UDF Auckland Branch 

6 October 2011
UDF Auckland Plan Seminar and Discussion Forum 

Does the Plan provide enough direction on urban design outcomes? 

Visit: Members Only Discussion Board for Summary of Topics and participation in Submission preparation

13 July 2011
Is the Urban Design Message being Heard?

Speakers: 

Ludo Campbell-Reid, Penny Pirrit, David Hill,  Andrew Green, Rebecca Skidmore

Special guest - Judge Laurie Newhook

Download Event Summary contributed by Anna Wood formerly of Urbanism+ and now of Auckland Council

Members: visit Discussion Board for members feedback and to post your comments

Members: visit Members Only | Resources Page for David Hill's presentation

photos from the event

17 June 2011
‘Auckland Unleashed’ Document Discussion on Auckland's Spatial Plan - 17 May 2011

UDF’s submission to the Auckland Spatial Plan discussion document

This event comprised an update of progress on Auckland's Plan by some of those closely involved, and a chance for UDF members to contribute to a short submission to Council on what we think of the discussion document. 
 

19 October 2010
UDF Urban Design Legacy Event : taking lessons from the past and looking to the future hosted by Auckland UDF on 19 October 2010 was an informal celebration of Urban Design Achievements of the 8 Auckland Councils including the best urban design initiatives from around the region in recent years.

thank you to our UDF members for bringing us this event 

Download the summary of the Legacy Event including a summary of proceedings

David Mead on  UDF Auckland meeting  Auckland Council "Developing an urban design action plan"

UDF Wellington Branch

Marc Baily wraps up

Event 3 : 21 March 2011
Moving to a High Quality Public Transport for Wellington

Four speakers gave a 15 minute take each on their perspectives for what would make a quality public transport system for the City.  About 40 people attended and the event venue supplied by Wellington City Council (thanks).  This event was catalysed by Greater Wellington Regional Council’s imminent study to look at the options and feasibility of a quality public transport system through the city with a tie into the city spatial plan for a spine with nodes at each end – Johnsonville and Kilbirnie. 

First speaker Luke Troy, Corporate Planning Manager  from the Regional Council outlined the study and how a light rail system could connect with bus networks to deliver a more efficient system than currently operates.   download Luke Troy's presentation

NZTA’s Public Transport Planning Manager Michelle McCormick outlined the work NZTA is undertaking – she referred to various research projects underway and urged people to see what they were up to in this space.  download Michelle McCormick's presentation

The action group for public transport in Wellington – Transaction’s Mike Mellor – spoke passionately about the opportunities for a tram-train system that will allow for rail to move seamlessly between the wider rail network and a new street rail track network.  They supported much of what the regional council were prospecting about the opportunities that might come from the study. 

The last speaker – Martin Butterworth from Space Syntax – has been working for the city looking at movement and the way this can be directed to support economic or other planning objectives.  The tool to provide an evidence base for predictive movement can be applied at regional right down to the street block scale or public spaces – he spoke about how this had been applied in Trafalgar Square in London to make this space more effective as  a public place. 

The question session got into the issue of the constraints to public transport systems given the cost outlay and the user numbers required to sustain it – the old chicken and egg problem.  There seemed to be a recognition that an intervention would be required to change the way we provided for urban development if we wanted to reap the benefits of this as a society – the PPP Public/Private Partnership approach and  TIF Tax Increment Finance were mentioned as options. The need for some dedicated development agency was seen as a good delivery model once the city/region had determined its plan.  

Event 2  : 10 November 2010

The Quake - Lessons for Wellington urban design from Christchurch earthquake

The Wellington group of UDF held a well attended (70 people)  early evening session to hear about the Christchurch earthquake experience from Ian Athfeild – two co presenters  Paul Kos [Greater Wellington Regional Council] and  Murray Chalmers[ BECA engineer]- added to the session with their thoughts on how Wellington is placed to address earthquake hazard.  As always with Ath the presentation was both entertaining and thought provoking - his clear message was that the city needed to take the time to make progress in the process of planning and redevelopment post the quake, rather than rushing to rebuild and repeat urban conditions which are no longer helpful for a city of the future.   Clearly there are challenges being faced in allowing the time to rethink while the pressure is on to get people back to a more normal life again.  For Wellington we heard that the issues are likely to be different than in Christchurch – as always the context will significantly influence what happens should Wellington face an equivalent scale of quake.  The fault the movement occurs on will influence the type of quake we might get, the potential for land slide is significant and often underplayed in our thinking, issues with water and transport will occur given the  position of the city in relation to supply routes and those routes crossing the Wellington fault line several times. Fire is a hazard also given the reticulated gas supply and the inner city residential neighbourhoods density and wooden construction.

In summary, thinking about New Zealand urban environments in relation to the dynamic natural processes at work in New Zealand and the more dramatic event hazards they present  is not always on the urban design radar – the Christchurch quake may change that – at least for that city for a while.  What about the rest of us?  In response to the questions about whether we should be continuing to develop our cities and towns following the existing patterns we accept that we have been dealt a certain hand – it would be extreme to suggest that we upstakes and shift some of the more vulnerable urban areas to safer ground – and anyway does such a thing exist in New Zealand?  The more practicable approach will be awareness and deliberate urban planning that looks to better provide resilience in the parts of the environment that are most at risk and the systems that make it tick.

Event 1 : 19 May 2010
The Region's City Centres are Actively Planning and Designing for their Future...

A show and tell of the central area design and planning work being undertaken in  Porirua, Wellington and Hutt. 

The Regional Council provided a regional overview perspective of its work on the regional strategy and how this interfaces at a local level.  The event was very well attended and owing to the size of venue we had to restrict  numbers – lesson for next time is go for a bigger venue.  There was a lot of discussion which was good to see.  Each of the Councils projects are on their respective websites. 

Marc Baily on The Australian Congress for New Urbanism held its conference in Adelaide in late April this year and Marc Baily (Boffa Miskell) attended.  With some preconceptions as a non-new urbanist about what this conference would be like I was interested in the critical thinking that occurred (in places) of what New Urbanism had achieved and the call to refocus.  There was some good discussion when time allowed and the usual parade of projects to look at.  The urban planning work being undertaken for some cities was of particular interest to me with the applicability for a more spatial and code based approach having some potential portability to NZ context (albeit with some change in thinking in a District Plan sense).  Some of the presentations I found more useful than others (as is the case with any conference) and one of the best things is that these are pretty much all available on the ACNU website so look for yourself.