Brian Rudman: Bursting with old ideas down at the waterfront

Last week they were at it again. Gathering in little circles at the National Maritime Museum, "visioning" the future of Auckland's waterfront.

My invitation seemed to have been lost in the mail but I doubt I missed much. Navel-gazing about the future of the waterfront, and in particular, the 18ha Western Reclamation tank farm, has been in semi-permanent session since at least 1997. And everything that needs to be said, has been.

But just for the record, everyone but me seems to have been at last week's seance, including representatives from Auckland City Council, Auckland Regional Council, Committee for Auckland, Heart of the City, Ports of Auckland, the fisher folk, the vegetable oil importers, and the St Marys Bay Association. One invitee whose absence was, I'm told, remarked upon was Transit New Zealand, the national highway builder. I can hazard a guess as to why they stayed away - a desire to avoid becoming a victim of road rage.

For Transit has its own vision and that is to construct the portals of a future harbour crossing slap bang in or near the Western Reclamation, linking a tunnel to the north with the existing motorway system at Beaumont St. To a road engineer, this is not so much a vision as plain commonsense. But for most of those gathered at the museum, dreaming of ways to create a spectacular showpiece of urban redevelopment, I suspect nightmare would have been a more likely epithet. Or abomination.

Then there was Ports of Auckland, which was present, but hardly entering into the full spirit of the occasion. Which seems odd, given that the port company was recently deprivatised and is now 100 per cent owned by the people of Auckland.

The port company certainly has a vision - some say it cost upwards of $2 million to brainstorm - of how they want redevelopment of the port-owned tank farm to proceed. Indeed, in recent weeks they've been sweet-talking various "stakeholders" with private briefings about this vision, complete with artists' impressions and detailed analyses of traffic flows and the like.

But at last week's mass visioning session, the port company went rather coy, falling back on the generalities included in an earlier press statement.

Those not in the know already would have to wait until September 10 to see the pictures and the maps.

The port proposal will, the press statement announced, fit into the "over-arching vision" for the whole waterfront area being developed by the ARC, ACC etc.

I, for one, wonder what special gifts the port company possesses that enable it to know how its proposal will fit into a vision that those assembled in the museum were still trying to conjure up.

The port company's vision seems so complete, it's hard to imagine what's left for those invited to further "visioning workshops" over the next week or two to do.

The press statement declares "Ports of Auckland will not develop buildings on the sites but intends to lease the land for development. Investment returns earned from the assets will go to ... help fund transport and stormwater programmes in the region.

"Eventually there could be 8000 to 10,000 people living in ... the area."

It talks of a mix of marine and fishing activities alongside public spaces and residential and business use.

Those attending the private briefings say there are also plans to restore a historic wharf and a provision for something "iconic" at the harbour end of the reclamation, either a park or a public building.

My first concern is the idea of using the area as a cash cow to create funds for new roads and sewers. It's hardly a great starting point for doing something special with this fabulous site.

I'm all for keeping the marine industry there, of course. And for including some commercial and residential income-earning properties - but not as the end goal. Use them as the income-generators for that iconic crowd-puller. Perhaps, for example, the landmark exhibition hall or relocated Auckland public art gallery that Heart of the City chief executive Alex Swney proposed a few months back.

He added, and I agree, "We want, when people leave Auckland, for them to tell their friends, 'You must visit Wynyard Point when you visit Auckland and see what they've done down there'."