Auckland Chamber's Draft Auckland Plan Submission

AUCKLAND REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SUBMISSION ON THE DRAFT AUCKLAND PLAN

SUMMARY RECOMMENDATIONS

• Everything is about cities and the wealth and energy they generate for lifting a nation’s prospects and prosperity. The Auckland Chamber of Commerce strongly recommend the finalised Auckland Plan be trimmed down to identify and give primary focus to delivery of the 5-or-6 ‘game changing’ major projects required to elevate Auckland’s status as a great world city to live, work and visit.
• The draft Auckland Plan and supporting plans comprising some 800 pages is a mishmash of proposals and initiatives across a wide front, with not enough focus on what is really important and/or a ‘game changer’ for moving the city forward.
• For the Chamber of Commerce, of the more than 100 major projects identified in the draft Auckland Plan document the top ‘game changing’  projects are:
  • On Auckland’s waterfront, a world-class convention centre and cruise ship terminal, coupled to a proactive, innovative event marketing strategy (rivalling Melbourne’s) to make Auckland a year-round destination for hosting conventions, sporting events, conferences, trade and other events....
    • The Rugby World Cup established a legacy for Auckland as excellent hosts, an innovative, friendly people and a great, scenic place to visit. The Auckland Plan is an opportunity to bed-in the follow up of this success.
  • A comprehensive infrastructure investment strategy to raise the revenue to enable staged completion of Auckland’s big transport projects by 2025-30; including: A dedicated project outcome for each of, as the highest priority subject to confirmation of positive wider economic benefit-cost assessments:
    • SH1-20 East-West and AMETI corridors by 2015-20
    • CBD-Mt Eden rail tunnel loop & linked developments by 2015-20
    • 3rd Waitemata Harbour Crossing by 2025-30.
  • Establish on Auckland’s waterfront an iconic 21st century structure differentiating Paris’ Eiffel Tower, London’s Big Ben, New York’s Statue of Liberty, and Sydney’s Opera House.
    • Use as a focus to build Auckland’s global brand as a great city to live, work, invest and visit.
  • An action continuum to transform Auckland’s economy by fostering collaboration between Auckland Council, central government and business organisations to deliver the Auckland Economic Development Strategy to:
    • Achieve the proposed ‘step change in exports and internationalisation’;
    • Focus on attracting investment and global-focused businesses, encouraging innovation services, attracting and retaining talent, skill development, international branding and tourism; and,
    • Ensure a ‘business friendly’ Council - that its attitudes, planning and programmes - regulations, rates and general policies and infrastructure provision - set the boundaries for a strong, collaborative relationship with business organisations.

Other high level recommendations are that the finalised Auckland Plan be strengthened to:

• Set out a plan of attack on regulatory and other areas - e.g.  development contributions, resource and building consents - where Council can contribute to making Auckland housing more affordable;
• Set out proposals to engage with the housing industry to design a strategy to address Auckland’s long-term housing shortfall. (Auckland is currently building less than 5000 houses a year against a need of more than 10,000 houses a year, according to population projections.)
• Show that all major project proposals have been assessed and prioritised for implementation against common criteria, including value for money, affordability,  feasibility (i.e. they have clear consent pathways and are do-able with firm start-completion dates), and make the best use of existing networks, resources and infrastructure.
• Take a positive, principle-based approach to exploit the new opportunities arising from the establishment of a single Auckland Council, including:
  • With a strong asset base ($32.4 billion) we now have enough scale for initiating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to think out solutions to our problems for ourselves, and design an innovative 30-year Plan that includes a funding strategy for any project we decide to pursue.
  • Central government initiatives for ‘shared ownership’ of energy and air transport infrastructure to achieve a better ‘value for money’ from existing assets create the opportunity for a similar approach with assets owned by Auckland Council. Possibilities include a partial sell down that distributes the ownership of key public assets (like Ports of Auckland and Auckland Airport) between Aucklanders and Council, while also helping Council fund the infrastructure investment proposals in the Auckland Plan.
    • Plainly, many people have lost confidence in the stock market and instead invest in property to create a retirement nest egg. For Aucklanders to have the opportunity to take a stake with Auckland Council in a ‘shared ownership’ arrangement of Auckland assets would be win-win; there would be a return from the investment in the asset, and the satisfaction of seeing progress on critical infrastructure that would not otherwise happen.
  • We agree that it is unrealistic to expect rate payers to fund major infrastructure investments.
  • We agree that while central government should fund its ‘fair share’ of the Auckland Plan initiatives, if Auckland really wants to make rapid progress it is now time to take firm leadership to find our own viable solutions.
  • The final Auckland Plan should only include projects that are supported by fit-for-purpose funding tools, and which are then supported in the Long Term Plan (LTP) by a business plan setting out a firm implementation timeframe covering design and consent process and construction.

We strongly recommend the City Centre Masterplan:

• Elevate and leverage the history of Auckland as a port city, and build on the growth over the last 20 years of innovative, knowledge based businesses in this part of Auckland.
• By this we mean making the vibrancy and authenticity of the working waterfront central to the proposition of an intensified  “Auckland,” and putting greater emphasis in the City Centre development on making the area to attracting high value, knowledge based businesses to locate (rather than promoting the city centre as a residential area).