Patrick Reynolds posted a wonderful tribute to Auckland and it’s glowing future on the Greater Auckland website today – and I have to agree with him that Auckland does indeed seem to have a rosy future, while ours is still kvetching about broken sewer pipes on every street. Many years ago, when Reynolds was gushing excitedly about the City of Sails, I thought that he was just talking a lot of hot air, as Auckland was definitely decidedly dodgy back then, with a series of crap mayors (Banks/Hubbard/Brown) and a forelorne waterfront, while it tried to set up the Rodney Hide / ACT so-called Super City.
By comparison, Wellington had a vibrant Arts culture, a booming Film industry, a bustling and exciting waterfront, and a series of Mayors who seemed to be able to get things done (Wilde, Prendergast). We had a buzzy inner city, an amazing music scene with seemingly everyone in at least one internationally lauded Welly super group, and sewerage did not run in the streets or the harbour, so we even built a public Jumping Off platform for people to do manu off and bombs to moisten the tourists.
That’s all changed this most recent decade. Our theatre scene has imploded, our movies have been taken over by boring films about boring flying people with blue or green skin (yawn), there are still films about Hobbitses and Orcs, but they are all made in Auckland or Ireland nowadays. I don’t need to tell you about the succession of mayors of dubious ability slowly running the city down into the poo-filled gutters, or the monstrous amounts of money mis-managed by WCC on projects like the Library, the Civic Square or the Old Town Hall. But enough of the negatives. I want to ask you about the future.
Auckland had a District Plan Change proposed, number 75 I think, and now they have ditched that and got Bishop-agreed confirmation that they could instead do PC 120 – a much different Plan Change which allows some massively tall towers (10-15 storeys high near the new high quality train stations. It also, sensibly, stops the Council from having to accept Housing being constructed on obvious flood plains, and permits / mandates townhouses and apartments over a much wider area than before. Heritage / Character areas are, apparently, much reduced. Some people will like all this news – others will likely hate it. But at least they are heading towards certainty.
By contrast, I am genuinely interested to know what is happening in the capital city. We are being teased once more with the prospect of a SuperishCity, but at least without the horrible spectre of Rodney Hide rogering us (and nor the repulsive neo-nazi David Seymour either, as far as I know). We had a giant DISTRICT PLAN proposed revision a couple of years ago, where no-one could decide if we were going to grow by 30,000 or 50,000 or even 80,000 but instead we seemed to have shrunk slightly in the wash and are now as tightly stretched as pair of ten-year old knickers having been left on a hot wash for too long. Skimpy coverage!
But what has happened to the Proposed District Plan? What Plan are we now operating on? Do we have an Operative Plan? Are the lawyers and other corporate dogs still tearing it to shreds like the ankles of a teenage escapee from boot camp, or have we passed some law while I wasn’t looking and perhaps we are already being ruled by something like the Squid Games? Move and you die? I genuinely don’t know!
Can I build ten storeys on my back section of inner-city land, or do I genuinely have to wait for a government willing to install Light Rail through the Inner City, as we sure as heck don’t have any Rapid Transit at present – we still have the aged crap diesel cast-offs from Auckland that some dickhead bought and promised that they were only a “temporary measure” some ten years ago. Do we have Character Areas? Or just areas filled with drunken meth-addled Characters who sleep on the street and piss on the buildings every night? I had the unpleasant experience of being on Courtenay Place a few weeks back and witnessed one plastered women drop her ragged trousers right on the footpath outside the food store and take a massive gushing piss all over the shopfront, while people walked by, mostly appalled, but evidently well used to it.
So – what is the future for Wellington? Enough of the downbeat stories about the deadbeats – I wanto to hear uplifting tales of the good things that are going to happen, and I want to know what the status of the District Plan is so that I can figure out whether I should stay in this city or give up for good and move sticks somewhere else! Tell me what you know and what you hope for the future!
oooh, and Happy Christmas too.
I think it is still all with the lawyers isn’t it? Nothing officially resolved, as yet?
Apparently not Alan. See the message below from Julienz
Most is not with the lawyers, The new WCC District Plan that relates to housing has been operative since 2024. It was part of a “fast track” type process technically called ISSP (Intensification Streamlined Planning Process) initiated by the last Labour government. Medium Density Residential Standards known as MDRS (three houses of three storeys on any section) apply almost everywhere in Wellington City as a minimum. In addition no side yards, and you can build right to the front of your section. Where you put the bins and how you do maintenance without really getting up your neighbours nose is anybody’s guess.
Auckland and Christchurch have both pushed back on MDRS and have been allowed to suggest something different but WCC seems happy to have a proliferation skinny three storey terraced houses with no loo on the living level, perfect for an aging population, popping up on the cheapest land available most distant from services and public transport such as those next to the Tawa off-ramp of SH1 or at the extreme ends of Karori.
There are a couple of appeals still to be resolved around the edges of the District Plan however it seems likely Chris Bishop’s RMA reforms will mean more pro-development “build anything absolutely anywhere” changes are coming.
Small correction, Wellington does have Rapid Transit courtesy again of Mr Bishop and the last WCC. It is called the Johnsonville Line. According to Mr Bishop “Rapid Transit” is a very slow train that runs a single lane track every fifteen minutes in peak time, every thirty minutes inter-peak and hourly the rest of the time. Following the logic of Bishop and the previous WCC almost any bus service is rapid transit.
There are still hard urban boundaries for Wellington so while satellite cities can continue to sprawl, areas like Ohariu Valley remain as lifestyle blocks.
I would like to think our brightest and best would want to stay in Wellington or return to live here because the city offers the opportunity to have a house and a garden with a relatively quick commute. It’s what drew me back from London. Lifestyle is the city’s biggest pull factor. The changes being encouraged by the current batch of urbanists seem to want to turn Wellington into just another city and if we are that then a lot will not choose to stay or go to another city in New Zealand or overseas where the pay and connections to the rest of the world are better Long time residents have made, and continue to make big contributions to the city supporting hospitality and entertainment venues as well as volunteering. Many of these are now getting to retirement age and if the job and the grandchildren don’t keep them here, what will?
Fantastic answer – just what i needed to know, so thank you Julienz. I thought that a lot of it was still in / under discussion with the dogs of law, but it sounds as though it is all resolved. The proposals for extra height etc – which seemed badly thought out and mostly unworkable – have they gone through as well? Or are they the bits being debated?