It’s time to save our town centres

Few things annoy me more than when Mike Lee and other Auckland civic leaders stand up and lecture us about the need to live in a compact region. White middle class men and women explain that our future is based in clustered town centres, where people live in close proximity to public transport.

Then those same white middle class men and women drive back to their affluent homes in the affluent suburbs. Meanwhile the rest of us are left to contemplate what the future of the town centre actually looks like.

If you’re in any doubt, take a walk down the Great South Road, in the middle of the Manurewa Town Centre at 11pm on a Saturday night. Then you’ll gain a few clues.

The Manurewa Town Centre is infested with pubs, bars and bottle shops, which are open morning, noon and night. With the pubs and bars come the Class 4 Gaming machines, commonly referred to as “the pokies”, which strip money from boozed-up patrons.

Jokers Bar alone, with just 18 machines, took over $5 million in 12 months from people who could ill afford to gamble so much money away. It’s a crass and disasterous situation, and it’s happening in the town centre, right where Auckland’s civic leaders want future residents to live.

Our police struggle to control the effects of alcohol-driven criminal offending. The local retailers struggle to come to terms with the petty crime, the damage to property, the loitering and the tagging.

Twenty years ago people thought of places like Liverpool, Brixton and Cabramatta when they defined urban squalor. How close are the town centres of suburban Auckland getting to that same situation? Too close for my liking.

So is it any wonder that no one wants to live in town centres? Why live in a town centre that is infested with booze, gambling and disorderly conduct? That is why those who can exercise choice decide to move away from the town centres and out into the suburbs.

The civic leaders know residents are voting with their feet. Their response? Try and force people to move into the town centres.

Using the planning powers of the Local Government (Auckland) Amendment Act 2004, the civic leaders in the Auckland region have introduced a plan to contain Auckland within the boundary of a metropolitan urban limit. This boundary, the politicians hope, will kick-start the renaissance of the town centre as a preferred residential destination.

Will it work? Now that depends.

The most obvious outcome of containing the region will be land-price inflation. A reduction in the supply of land available for residential development will force up the price of greenfield space. Wealthy investors will join with the existing population of property owners and enjoy the fruits of artificially driven capital gain, predominantly fuelled by regional plans rather than market demand.

This will mean the suburbs become increasingly affluent, old and probably white. Young people, working families and whanau, and non-European residents who are sadly overrepresented in indicators of social deprivation will be completely shut of the house on a quarter acre section.

If you have any doubts, check out the results of the Demographia International Housing Survey 2006. Auckland is now one of the most ‘severely unaffordable’ cities in the developed world.
The ‘have-not’ half of the population who can’t afford the suburbs will either have to migrate to the town centre, or out of Auckland altogether. So the town centre won’t be a choice, it will be the last resort.

I cannot conceptualise a more undemocratic way of designing a city, or a region. But that is the likely outcome once the civic leaders manipulate the supply of land available for development.

Now don’t get me wrong. Auckland cannot and should not stretch from Whangarei to Hamilton. We cannot go out forever subdividing open space land for greenfield development. But neither can we consign half a million young people to a miserable existence in run-down town centres.

If the town centre is the future for the Auckland region then the town centre has to be made an exciting and inspiring place where people want to live, not a place where people are forced to live. That will take a lot more than a lick of paint and a few extra rubbish bins.

Manukau City has engaged in endless consultation with many of its residents about ways to develop a built environment that is attractive and inspirational. Yet despite a wide-spread community consensus in favour of change, where the booze and the gambling is moved out of town, the politicians continue to do nothing.

District Plans have to be reviewed with a view to changing the type of activities that will take place in town centres. The alcohol, the gambling dens, and the publicans who make their living off the backs of intoxicated patrons need to be booted out of town. Development contributions and other expensive compliance costs need to be waived in order to encourage residential property development in the town centres. If we are going to build up, the compact apartments and town houses have to be spacious, self-contained and affordable.

Asset Management Plans and the Long Term Council Community Plans have to change in order to fund amenities and open spaces that make the town centre a truly attractive and desirable place. Significant improvements to public transport are needed so that commuters can travel by train and bus as opposed to the car.

These are the kind of changes needed to make the town centre a great place to live.

Census 2006 figures confirm that in 1999 Auckland’s civic leaders massively underestimated the growth in Auckland’s regional population. The substantial increase in population coupled with a decrease in the supply of land means new ways of thinking are urgently needed if Auckland is to avoid the emerging planning crisis.

It is not good enough for Mike Lee and Paul Walbran to stand up and say Auckland’s future is compact and based on town centres close to trains and buses. The future can only be based on the town centre if that’s where people actually chose to live. In order to facilitate that outcome, new planning ideas and a much greater investment in town centre living are needed.

About Daniel Newman

Daniel Newman lives in Wattle Downs, Manurewa. In 2004 he was elected a member of the Manurewa Community Board. He was subsequently elected chairperson of that Board. As a 30 year old homeowner with a mortgage, Daniel has considerable empathy for young people who struggle to buy a house in the Auckland region residential property market.

None of the views expressed in this opinion piece necessarily reflect the views of the Manurewa Community Board, or any other member of that Board.

ENDS

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