The beauty of draft plans is that they are draft plans. They can be changed. With 2012 kicking in, it’s time for the mayor and councillors to take a second look at proposed city centre and waterfront plans. The draft plans are huge bodies of work and have been developed at breakneck speed. They are a test for the new supercity structure, staff and councillors and for submitters, most of whom have had to ‘concentrate on their patch’.

For Heart of the City that is the city centre. Heart of the City is a strong supporter of business, jobs and the economy of the CBD, and in particular street-level retail. But support for retail is not just aimed at the tills; more importantly, retail contributes to the vibrancy of our city centre streets. There is much to like in the new plans. In particular, there is greater emphasis on urban design and place-making. The new shared spaces in Elliott and Fort Streets are examples of a city starting to take more interest in place-making. There are some great waterfront spaces in Wynyard Quarter that complement our fantastic Viaduct Harbour. Places that are not dominated by cars and transport. Places to stop and relax, to sit and to play. Places that welcome you even if you don’t have a restaurant seat. Well done, Council! But we also have some big challenges in the city centre: building the City Rail Link and a modern street-level public transport system to improve central-city liveability and put the brake on streets being dominated by cars and diesel buses; supporting the ‘CBD Engine Room’ and making sure that Wynyard Quarter and other transformation areas develop their own characters and roles rather than cater for office sprawl; and developing a much stronger theatre-and-arts precinct in the Aotea Quarter.

We are supporting Council initiatives in these areas and our submissions have also made suggestions about air quality and identifying and protecting our heritage – not just buildings but structures and environments and also the bascule bridge at Te Wero Island. These are important to mention because some readers may be more aware, or only aware, of our work on the waterfront, where we have championed more public space, infrastructure and buildings on the Wynyard Headland, along with the adaptive reuse of Shed 10 on Queens Wharf. Prior to the last election, Aucklanders protested about proposals for the Queens Wharf cruise-ship terminal and Shed 10 was saved. Moreover, in an independent survey, Aucklanders delivered a clear message about the central wharves: 88.2% of decided respondents wanted to see a long-term plan for the central wharves and Quay Street before any decision was made on Queens Wharf.

The current decision to have a cruise-ship terminal on Queens Wharf for the next 15 to 20 years has been made prematurely, in the absence of a long-term plan, against public sentiment and prior to the current consultation. Having the cruise-ship terminal on Queens Wharf will privatise its eastern side and seriously affect opportunities for the public on the western side. A big cruise ship coming in is like twelve 737 aircraft landing at once. As good as architects can be, the function of such a facility is hard to mitigate: thousands of travellers, big closed-off customs-clearance areas, baggage handling, transit lounges, scores of tour and transfer coaches and taxis, and trucks supplying the ship. Quite simply, it’s like an airport by the sea. Before trying to design away problems we should really challenge the location. There’s a better one on Bledisloe Wharf. At the core of the problem are the port company and the single option it has presented for port development. The draft City Centre Masterplan says that the port will develop “largely on the same footprint”. This is awfully deceiving.

The plan is to extend Bledisloe Wharf by more than 250m into the Waitemata! It will stretch so far that the eastern views of the harbour we currently enjoy from Queens Wharf will be obliterated. Gone. It narrows the Waitemata waterway and affects central-city amenity. The stealth here is that Ports of Auckland claim that their expansion concept drawings are included in the draft Waterfront Plan but they are not. While in other places Waterfront Auckland has spared no expense in providing artistic illustrations of new ideas, not so for the Port. What they include is one simple schematic view with no accompanying text, disguising the fact that Bledisloe Wharf has been extended substantially into our harbour.

The accompanying before and after shots have been produced independently and are scaled off the Port’s own drawings. Aucklanders should be made more aware of what is being planned. Ports of Auckland say that increasing the number of containers through the port from 890,000 to over 3.5 million per year must be done to cater for trade growth and that it makes sense because the infrastructure and supply chain are already there. No, they’re not. When we scratch beneath the surface, we see buried in supporting technical papers a need for $1.7 billion for roading ‘upgrades’ in Grafton Gully and rail upgrades to South Auckland. These are the same rail routes, by the way, that we are going to build our new modern urban communities around. Are the dots really being joined here? Some may be enchanted by the promise of dividends from Ports of Auckland but we can see that these are unlikely without ratepayers coughing up substantial funding for this supporting infrastructure. And besides, Council needs to take a broad quadruple-bottom-line approach to this. One or two councillors have questioned our motives by stating, “surely you want to cater for more trade”. Of course we do, but it’s a question of what trade and how you do it! The beauty of draft plans is that they are draft plans.

We’ve asked Council not to accept the 250m-plus extension of Bledisloe Wharf as part of the Auckland Plan. Leaving it in the plan now would provide tacit approval, starting the ball rolling through a process (resource consents, commissioners, Environment Court, etc.) that just shouldn’t happen. There are other options that cater for trade growth without having such a dramatic effect on the city centre and Waitemata Harbour.