Deborah Hill-Cone: Utopia, whether we want it or not
5:30 AM Monday Dec 10, 2012
Auckland Transport is determined to change the nature of our street by getting rid of residents' carparks for heritage homes. Photo / APN
There's the big house where they play hacky sack and have fundraisers for Cambodian orphans. Hopefully they've forgotten Spotty killed one of their chickens.
There's Scott, who lets all the neighbourhood children use his amazing huge garden. There is Alana, who spoils my children when they scooter down the pavement, and Hermione, a virtuoso piano player; we enjoy hearing her practising in the afternoon.
This is my community and I love it. All the more so because when I moved into our street no one seemed to mind that we weren't a regular nuclear family.
There are a few eccentrics around here and that is fine. But as regular readers of this column will know we've been having a fight with Auckland Transport which is determined to change the nature of our street by getting rid of residents' carparks for heritage homes.
It recently agreed to a meeting. It was an eye-opener. Oh, the managers from Auckland Transport seemed reasonable enough. They explained this was a policy from on-high and, sorry old chump, it didn't really matter what we say.
We could talk to our local board, but the council's not obliged to listen to it anyway.
But it soon became apparent that part of the reason for this curiously uncompromising position on seemingly trivial issues such as ours is that they're being played out in the middle of a much bigger game - the council's first Unitary Plan, due in March.
I was not aware until last week what enormous changes are being planned. Along the Parnell/Newmarket ridge, there will be big apartment buildings, up to 14 storeys high. In the past developers had to provide carparking, but not any more. Therefore people like me need to be re-educated that it will simply not be practical to use a car.
It seems there are some idealogues at the council who have a utopian dream of the kind of city they want to create and are hell bent on a mission, whether we want it or not.
And presumably deputy mayor Penny Hulse and chief planner Roger Blakeley are relying on developers' contributions to fund their nifty public transport plans.
There are arguments about whether they are right or wrong in their Huxleyian projections; whether a million new people will be happy living in apartment buildings without cars.
But even if their dream is considered a desirable future, the process of having it imposed upon those of us who don't want it is going to be terrifying and dehumanising.
Like Harry Lime in the film of Graham Greene's The Third Man the social-engineering bureaucrats see us simply as little dots.
Lime: "Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers and the mugs - it's the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have I."
The council's plan is for 10 years. What frightens me is that it does not recognise that we don't all want to live in the same way. Some of us are looking after infirm 90-year-old parents or children with special needs or dealing with other messy real-life problems which fantasy citizens without cars don't have.
I'd been worried about my carpark; now I was wondering whether this oppressive city is going to be the kind of place I want to live in at all.
As my octogenarian neighbour Dorothy said when we were told we all had to conform to the council's policy because it was uniform Auckland-wide: "But why do we all have to be the same?"
Why would you need a car if you only bus to work and back?
I have no problem with High Intensity development. But they should do it properly.
Proper soundproofing. One carpark per apartment. Grass on the roof, that is accessible to the occupants. Ground floors that are open plan. Small shops (grocery etc) and public areas for meeting and greeting. Security to protect against criminal and antisocial behaviour.
Of course, that stops a cheap option from actually being cheap. But if the council wants to compress people in, the least they can do, is do it properly. If I lived in Auckland, I would consider a good apartment in the right location. Even if it is similarly priced to the house with garden. (all 2m squared of it)
The prospect of rich tourist earners has been significantly eroded because local political interests have stopped the sort of hotels and apartments and r&r that appeal to rich tourists and young people on their OE in Mission Bay, Devonport, Takapuna and the CBD.
Ten years ago NZ was swarming with backpackers from the UK, Ireland and the USA. The Americans usually came for the rocks and wildlife while the British and Irish came to party but too many mom and pop operators didn't like these brash young people and though they could get more money from lower middle class travellers who they thought had more money.
But in future the young and talented and beautiful will have the money. The academics talk about distance, food miles etc-but its crap the planners in govt and auckland council want to house and manage NZ's like battery hens in an isolated socialist police state like East Germany in 1980.
So the plan of this "Auckland Transport" entity seems to be to turn Parnell into a kind of Manhattan. You don't see many private cars in pictures of streets around the centre of New York City - but there's plenty of taxis and service vehicles.
There are some very nice little corners here in Mt Wellington, and urban gentrification is proceeding apace. But be quick - anything within walking distance of the Ellerslie-Panmure Highway (where there are plenty of buses) gets snapped up fast. This is where you come if you've been priced out of Ellerslie.
So there's not much point in blaming the bureaucrats at Auckland Council. They're only responding to the needs of the market, and the market is trying to jam more bodies into the inner suburbs, whether we like it or not.