Auckland's civic leaders share their visions - check them out at the conclusion of this article.
Forget the billion-dollar motorways, electric trains, sewers and drains and harbour crossings. Any prospective first mayor of greater Auckland out to win voters' hearts and minds could try these once unutterable words: "I will deliver to you the people's waterfront."
And lo, it came to pass that the red fence
came down and the people poured over the wharves rejoicing and singing ...
For the clincher, the candidate could promise an "iconic" convention centre on Bledisloe Wharf. Perhaps with a cruise ship terminal thrown in.
Such visions for the waterfront have ebbed and flowed for years but under Auckland's divisive local body structure, they've sunk without trace.
The port was off-limits, run first by a harbour board then by a port company at arms length from the regional council.
The result has been a waterfront dictated by the needs of the port, any progress on public access an epic of biblical proportions.
Much of the waterfront from Westhaven to Princes Wharf has opened up in the past 20 years with walkways, parks, cafes and bars, but the most-prized area, the city basin at the foot of Queen St, has proved the most elusive.
Bob Harvey, the outgoing Mayor of Waitakere, says: "Bizarrely, you can't even see the sea from Queen St, and the ocean is 50 metres away."
The move to a single Auckland council offers the tantalising prospect that the port could be brought to heel. Though still an arms-length operation, the port will be under a super council with a wider view.
A showcase waterfront may not be top of the agenda for an incoming council burdened with traffic congestion, sewage spills and rates fears.
But any mayoral candidate, or council ticket, looking for an issue to fire voters' imaginations need only think back to late 2006, when the proposed stadium for the Rugby World Cup galvanised Aucklanders as never before.
The uproar showed that the voters of Ranui, Manurewa and Glenfield are as passionate about the downtown waterfront as the well-heeled of Parnell and Freemans Bay.
The waterfront is both a shop window to the city and a gateway to its prime asset: the harbour and gulf. While Aucklanders feel a sense of connection, making the best of the harbour location has always loomed large in plans to become an international city, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne. For what can be done, look no further than Sydney, Vancouver in Canada and, er, Wellington.
But those harbour cities don't (or no longer) have a container terminal at their front door - or an ambitious port company with development plans of its own. It's too late for Auckland to move its port; there's nowhere environmentally acceptable for it to go and the regional economy is built on it.
Ports of Auckland Ltd sees its waterfront patch as the natural venue for northern New Zealand's main hub port - the port of the future, where big ships dump containers for transfer by coastal ships to smaller ports or by road or rail to their destination.
Auckland already takes half the country's imports and exports a quarter of its goods by value. The port envisages container volumes growing from an estimated 886,000 last year to 2 million by 2025 and 4.2 million by 2040.
For that to happen the port must become a giant container base, from the city basin east to Ferguson Wharf. But for a city wanting to make the best of its harbour setting, and views to Rangitoto, this is a limited vision, says Heart of the City's Alex Swney.
"If we think that's an attractive city basin ..."
Swney points to Vancouver Harbour, where a strikingly designed convention centre doubles as a cruise ship terminal. It generates $1 billion a year.
He is promoting an alternative future for Bledisloe Wharf - one with a multi-purpose facility such as Vancouver's or a similar iconic building housing, say, an arts or cultural centre.
This would "bookend" the city basin, he says - standing in counterpoint to Princes Wharf's mock-ship apartment/hotel complex and creating a better backdrop than containers and cranes.
Swney decries port developments he says result from a fragmented council structure, such as approval for a new bulk cement plant in Tinley St. "That's the sort of behaviour we are up against."
He struggles with the concept that the council should pay to gain public access to wharves ultimately owned by ratepayers - millions are earmarked to buy Queen's Wharf.
The port's intention to accommodate 320m container ships carrying up to 7000 containers will require millions to be spent on dredging and blasting, he says.
"We are taking an Auckland-centric view not a New Zealand view. I would have thought we would be saying 'what is the highest value we can extract from this.'
"It shouldn't be about what the port is contributing to our economy but how much better economic gains can come out of [port land]."
Ask the port and civic officials about improving waterfront access and they divert you to Sea+City, the 20-year project to redevelop the vast western reclamation/tank farm area and create a public park on Wynyard Wharf. But the recession has scuttled demand for office and apartment development.
You might think a city of 1.3 million that had its priorities right would focus on the waterfront area closest to where people work and congregate - the city basin. But the waterfront moves to the timetable of the port company, which owns the wharves.
Its willingness to vacate the city basin's finger wharves (Queen's Wharf, Captain Cook Wharf and Marsden Wharf) is tied to its reclamation programme - which will provide alternative berthage for banana boats and car carriers in the eastern port - and initiatives to boost storage capacity and speed up cargo movement. Some of these developments are years away; there's surely scope to increase the tempo, even if costs are attached.
Under present plans, the port says it could vacate Queen's Wharf within 18 months of someone agreeing to buy it, and a working party is looking at options for the wharf. That could happen in 2011, but plans to use the wharf for public events during the Rugby World Cup appear to have stalled. It's earmarked for a new cruise ship terminal as well as public activities.
Vacating Queen's Wharf will leave the adjacent Captain Cook Wharf as the only place where car-carrying roll-on roll-off ships can unload. At peak times up to 4000 cars sit on the wharves for a few days awaiting clearance.
Port managing director Jens Madsen says it will need eight to 10 years to move car imports off Captain Cook. The port first needs to extend Fergusson Wharf a further 50m into the harbour (a reclamation for which it already has resource consent) and increase storage capacity at the Fergusson terminal, freeing up space at Bledisloe Wharf for car carriers.
When reclamation at Fergusson is complete, Bledisloe Wharf will be extended as far into the harbour as Fergusson. The Port Development Plan says its likely that the western berth will need to be extended south towards Quay St to accommodate conventional ships and car carriers, necessitating "the demolition and removal of all or part of Marsden Wharf."
That conflicts with concept plans by the city and regional councils for a more people-oriented city basin. These imagine an active future for Marsden where people can watch tugs, pilot boats and private yachts come and go.
Conflicting mandates are the core of this problem: the port's job is to maximise revenue to the shareholder - the Auckland Regional Council - to fund passenger transport and environmental projects.
In the past five years, the port has contributed $273 million; hardly an incentive for the regional council to pressure the port into giving up more public spaces.
That role has been picked up by the city council, which has spent ratepayers' money buying access to wharves they theoretically own.
Purchases include Westhaven, public areas around the Viaduct Basin, Halsey St Wharf, Hobson Wharf, even roads to ease traffic flows around the working port.
But negotiations on access to the finger wharves have highlighted the dysfunction. Auckland City Mayor John Banks says he has given up on discussions about Queens Wharf. "There's been so much prevaricating that I've abandoned that process because I'm not prepared to bounce dead cats.
"Having meetings, navel-gazing, talking at each other and doing nothing is not an option."
That's why local government reform is seen as a one-off chance to modify the port's vision. "It's going to be so much easier to make those high level decisions," says Banks. If elected mayor, Banks will have to take a hard look at the port's governance.
Auckland City Council city development manager John Duthie borrows a term which guided the redevelopment of Cape Town's port for the visitor art exhibitions and cafes.
"If a sizeable piece of land became available on the waterfront, it's incumbent upon us all to think about it."
Banks is certainly keen on the Bledisloe site. An international convention centre would be key to attracting a six-star hotel to Auckland, he says.
Could the port do without the western side of Bledisloe? During the rugby stadium debate, the Quay St end of Bledisloe became the preferred site for a north-south oriented stadium, rather than a west-east site straddling Marsden Wharf.
The port, though fiercely opposed to the stadium, did not rule out accommodating one if it had to. When it comes to configuring port operations within the Bledisloe-Fergusson rectangle, nothing is set in stone.
While the port needs longer berths to accommodate longer ships, it does not intend using Bledisloe west for the biggest container ships, or deploying huge cranes there.
Madsen says if a proposal to put Bledisloe West to an alternative use, such as a convention centre, did emerge the port would consider it. "Right now it would cause some complications but we would definitely study it.
"Once we have released Captain Cook Wharf then what we have left will be about 1.3 km in length which is a fairly compressed area even with new technology."
But Madsen and port infrastructure general manager Ben Chrystall rule nothing out. Capacity can be boosted, not just through reclamation (although the long-term plan to fill-in the port between Fergusson and Bledisloe suggests otherwise). The port is ushering in new technology and despatch systems and greater use of rail to move containers on and off the wharves quicker. Automated stackers which pile containers seven-high will be introduced in about five years.
The trade-off for releasing Bledisloe West may be higher container stacks for Quay St motorists and Parnell apartment dwellers to watch rise and fall.
But the city basin might finally be the people's waterfront.
And the mayor of greater Auckland might walk on water.
AT THE HUB OF IT
The future of the Auckland waterfront is not just a local arm wrestle over public access, it's also caught up in a national dilemma about international shipping.
Container ships are getting bigger, carrying more containers and making fewer calls. The jargon is of hub and spoke ports - shippers would rather call at one hub port than make several calls around the coast.
There's fear New Zealand could end up as a spoke, with Australian ports as the drop-off and collection point for our goods. Our 16 coastal ports are in for rationalisation: the debate is over where the hub ports - which some brand super-ports - should go. As well as port size and facilities, rail and road capacities between port and customer comes into it.
For now, it seems most ports want to be a hub. With warehousing and manufacturing concentrated in South Auckland, and rail access beyond, Auckland is positioning itself as the logical hub port for the northern North Island.
It cites 150 per cent growth in trans-shipments - where cargo destined for another port is transferred from one ship to another - in the past five years. This avoids pressure on road and rail infrastructure outside the port, but adds
to the pressure for reclamation of the container port area. Its long-term plan calls for massive reclamation to accommodate 320m ships, and capacity to store up to 20,000 containers on the terminal.
"We wouldn't like to see Auckland or any other port become a spoke in a hub and spoke concept," says port company managing director Jens Madsen. "We want to be masters of our own destiny. We don't want NZ exporters to be reliant on Australian cargo."
Yet port rationalisation could also challenge the need for a monster terminal on the city's doorstep.
Though merger talks are officially dead in the water, potential collaboration between Auckland and Tauranga could help ease Auckland's capacity needs in the future. For now, the two ports are competitors.
Port of Tauranga's Metroport facility at Southdown moved 170,000 containers in and out of greater Auckland last year. Rail improvements have doubled capacity between Tauranga and Auckland.
Auckland is improving rail capacity at its own inland port beside the main trunk line at Wiri, which will reduce the need for truck movements on the waterfront.
Auckland City Mayor John Banks says port rationalisation brings opportunities for "serious economies of scale."
"In a perfect world, the Port of Auckland would own Tauranga and Whangarei, then we could get some critical mass and move on from the competitive tension and maximise port operations for the whole Auckland region."
"We have to get much more profitability into Ports of Auckland's operation. Right now their problem is lack of profitability compared to Melbourne and Sydney."
One of the drivers of change is the shipping giant Maersk. Its New Zealand boss, Julian Bevis, stresses the need for port rationalisation in the increasingly cut-throat world of international shipping.
"There's a presumption in this part of the world that there will always be a ship. I'm not sure that's valid," he says.
He believes top-level negotiations involving the Government, ports, shippers and customers are needed. "Where we think cargo is going to move to and from will determine which ports to put money into and give confidence to those ports to take a long-term view."
"Market forces may not necessarily be the best way to determine this - we may end up with all ports trying to do the same thing, which will be too costly."
Bevis worked in Wellington in the 1970s and after a long stint in India brought his family to Auckland last July. He can't resist noting how once "austere" Wellington has transformed itself - "they've got a life now which is tangibly better. The same needs to be done here."
Like others, he sees Auckland's local government reform as an opportunity for progress.
"From an urban planning standpoint, there needs to be a debate about use of the waterfront.
"Any change that allows more focused debate rather than a fractured one is good ... because at some point someone has to spend quite a lot of money."
REINING IN THE PORT
Civic leaders share their visions
"It will take some leadership and inspiration - someone prepared to stand up, say it once and make it work. There's room for everybody's aspirations - I'm absolutely confident we would have the [port company] on board.
"If the port is saying 'to become an international hub we need to fill in some land and you can have Queen and Captain Cook back', that's a good thing."
Michael Barnett
Auckland Chamber of Commerce head and Auckland regional councillor
* * *
"Only when Auckland sings from the same songsheet will we be able to get high level leadership around these kinds of issues.
"We need to support the commercial viability of port operations but there are going to be trade-offs. The port must continue to play a significant role - but it would seem to me that Bledisloe offers a great opportunity for an international convention and exhibition centre."
John Banks
Auckland City Mayor
* * *
"We need to bear in mind that what we call Auckland's magnificent waterfront actually extends 15km from St Heliers to the Harbour Bridge. The commercial port area comprises only 2km.
"Under a post-peak oil scenario, freight and passenger sea transport is likely to be even more important than now - it's important we don't fritter away existing maritime infrastructure.
Mike Lee
Auckland Regional Council chairman
* * *
"People used to think ports are always for bulk, heavy goods. Tauranga and Whangarei do a fine job at that, and I just think there's time for our port and our public bodies to come up with some more imaginative ideas. The whole of Waitakere City has beach access, as does the North Shore, so why not central Auckland?
"Check out what they're doing to the old terminal in Wellington - they are stealing the march on waterfront integration there in a manner that should make us green with simple envy."
Bob Harvey
Waitakere Mayor
* * *
"It's not just about how we manage the commercial operations, it's about our pride of place and how we access a crucial part of the harbour area - as a social hub, it's as significant as One Tree Hill or Bastion Pt.
"The bones of a vision are already there - we just need to stop the fighting and nonsense which has gone on between the two public owners."
Len Brown
Manukau Mayor
