthquake mitigation mandates by identifying buildings most at risk to an earthquake in its large and varied portfolio through the use of a rapid building evaluation programme strategically targeted to vulnerable building types with consequential attributes, including service type, number of occupants, floor area and geographic location. Findings ACPD was able to rapidly cull down its portfolio of approximately 3,500 buildings to just over 100 “high-exposure” buildings in urgent need of evaluation, set priorities for future evaluations, estimate needed operational and capital expenditures for long-term planning and provide useful information to more general facilities management decision-making processes. Originality/value A number of major cities around the world in areas of high seismicity have enacted ordinances mandating seismic retrofitting. However, much of the existing guiding literature regarding earthquake-related portfolio evaluations and costs pertains to specific scenarios involving real or hypothetical earthquakes. This case study, in contrast, details the approach taken by a public portfolio owner responding to legal mandates and attempting to quantify and reduce its life-safety risk exposure across a large portfolio as efficiently as possible using readily available information, a rapid building evaluation programme and best-practice predictive models for consulting and construction work.

Rapid Identification and Taxonomical Classification of Structural Seismic Attributes in a Regionwide Commercial Building Stock

AbstractAs territorial authorities, government agencies, and other large-asset owners were responding to regulatory and market forces in the wake of the 2010–2011 Canterbury, New Zealand, earthquakes by assessing and planning retrofits for buildings determined to be particularly vulnerable to earthquakes, an opportunity existed to identify and taxonomically classify structural seismic attributes in the largest regional commercial building stock in New Zealand. To that end, the Auckland Council proactively sought to assess thousands of commercial and industrial buildings across the Auckland region. As part of the Auckland Council program, a targeted sample out of a total of approximately 19,885 commercial buildings in the Auckland region was assessed with varying amounts of typological data recorded including lateral load resisting system type, number of stories, and time period of construction. Engineers, risk modelers, building regulators, and civil defense officials in other cities around the world can ...

IMPACT OF BUILDING DESIGN ON ENERGY USAGE OF A PUBLIC LIBRARY

This pilot study is to investigate relationships between Auckland library building design and energy consumption. In Auckland, about sixty public libraries belong to the Auckland Council. A number of Auckland public libraries (32% of the total number of public libraries in Auckland) are used for this study. A whole year monthly energy consumption data and library building plans of the sample libraries are recorded and supplied by the Auckland Council. This study explores impact of building design factors on energy consumption, which is based on real energy consumption data and building design data of Auckland public libraries. This study converted monthly energy consumption data into annual, winter and summer daily mean energy consumptions per unit volume of library building indoor space (kWh/m3/day), which is closely related to building design, indoor thermal conditions and building thermal performance under the local climatic conditions. According to relationships between daily mean energy consumptions per unit volume of library building indoor space (kWh/m3/day) and library building design data, the study presents energy profiles of local libraries and identify major design factors impacting energy consumption of Auckland public libraries.

Streamlining urban housing development: Are there environmental sustainability impacts?

New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, is currently facing a housing affordability crisis. Policy makers have attempted to address housing supply issues by creating Special Housing Areas (SHAs), intended to streamline consent processes and fast-track development. SHAs are predicted to accommodate around 40,000 additional dwellings over 10 or more years.This study evaluates the impact of the SHAs on measures of environmental sustainability. Using a variety of datasets we estimate the impacts of SHA development on four indicators; weighted population density, carbon emissions from commuting, active transport share, and zinc and copper pollution from storm water runoff.The research finds that SHAs' location results in marginally higher population density and lower commute emissions (given business-as-usual transport behaviour) overall. However, the small projected emissions' saving is well short of the goals for emission reduction set out by Auckland Council and New Zealand's central government. The SHAs' location is likely to mean that a smaller proportion of their commuters will be active compared to the Auckland average. The average impact per dwelling of the SHAs on stormwater pollution (zinc and copper) is lower for high density and infill developments than for greenfield developments and overall the SHAs will contribute to a higher average level of stormwater pollution. These findings are placed in the context of key policy documents, and emphasise the importance of coordinating land use, transport and infrastructure planning in order to address health, environmental and climate change concerns, while also addressing housing needs.

Landscape-Scale Wireless Technology for Vertebrate Pest Control

Author(s): Croft, Simon; Leckie, Campbell; Warburton, Bruce | Abstract: A unique wireless communications and sensor network has been developed by Encounter Solutions Ltd, New Zealand, with a specific aim of fundamentally changing the way pest control operations can be carried out. This wireless technology has the potential to open up new, safer, and more efficient and cost-effective ways of monitoring and servicing control devices. The network is designed for deployment over large areas and can operate where there is no cell phone coverage by making efficient use of satellite technology. It requires very little power to run, and complex high-power radio equipment is not needed. This makes it readily portable, with each sensor node able to operate on small inexpensive batteries for several years. With the help of Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and Auckland Council, the system is presently undergoing trials at a number of New Zealand sites with promising results. Landcare Research New Zealand Ltd has been engaged to evaluate the performance, the effect on contractor behaviour, and to undertake economic analyses of the potential benefits of large-scale roll out of such wireless technology. The first large-scale installation of wireless technology is planned for the 26,000-hectare multi-agency Cape-to-City project. This multi-species predator control project is considered a world-leading programme that will focus on ultra-low-cost, large-scale predator control across productive landscapes. The project aims to restore native biodiversity, whilst at the same time delivering economic benefits to farmers through reduced risk to livestock diseases. If successful, it is anticipated that the Cape-to-City model will be expanded across hundreds of thousands of hectares of the Hawke’s Bay region of New Zealand, with the wireless network being integral to this expansion.

Feral pig (Sus scrofa) predation of a green and golden bell frog (Litoria aurea)

Feral pigs (Sus scrofa) are a threat to New Zealand’s biodiversity. Predation of frog species by feral pigs is a notable problem in other countries where pigs have been introduced. Our study aimed to determine through analysis of stomach contents if feral pigs are consuming frogs in the Waitakere Ranges, Auckland. Auckland Council contract pig hunters collected 274 feral pig stomach samples. Of these samples, 184 were screened for frog consumption via both dissecting microscope and DNA analyses. A single frog was identified by morphological and DNA analysis, the introduced green and golden bell frog (Litoria aurea). Anecdotal evidence from the hunter records also suggests that nine other individual frogs were found in the stomach of the same pig (n = 10 total). This evidence of frog predation by feral pigs should be considered along with the many other negative impacts of feral pigs in New Zealand, and management programmes for pigs should be considered in areas of biodiversity value.

Hawke's Bay regional economic development strategy: The importance of stakeholder buy‐in

AbstractThe main components of most economic development (ED) strategies are very similar. The visions and aspirational goals also sound alike for most communities. Most communities have also had a series of ED strategies that, over time, were often never implemented because of poor stakeholder buy‐in. This paper considers the importance of community support for an ED strategy and compares the engagement processes of the Auckland Council and the Hawke's Bay in developing their respective regional economic development strategies. In the Hawke's Bay situation, the process is more important than the actual strategy document. This paper argues that garnering stakeholder buy‐in is the most critical component of the strategy development process.

Protecting trees at an individual level provides insufficient safeguard for urban forests

As an increasing proportion of the global human population resides in urban areas, urban forests are becoming both more important and more threatened. In many cities urban tree cover conflicts with strategies for urban intensification, and is being reduced due to inadequate protection. Here, we assess the effectiveness of one type of tree protection policy used by a number of cities worldwide: the case-by-case protection of specific individual trees. We use Auckland, New Zealand as a case study, where the main form of urban tree protection is now through Auckland Council's Schedule of Notable Trees. We investigated: (1) the species composition of the listed trees, and (2) the relative contribution of geographical variables (suburb age, dwelling density, socio-economic deprivation, and tree cover) in explaining spatial variation in listed-tree density. Tree cover (>8m) in central Auckland was 6% of the land area, 63.2% of which was on private land. Of these trees, approximately 15% were protected. The tree species protected reflected cultural heritage; popular species were protected in large numbers, whilst only a single individual of a threatened native species was protected. The highest numbers of listed trees were in older suburbs, those with higher density housing, and those with lower levels of socio-economic deprivation. A low correlation between vegetation cover and listed-tree density shows that the proportion of trees protected varies substantially in different areas. We conclude that this case-by-case tree protection strategy provides insufficient protection for Auckland's urban biodiversity, but better implementation would improve biodiversity and social outcomes.

The planning framework for Auckland ‘Super City’: an insider’s view

Auckland Council was launched five years ago, on 1 November 2010. This article examines the planning framework set in place to enable the growth of Auckland over the next 30 years. The author was chief planning officer of Auckland Council from its inauguration until mid-2015. It therefore gives an insider’s view on the framework, which may aid wider understanding in the policy community. The author has also had the opportunity since leaving the council to reflect on what has been learned, and the hurdles still to be cleared. The premise that Auckland’s success is critical to New Zealand’s success underpins this article.

Auckland’s first spatial plan: Ambitious aspirations or furthering the status quo?

Auckland’s first spatial plan (locally known as the Auckland Plan) is the principal document providing strategic direction for the city’s development over the next 30years. The Auckland Plan aspires to radically transform transport in Auckland, from a car-dominant system into an integrated public transport network, by proposing a series of expensive infrastructure projects, including rail tunnels under the CBD, rail extension to the airport, and an additional harbour crossing. This paper critically assesses the transport strategies proposed by the Plan from a broad spectrum of sustainability perspectives. In drawing on the events leading to the 2009 Auckland local government reform, the Plan making process and the content of the Plan, this paper shows that the Plan’s transport strategy suffers a range of drawbacks, including limited political support, a rushed consultation process and lack of a robust framework for funding public transport projects. These problems raise questions about the Plan’s capacity to drive a ‘transformational shift’ in Auckland’s transport landscape and ultimately contribute to the vision of making Auckland the world’s most liveable city. This paper concludes by recommending Auckland Council adopts a more proactive approach to transport planning focusing on better civic engagement, more strategic mechanisms to incentivize public transport and to overcome institutional inertia.

The Question of Auckland’s Civic Building

This article examines recent and current controversy over the Civic Administration Building (1954- 1966) in Auckland, New Zealand. Unoccupied since the end of 2014, the building’s future is uncertain. Its heritage value is widely recognized by heritage professionals and commentators. Yet Auckland Council, the building’s owner and former occupier, does not recognize its significance and has not scheduled it as a heritage building on its district plan. To the contrary, it has floated the possibility of demolishing it. This article considers the building’s history, significance and possible futures.

Geometric characterisation and out-of-plane seismic stability of low-rise unreinforced brick masonry buildings in Auckland, New Zealand

The 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes and corresponding Royal Commission reports have resulted in changes to the legislative environment and led to increased public awareness in New Zealand of the earthquake performance of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. As a result, building regulators, owners, tenants, users and heritage stakeholders will be facing a unique challenge in the near future where assessments, improvements and demolitions of URM buildings are expected to occur at an unusually high rate. Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand and because of the relative prosperity of Auckland during the period 1880-1935 when most URM buildings were being constructed in New Zealand, the city has the largest number of URM buildings in the country. Identifying those buildings most at seismic risk in Auckland’s large and varied building stock has warranted a rapid field assessment program supplemented by strategically chosen detailed assessments. Information that can be procured through rapid field inspections includes the building geometric typologies (e.g., heights, building footprint geometry and isolated versus row configuration), elevation type (e.g., perforated frame versus solid wall), wall construction (e.g., solid versus cavity, number of leaves) and basic construction material type (e.g., clay brick versus stone). Furthermore, investigation into the architectural history, heritage status and functional usage of Auckland’s URM buildings will affect the direction of retrofit strategies and priorities. As the owner of a large and varied portfolio of URM buildings as well as the local organisation responsible for assessing building safety, Auckland Council is developing exemplar inspection, assessment, prioritisation and retrofit strategies that will target the seismic risks associated with URM buildings, in particular, so as to preserve and enhance safety and the economic and community value of these special buildings. Collaboration amongst Auckland Council, The University of Auckland and GNS Science has resulted in a state-of-the-art rapid quantitative assessment program applied to a sampling of typologically representative URM buildings in Auckland.

Challenges to active transport in a car-dependent urban environment: a case study of Auckland, New Zealand

There is a wide body of literature which suggests that current urban transport practices are not sustainable in the long term. This study analyses the potential for planning strategies to overcome challenges limiting the wider uptake of the active transport modes of walking and cycling in the modern urban environment, evaluating the problems and potential solutions through a case study of Auckland, New Zealand. Auckland is a car-dependent city which has recently undergone significant restructuring of local governance structures. The recently released Auckland plan has explicit targets to increase active transport rates and to develop an urban form more conducive to walking and cycling. This paper presents an analysis of stakeholder interview data collected in Auckland in the aftermath of the restructure and Auckland Plan release. Analysis provides an evaluation of current approaches taken by the Auckland Council to increase rates of active transport and highlights a range of policy instruments which could be adopted to augment current approaches. Results indicate that comprehensive integration of approaches to active transport by transport authorities has yet to be achieved, presenting a significant challenge for further promotion of walking and cycling within the city.

Complex time series analysis of PM10 and PM2.5 for a coastal site using artificial neural network modelling and k-means clustering

This paper uses artificial neural networks (ANN), combined with k-means clustering, to understand the complex time series of PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations at a coastal location of New Zealand based on data from a single site. Out of available meteorological parameters from the network (wind speed, wind direction, solar radiation, temperature, relative humidity), key factors governing the pattern of the time series concentrations were identified through input sensitivity analysis performed on the trained neural network model. The transport pathways of particulate matter under these key meteorological parameters were further analysed through bivariate concentration polar plots and k-means clustering techniques. The analysis shows that the external sources such as marine aerosols and local sources such as traffic and biomass burning contribute equally to the particulate matter concentrations at the study site. These results are in agreement with the results of receptor modelling by the Auckland Council based on Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF). Our findings also show that contrasting concentration–wind speed relationships exist between marine aerosols and local traffic sources resulting in very noisy and seemingly large random PM10 concentrations. The inclusion of cluster rankings as an input parameter to the ANN model showed a statistically significant (p < 0.005) improvement in the performance of the ANN time series model and also showed better performance in picking up high concentrations. For the presented case study, the correlation coefficient between observed and predicted concentrations improved from 0.77 to 0.79 for PM2.5 and from 0.63 to 0.69 for PM10 and reduced the root mean squared error (RMSE) from 5.00 to 4.74 for PM2.5 and from 6.77 to 6.34 for PM10. The techniques presented here enable the user to obtain an understanding of potential sources and their transport characteristics prior to the implementation of costly chemical analysis techniques or advanced air dispersion models.

"Frustration" in the Court of Appeal

This article discusses the decision of the New Zealand Court of Appeal in Planet Kids Ltd v Auckland Council [2012] NZCA 562, [2013] 1 NZLR 485. The Court upheld the Council's argument that its contract with the appellants had been frustrated, and therefore it was released from the obligation to render the performance it had promised, notwithstanding that it had achieved in substance everything that it set out to achieve at the time of the contract. The author argues that the case was wrongly decided.

'Frustration' in the Court of Appeal

This article discusses the decision of the New Zealand Court of Appeal in Planet Kids Ltd v Auckland Council [2012] NZCA 562; [2013] 1 NZLR 485. The Court upheld the Council’s argument that its contract with the appellants had been frustrated, and therefore it was released from the obligation to render the performance it had promised, notwithstanding that it had achieved in substance everything that it set out to achieve at the time of the contract. The author argues that the case was wrongly decided.

Inspiring Youth Sustainability Leadership: Six Elements of a Transformative Youth Eco-Retreat

Abstract We suggest that the transformations which inspire true eco-leadership are nourished by being immersed in the values and practices of a more sustainable way of living. We explore this using a case study of a New Zealand youth sustainability leadership program called Make A Difference (MAD). Run by Auckland Council, the program is centered on a 3-day hui (social gathering) for selected high school students. We observed the hui in 2011 and 2012, ran workshops with the coordinators and participants from previous years, conducted an online survey with MAD graduates, and interviewed two participants during the 2012 hui. Six key elements were identified as underlying the hui's power: it is residential, it is held in a nature setting, it brings together inspiring role models, it models eco-friendly living, it helps participants develop their own ideas for action, and it endorses a positive approach to sustainability. We explore each of these in turn. In combination, we suggest these elements immerse part...