Jenny Dixon: Planners not the only ones to blame for city decisions

Intensive housing in central Auckland is one of the city's most pressing issues. Nigel Cook's recent article focused on development of the harbourside and the lost opportunities to bring harbour and city together to enhance public appreciation of the coastal location.

Mr Cook, with others, is not slow to lay the blame for urban disfigurement on planners - on the mistaken assumption that they alone are responsible for the planning of our building environment.

Planners are not bureaucrats. They are professionals who are passionately concerned about the quality of cities, but are constrained in what they can do by policies and political processes.

There is no question that some recent housing developments in central Auckland have been disappointing in terms of their quality, design and fit with existing neighbourhoods. There is evidence of insufficient planning controls. Inadequate policies have let us down.

This has enabled developments to be built in ways that badly affect neighbours. The Cleveland Villa development in Parnell is one example.

The appearance of boringly homogenous new subdivisions is similarly disappointing.

Developers have been slow to adopt new approaches in sustainable innovative design. Not all the problems are to do with planning as such. Present rules do not preclude better design.

The issues and conundrums that Mr Cook points out are not the fault of one professional group. There is little point in singling out planners for criticism. They are not the only professionals involved in forming planning controls.

Policies for managing buildings are developed by planners and councils in conjunction with, and in response to, a range of stakeholders. These include community groups, developers, business interests and professionals, such as architects and engineers. Inevitably these policies are modified along the way as a consequence of submissions to plans, then by councils themselves, and sometimes through Environment Court decisions. In the end, district plans represent publicly tested policy.

District plans and design guidelines are only part of the solution and have to be complemented by the use of good design skills by those who create and build housing in the first place.

All stakeholders, in both the public and private sectors, have a responsibility for improving the quality of our buildings. It does not rest with one or two groups.

What we have seen in Auckland over the past decade is the consequence of urban development that, among other things, has been driven by a market-led economy and guided by a laissez-faire planning regime. We are reaping the consequences of less, not more, planning intervention.

The proposed central area district plan, for example, was developed in a political environment of minimum regulatory intervention that pleased many groups at the time.

National-led Governments during the 1990s largely neglected urban affairs. And so issues such as changes in immigration policy, for example, occurred without reference to the implications for infrastructure, particularly in Auckland.

Furthermore, there has been no national policy governing sustainable development, particularly for cities.

One serious problem with the Resource Management Act is that it makes little reference to cities, where most people live.

Such policy gaps have meant that not enough attention is being given to the importance of good overall urban design.

But there is some good news. Several initiatives provide an important opportunity for those concerned about urban matters. First, the recent establishment of an urban affairs portfolio shows that the Government is taking a more active interest in urban concerns.

Second, the Government's sustainable development programme singles out the need to develop sustainable cities. Auckland gets a special mention, and significant work is under way.

Third, the urban design protocol to be introduced by the Government in March will set a platform for renewed thinking about city planning and design, and seeks the commitment of stakeholders who sign up to it.

Fourth, and most significantly, the 2002 Local Government Act puts considerable emphasis on the role of local communities in developing new long-term council plans.

Communities will set priorities for council policy-making, a bottom-up approach.

No longer will politicians be able to dismiss community views on issues in these plans. Indeed, the plans will become the core business of councils. And the new processes of consultation under the Local Government Act should provide the opportunity for a more relevant and targeted community input, including the addressing of issues surrounding the management of the building environment.

We must take much longer-term views of city development. Too often strategic and fiscal plans are formulated with short-term political goals in mind.

There needs to be a public debate about how we might achieve better development results. This will likely include a different mix of regulatory and other approaches.

Significant underfunding of planning and design expertise within councils ever since local government reform in the late 1980s is a problem that has impeded development and frustrated developers.

Building capacity in these areas is an essential response to the increasingly complex demands of a city that we all want to become world-class.

* Professor Jenny Dixon is the head of the planning department at Auckland University. She is responding to Nigel Cook, of Urban Auckland, who said council planners were most to blame for inappropriate building in central Auckland.