The last five years have seen Auckland change dramatically for the better. If you were in the city then you wouldn’t have found any of the shared spaces, much of the area surrounding Britomart was still run down and unused and Wynyard Quarter as a people place didn’t exist. While we’ve already seen a lot of change the next 10 years promises even more and much of it – such as the CRL – will fundamentally alter Auckland for the better.
In fact there is so much going on in Auckland’s City Centre right now that it’s starting to resemble a sand pit. There are a huge number of publicly and privately funded improvements happening. Importantly they are leveraging off each other to make Auckland a more liveable and attractive place. That’s good for Auckland’s economy which in turn is good for the entire nation. It also bears reminding that the changes and growth that’s occurred in recent years hasn’t spelt doom on the regions roads as all the growth in travel to the centre has happened not on in cars but via PT and active modes.
To highlight all of the known changes that are planned or desired for the next decade the council have created a map showing all the ones they know about (there are bound to be more appear over that time – especially private developments). Note: not all of these projects have funding confirmed yet so not all might happen. Click to enlarge the images or go here for the PDF version (2.6MB).
There are of course a few things missing from this map. A few I noticed quickly are AT’s Light Rail plans, Cycle lanes on Pitt St as part of the Nelson St Cycleway and cyclelanes on Karangahape Rd as part of the city centre priority routes.
The major criticism I can see in all of this is that the map is focused on the city centre. That’s understandable seeing as it’s come from the city centre integration group however perhaps the council should create an interactive version for the entire region. It could show what’s going on and how projects like the CRL benefit the entire region.
I’m looking forward to the changes that planned. It should make the city centre a much more vibrant and interesting and liveable place.
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Yeah there’s also plenty happening just off this map, here’s the crane of Vinegar Lane and behind one for new apartments in Newton:
The CMJ looks like a Shark taking a bite.
Holy shit she’s all on down there! Must be nice living with a council like that…
Don’t forget Ports of Auckland and what there up to……strangely excluded.
Yes they’ve let the contracts and ordered the materials to begin the extensions. Auckland Council strangely continues to be silent and the court case won’t be heard until June – it’ll be built by then. Meanwhile the public are just ignored. Len Brown has really dropped the ball with this one – completely ignoring public sentiment, and allowing a publicly owned agency to run rampant, spending council money to fight the court case.
Or what about thé new méga tôt going up along quay st?
Tit.
Parnell looking quite dense too!
http://s13.postimg.org/4433uzd2u/Full_Size_Render.jpg
The list of projects shows how out of control the council is and how they only see Auckland as a CBD.
The inability to prioritise and complete lack of financial sense pervades this council and ratepayers are the losers.
It would be fascinating to compare this list against a list of projects around the rest of the city. My observations are the Council is prioritising CBD projects at the expense of the rest of the city. It would be a fascinating exercise to see if his bears out in the data.
The Council doesn’t force people to develop sites, nor businesses to choose to locate in the Centre City. In fact it is suburban groups determined to prevent change from happening in their areas that are ‘forcing’ [if there is forcing] so much development to occur there. There is demand, in particular for apartments, and other ways to live proximate to the city, but the Unitary Plan process showed that pretty much the only place some very vocal people are prepared to see it is in our constrained centre.
The private sector is currently investing some 10billion on new developments in the city centre, the Council has an obligation to support this growth, as it does elsewhere in the city. They would be derelict in their duties if they did not. Anyway these new developments will return higher property taxes so it ids fiscally prudent too.
We can thank the local NIMBY’s and Councillors for that. These are private developers spending where they are able to build, the restrictions brought in (being brought in, developers are working off these for their planning) as part of the Unitary Plan prevents economically quality developed sites out-side certain hubs meaning developers can only really spend their money in a few certain locations. Councillors who are also ironically complaining like Brewer, are some who actually caused private spending to be largely localised.
Brewer is just playing to a constituency; slagging off the city works for particular types of suburbanist politicians in the same way that slagging off Auckland works for particular types of provincial politicians. Meh. It is meaningless in any sense outside of this.
yes, so surprising that the city centre integration group would put together a list of projects that are happening in the city centre. I’d really expect the city centre integration group to be focused on all the new housing going up in Albany.
Here you go; another group of suburbanites who want to see the City Centre as the only growing part of Auckland, and of course all the farmland between here and Hamilton covered in grim boxes and every road choked with single occupant drivers on 100km+ daily commutes:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11435706
So it goes.
Good to see Teal Park on the list for a revamp. That place is just a carpark with some boulders. In my opinion it could be so much more, as it is the first point where anyone driving east out of the city gets a decent look at our beautiful harbour. Would be nice to have a drinking fountain there too – it’s a long dry walk between Queens Wharf and the tap across from the OBC.
Interesting reading the comments on this map.
We invest in the centre for Auckland as a whole, and some of these projects are directly for the benefit of other areas. For example the Fanshawe St Bus lane is a ‘city centre project’, but the beneficiaries are those north of the bridge: the users of the Northern Express (as it’s essential for unlocking capacity on the route over the bridge); and drivers who benefit from less congestion than they would have had if Northern Express users were in cars too (whether or not they come into the city). So doesn’t take much imagination to see how a bus lane in the city centre can benefit someone driving a delivery van from Smales Farm to Albany…
Same thing goes of course for other transport investment – where congestion on the broader network originates in the centre: 30% in the case of buses, and even more so for the City Rail Link, where removing the dead-end at Britomart will double the capacity of the rail network, as well as free up buses to improve local services.
The attraction of $10bn investment from the private sector is great news for Auckland. The consented developments at this stage amount to about 3000 apartments and space for around 10,000 jobs.
Other centres will benefit too from a stronger city centre, and having bolstered connections to it. More background here for those who are interested: http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/planspoliciesprojects/CouncilProjects/citycentretransformation/Documents/citycentrefactsheet.pdf