Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Responsive Zoning For Intensive Development

This is meant to be pithy and to the point.

Critiques of the draft Unitary Plan provisions for intensive development use words like: One size fits all; blanket zone; fails to recognise difference; neighbourhoods at risk of market failure; should be bottom up not top down....

When Penny Pirrit gave a public talk about the Unitary Plan a couple of years ago, emphasis was put on Area Planning and Precinct Planning.  It sounded good then - though there were some thorny problems to engage with.

The perception that has arisen from the Draft Unitary Plan is that the Area and Precinct scale of planning has been forgotten at worst, or to come much later and have minimal effect, at best.

The solution to this conundrum is to write the Unitary Plan zoning provisions so that they are clearly dependent upon, and subservient to, subsequent Area and/or Precinct planning.

This is how future planning is now done for greenfield areas. Long Bay, North Shore, was zoned "Future Urban". This did not mean it could be developed in an urban form. Not until a Structure Plan was prepared for all of the land, that took account of topography, existing buildings, ecosystems and such like.

The same planning approach was used for Huapai and Kumeu in Rodney District. It wasn't until Structure Plans were prepared - after lengthy and detailed consultation with existing land owners and infrastructure planners and so on, that detailed residential and commercial zones with specific controls were prepared and included in planning documents.

Why can't the Unitary Plan provide an overall zone - or zones - labelled "Future Medium Density Residential", "Future High Density Residential",  "Future Medium density Mixed Use" - and include a prescribed Structure Planning process to be undertaken with land owners and stakeholders, before any such intensification can occur?

This sort of process would enable pieces of regenerating city to be planned and to develop with the support, participation and involvement of local land owners.

It may be that a Future Intensive structure planning approach is prescribed if a land area greater than a half hectare is to be developed (for example). This would need to come with incentives that encouraged this approach - rather than a lot by lot approach where infill is the only tool that is practical and therefore favoured.

A balance needs to be struck between enabling infill development at any cost, and allowing and enabling and encouraging communities to take some control over their futures.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It will be interesting to see what comes from the Area planning process being run concurrently, as these are essentially structure planning exercises.Its odd no mention of them is made in the Unitary Plan. In addition 4 precinct plans in the former Auckland City have also been prepared but I understand that these were intended to inform the Unitary Plan controls but haven't checked to see how this has panned out.

Anonymous said...

This type of approach of having a future zoning is used in Wellington. Down here we have an urban development area which allows greenfield land to be master planned and subdivided etc. after it is built the zoning is changed to outer residential or whatever is appropriate. This is done because zone rules optimal to manage new growth are a little different to those used to manage existing suburbs.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Responsive Zoning For Intensive Development

This is meant to be pithy and to the point.

Critiques of the draft Unitary Plan provisions for intensive development use words like: One size fits all; blanket zone; fails to recognise difference; neighbourhoods at risk of market failure; should be bottom up not top down....

When Penny Pirrit gave a public talk about the Unitary Plan a couple of years ago, emphasis was put on Area Planning and Precinct Planning.  It sounded good then - though there were some thorny problems to engage with.

The perception that has arisen from the Draft Unitary Plan is that the Area and Precinct scale of planning has been forgotten at worst, or to come much later and have minimal effect, at best.

The solution to this conundrum is to write the Unitary Plan zoning provisions so that they are clearly dependent upon, and subservient to, subsequent Area and/or Precinct planning.

This is how future planning is now done for greenfield areas. Long Bay, North Shore, was zoned "Future Urban". This did not mean it could be developed in an urban form. Not until a Structure Plan was prepared for all of the land, that took account of topography, existing buildings, ecosystems and such like.

The same planning approach was used for Huapai and Kumeu in Rodney District. It wasn't until Structure Plans were prepared - after lengthy and detailed consultation with existing land owners and infrastructure planners and so on, that detailed residential and commercial zones with specific controls were prepared and included in planning documents.

Why can't the Unitary Plan provide an overall zone - or zones - labelled "Future Medium Density Residential", "Future High Density Residential",  "Future Medium density Mixed Use" - and include a prescribed Structure Planning process to be undertaken with land owners and stakeholders, before any such intensification can occur?

This sort of process would enable pieces of regenerating city to be planned and to develop with the support, participation and involvement of local land owners.

It may be that a Future Intensive structure planning approach is prescribed if a land area greater than a half hectare is to be developed (for example). This would need to come with incentives that encouraged this approach - rather than a lot by lot approach where infill is the only tool that is practical and therefore favoured.

A balance needs to be struck between enabling infill development at any cost, and allowing and enabling and encouraging communities to take some control over their futures.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It will be interesting to see what comes from the Area planning process being run concurrently, as these are essentially structure planning exercises.Its odd no mention of them is made in the Unitary Plan. In addition 4 precinct plans in the former Auckland City have also been prepared but I understand that these were intended to inform the Unitary Plan controls but haven't checked to see how this has panned out.

Anonymous said...

This type of approach of having a future zoning is used in Wellington. Down here we have an urban development area which allows greenfield land to be master planned and subdivided etc. after it is built the zoning is changed to outer residential or whatever is appropriate. This is done because zone rules optimal to manage new growth are a little different to those used to manage existing suburbs.