Wynyard Quarter is a good example of connecting medium and high-density living, commercial and retail activities, and new modes of transport. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand needs to move to more intensive living and provide easy access to facilities and services, and help meet its net-zero carbon target in less than 30 years’ time.
“While we focus on the 2050 horizon, it is important that we think about a goal that is just ahead of us — halving our carbon emissions by 2030, and that’s a massive challenge,” says James Hughes, a climate and resilience specialist with environmental and engineering consultancy Tonkin + Taylor.
“This decade is critical if we are to turn the tide on emissions within our cities and built environments — and avoid the worst impacts of a warming planet. We need to prepare and anticipate this change if we are going to have a sustainable world to pass on to future generations.”
Enter the compact city.
“We have poorly-designed, sprawling cities where everyone moves around in cars. We need to redesign our urban forms to sustain lower emissions. We have to stop building on productive land and have more intensive living in smaller areas,” says Hughes.
“A high-density city centre can have active modes of walking, cycling and public transport. You go to any European city and they don’t operate as many private vehicles as we do. In the same European city, you can go downstairs or walk down the road to the supermarket.”
Hughes says it’s worth considering the likes of Hamilton, Tauranga and Queen St in Auckland with all their empty shops. The decline in main street shopping has occurred because the big-box shopping malls have been allowed to develop on the city periphery.
“That’s an accelerating issue. We have to get more people living downtown in well-designed three to five-level apartments with green spaces. Connecting medium and high-density living, commercial and retail activities, and new modes of transport — Wynyard Quarter and Hobsonville Point in Auckland are good examples — can create a better community and lower carbon emissions.”
“We need some bold thinking and catalyst projects to make the change,” Hughes says. “We have new regulations to mandate density in the cities — such as the national policy on urban development and medium-density standards — and the challenge is how to deliver this with speed and scale over the next 10 to 15 years.
“The concern is that if you leave it to the market, the intensive development will take too long and potentially be unco-ordinated. Or, the landowners will just sit and watch their prices go up.”
The Government has just unveiled the reform of the 30-year-old Resource Management Act, replacing it with the Natural and Built Environments Act and Spatial Planning Act, with the promise that planning and consenting will be better, faster and cheaper.
Hughes is promoting urban regeneration agencies, similar to Panuku Development Auckland and Tamaki Regeneration Co, with public and private funding.
These agencies would have the power to negotiate or buy land in the city centres and develop a new style of living and mixed-use activity.
“There needs to be clever thinking around avenues to acquire land. This is not without controversy.
“Neighbouring landowners came come together and amalgamate three properties to build something good — and the agencies would have a co-ordinating function.”
He says Tauranga, for instance, has CBD building stock that is poor and earthquake-prone. There is a lot of car park space and poor use of some land, and the city centre environment is coming up for redevelopment.
“Now is the time to do it well in a co-ordinated way and deliver a good outcome in urban form.”
Hughes points to the Hamilton strategy of developing the ‘20-Minute City’, where most facilities and activities, including employment, are reachable within a 20-minute walking, cycling or public transport trip from home. A private vehicle is not required.
Residents could access neighbourhood parks and community gardens, shops, schools, health services and workplaces safely and easily.
Fully separated cycleways and pedestrian networks mean parents are happy to let their children bike, scooter or walk to school, reducing tens of thousands of weekly vehicle movements in the city.
There would be less traffic congestion, fewer accidents, lower greenhouse gas emissions and a reduction in stormwater pollution. Residents would have a more active, healthy lifestyle, and enjoy more travel choices.
The accessibility and connectivity would mean they spend more money in local businesses.
Hamilton’s compact city would be monitored and evaluated by Waikato University, providing data on the economic, social and health effects and evidence to inform similar approaches throughout the country.
Research has shown the cost of running a compact city is two to three times less than operating a sprawling city, says Hughes. There may be more costs up front during the retrofit, but over the long-term, money is saved.
“A new model for city living has risks, but that’s why a form of partnership with a regeneration agency is useful - to design well-functioning urban environments with both people and planet in mind,” he says.
Hughes, who has had a 20-year career in the infrastructure and environmental sectors, is facilitating a panel discussion at the Building Nations 2050 conference, with the theme: ‘No road, a green road or a divided road — how will our zero-carbon transition unfold and how should we prepare?’
When it comes to the climate change transition, he is reasonably blunt: “It can be orderly or disorderly. If it’s orderly, we need to give people certainty about what is coming.
“If nothing will change, then we will get a chaotic, misaligned and damaging transition when policies ramp up, forced on us by trading partners. We have started [the transition], but my concern is that we have fallen behind in setting a solid future.
“We are, for example, seeing international requirements playing out such as the European Union carbon border adjustment mechanism.”
The adjustment places a carbon tariff on electricity, cement, aluminium, fertiliser and iron and steel products imported from outside the European Union.
Hughes says New Zealand needs a signal that petrol vehicles will be phased out by 2030 with an interim target set in 2028.
“We need certainty and a line of sight so the market can respond.
“Currently, the plan is to have electric vehicles making up 30 per cent of the country’s light fleet [cars and vans] by 2035. Contrast that to Norway, where the government has mandated all sales of cars and vans by 2025 will emit zero emissions. They are signalling policy changes far earlier. When we have the carbon price at $300 a tonne in the next 10-20 years, then petrol will become unaffordable. The alternative is electric vehicles — but if you are still doing the same pattern of commuting, then you will still be sitting in queues. The benefit comes from designing cities where you are not stuck in traffic for hours,” Hughes says.
“We must target emissions reduction in our cities, and cities need to have well-designed infrastructure for low-carbon living. We need to build infrastructure systems that can withstand climate extremes in the future — be they related to temperature, drought or sea level rise.”
Over the past three decades, greenhouse gas emissions have actually risen in New Zealand. According to Stats NZ, gross emissions increased 21 per cent to 78.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent between 1990 and 2020. This was mainly due to increased methane from a growing dairy sector and increased carbon dioxide from road transport.
New Zealand contributed about 0.17 per cent of the world’s gross emissions. However, emissions in many developed countries, for example Germany and the UK, are now below 1990 levels.
Hughes says New Zealand can’t plant its way out to reach net-zero by 2050.
“Planting trees buys you time, but you still have emissions — and you are relying on sequestrations which are less reliable. That is viewed by some as planting to pollute.”
To reach the 50 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, Hughes suggests that all vehicles should be electrified — though with trucks, there’s uncertainty because hydrogen may become an alternative.
According to the New Zealand Greenhouse Gases Inventory, transport makes up 17 per cent of the country’s carbon emissions; industrial process and product use contributes 6 per cent; electricity generation is also 6 per cent; and waste 4 per cent.
“We need to keep phasing out coal boilers in the industrial sector and to replace them with gas-fired, and all the methane from landfills is not being captured,” says Hughes.
The big contributor to the carbon emissions is agriculture at 50 per cent.
“No doubt, new technologies will be developed in that sector,” he says.
· Tonkin + Taylor is an advertising sponsor of the Herald’s Infrastructure report.
A potential low-system is set to form on the northeast coast of New Zealand.