Manukau sprawls to order

Manukau City planner Bruce Harland looks over plans for Flatbush. Picture / Dean Purcell

There will be no excuse for suburban sloth in the new town of Flat Bush, Manukau City.

Residents will find their closest "green corridor" a five-minute stroll away and the nearest "neighbourhood centre" about the same, which is aimed at discouraging residents from driving everywhere, as they tend to in North American suburbs.

Flat Bush is Manukau City Council's answer to accommodating a population that could balloon from 280,700 now to 600,000 by 2046. City planner Bruce Harland says it is the most comprehensively-developed town in New Zealand

According to the Auckland Regional Growth Strategy, a blueprint for Auckland's growth over the next 50 years signed up to by all Auckland councils in 1999, Manukau's future household capacity could be exhausted in around 10 years, the worst figure for any of the seven city and district councils.

In comparison, Rodney to the north and Papakura to the south, have up to 50 years' capacity left.

But Manukau City has always had this one last greenfields site in the bank. In just 15 years, 40,000 people are expected to be living in Flat Bush.

Still the new town has gobbled up another 600ha of land outside the city limits and when it is finished, there will be nowhere else to go.

"It was a clean canvas to work with," Mr Harland says.

"Try telling an existing community they are in for substantial changes, and they will tell you they like things just the way they are. When it comes down to it, they'll say 'Not in my backyard, thanks very much'."

Harland might live in Orakei, east Auckland, but to a planner Flat Bush is planning theory made real.

There are "green fingers" and "ecological corridors" not creeks and gullies, "precincts" not shops, and the stormwater system is an "integrated sustainable management solution".

Mr Harland points to a row of brand-new brick-and-tile homes. Instead of a giant garage door taking up most of the front of each house - standard design in Botany's suburbs not very far away - the rule in Flat Bush is to set the garage back and to the side, leaving the front-door the predominant feature from the road.

In planning parlance, that means Flat Bush houses "positively address the street", encouraging "informal surveillance" to help people get to know their neighbours and deter burglars.

Roads include cycle lanes and five neighbourhood centres of small shops and eateries are scattered about to encourage a stroll rather than a drive.

Flat Bush's "cultural lawn" is designed to hold 20,000 people for outdoor concerts or festivals and there will also be an outdoor amphitheatre.

Lot sizes over the 1700ha Flat Bush site are generally smaller than traditional subdivisions.

Apart from a 358ha residential "countryside zone", where lots are required to be at least 5000sq m, the main residential 1 zone of around 765ha requires at least 17.5 households per hectare, up to 25 households per hectare. In older residential areas of Manukau the ratio is closer to 12 houses per hectare.

But standalone homes on a plot of land was never going to be the only option in a town like Flat Bush.

There will be walk-up, two-storey apartment blocks, conventional apartment blocks, semi-detached houses, terrace houses and townhouses.

The 18ha of land for the yet-to-be-built town centre is owned by Manukau City Council, which will oversee its development because, in Flat Bush, nothing can be left to chance.

"The council is not confident the private sector would be able to provide a truly diverse, mixed-use town centre," Mr Harland says.

But he is at his most enthusiastic when discussing the town's stormwater system.

Streams and creeks feed run-off to 49 stormwater ponds - planted and landscaped as picnic areas - where inflow is stored during heavy rain, lowering flood risk.

The system also allows safe passage from river to sea for the banded kokopu and shortfin eel.

With the giant $30 million Fo Guang Shan buddhist temple nearby, Flat Bush could be seen as a magnet for south-east Auckland's Asian population, but Manukau City Council expects the population to mirror that of nearby northern Dannemora and southern Chapel Rd.

That is, around 46 per cent European, 29 per cent Asian, 14 per cent Pacific Island and 9 per cent Maori.

Manukau resident and former councillor Len Brown, beaten by Sir Barry Curtis for the mayoralty last election, believes Flat Bush's open gully and stream system, along with nearby Barry Curtis Park, will ensure it does not become an urban ghetto.

"We planned Flat Bush in a very open way, with its walkways and waterway areas. It's going to be brilliant."

COST OF THE SPRAWL

 

What's wrong with urban sprawl?

Public transport, sewerage, water, wastewater and roads are more expensive the further a city spreads. Mass transport, by bus or rail, doesn't pay if only a few people use it and that means more cars, more congestion and more pollution. Other environmental effects include erosion, flooding and using up productive farmland.

What is the solution?

Auckland's eight councils signed the Regional Growth Strategy in 1999. It decreed 70 per cent of Auckland's growth within the 56,000ha Metropolitan Urban Limit (MUL) and 30 per cent outside over the next 50 years.

Is it working?

It has put the brakes on sprawl but the rate of growth has meant some high-density housing has been of poor quality.

It also hasn't stopped a rash of proposed developments around the city and outside the city limits eating up further land.

Why would we want more high-density housing?

Smaller, cheaper houses are more affordable to poorer families.

Where are growth pressures worst?

Auckland City because it has no greenfields; Manukau City because it has the highest population growth; Waitakere City because it has to protect the Waitakere Ranges; Rodney District because it is developing the fastest and Papakura because it is a small council with fewer ratepayers to pay the bills.