Council Stupidity Strikes Again

[Dave Homewood]

Auckland Council is planning 11,000 houses around RNZAF Base Whenuapai!!

Homes and jobs planned for an urban Whenuapai
Proposals to change Whenuapai into an urbanised area of around 11,000 homes and 9,700 jobs are to be explored in an Auckland Council structure plan.



Proposals to change Whenuapai from a largely rural environment into an urbanised area of around 11,000 homes and 9,700 jobs are to be explored in an Auckland Council structure plan.

A structure plan describes the form of urban development in an area before it is formally rezoned through a statutory plan change.

Most of the land is identified in the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan as a Future Urban Zone and already contains a Special Housing Area where subdivisions are being developed now.

The structure plan will add to the neighbouring developments of Westgate, Hobsonville Corridor and Hobsonville Point, and Whenuapai will eventually be home to about 30,000 residents.

The area covers 1470 ha of land and surrounds the New Zealand Defence Force Whenuapai airbase, which will remain operational for the foreseeable future.

Transport for Future Urban Growth

Infrastructure planning is already taking place including the Transport for Future Urban Growth (TFUG) project, a partnership between the council, Auckland Transport and the New Zealand Transport Agency.

TFUG is designing transport networks to support housing and business areas planned for greenfields land in north, north-west, and south Auckland. Work on the Whenuapai area through this process will feed directly into the Whenuapai structure planning process.

A draft transport network for the North-West is open for public feedback on Saturday 30 April, 9am to 12noon at Whenuapai Hall, 41 Waimarie Road.

Council planners involved in preparing the Whenuapai Structure Plan will also be on hand at this event to explain the structure plan process.

From 24 June to 21 July the council will be seeking feedback on what the public, land-owners and developers would like to see take place and protected at Whenuapai.



ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/news/2016/04/homes-and-jobs-planned-for-an-urban-whenuapai/

[TS]

Well, me thinks it has already started a large area of land between the Saw Mill, Totara Rd and Brigham Creek roads has already been cleared and has road development going in now.

[madmac]

Hmmm I wonder will the defense white paper see the sale of Whenuapai.

Just in time for the property bubble to burst.

[thelensofhistory]

IMO a law change is needed.  If you build a home in a area zoned near a existing airport commercial or military you don't have the right to complain.  

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Who'd be silly enough to want to live in Auckland, eh?

Anyway, if you want to blame somebody, blame the government. Because it is the government putting the heat on Auckland Council to zone more greenfields sites for housing. Google “Nick Smith + Auckland housing” and you'll see what I mean.

[pjw4118]

Yes , just loopy , but I was chatting to the Base Commander and he tells me that all the houses will be double glazed and all have caveats on their titles regarding aviation noise and activity. I think that Whenuapai 's usual 2230 curfew for engine runs will be used a lot in future . The airfield does have a 24 hour operations and S&R function.
But its just dumb especially as there is a ton of empty land at Massey next to the High School , railway line and buses.Even dumber is along Hobsonville road, ideal housing land is being sold for factories ( which should be at Whenuapai !).
However the " town planners" who graduated from dumb school with honours are now opening up rural land out at Kumeu ( for 20,000 houses) and theres only ONE narrow two lane road in and out to get to Auckland 40 km away. Cant anybody with some say tell them THATS JUST DUMB , go away.

[ErrolC]

The Haupai Special Housing Area announcement was a perfect excuse for starting work on a NW Busway, which would be about the only practical way to manage traffic levels.
Good that the titles have caveats, Auckland Port did the same thing with portside apartments. Hopefully this will make noise issues manageable.

Sent from my E6653 using proboards

[obiwan27]

Apr 28, 2016 21:57:46 GMT 12 kiwithrottlejockey said:

Who'd be silly enough to want to live in Auckland, eh?

Anyway, if you want to blame somebody, blame the government. Because it is the government putting the heat on Auckland Council to zone more greenfields sites for housing. Google “Nick Smith + Auckland housing” and you'll see what I mean.

It seems that the Chief Economist of the Auckland Council is in agreement with the government.

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11630417

"Auckland Council's plans for higher density housing cannot succeed unless the city also expands further into the countryside, says the council's chief economist.

Chris Parker said the only way to contain Auckland's runaway house inflation - up $70,000 last month to $820,000 on a median price house - was to open up more rural land to relieve price pressure on a "dysfunctional" urban land market."


The council's flagship compact city plan, based on more people living in apartments, terraced houses and townhouses within city limits, was necessary but unable to work by itself.

"Intensification won't do it - not alone, it's got to be part of a package," Mr Parker told the Herald in an interview for the Home Truths series."
The only way to break the cycle was "good old-fashioned, school kid level economics, which is simply to increase the supply of rural land into the urban land market"."

[kiwithrottlejockey]

It's almost getting to the point where us REAL NZers may need to build a Trump-style wall across the North Island in line with the same latitude as the Bombay Hills in an attempt to keep the Auckland disease from oozing out and adversely infecting the rest of us.

We could probably survive alright — we've got our own ports and international airports; and our own electricity supplies — although I'd feel sorry for those trapped in Northland, but “them's the breaks” eh?

Bugger....is that the time? Gotta go see a man about a dog!!

[Peter Lewis]

Yoy build out.
You build up.
You see property prices increase.

Choose two out of three.

[Dave Homewood]

It will be horrific if they have a situation where a large aircraft (Boeing) gets a birdstrike on take off and comes down into a sea of houses rather than an empty paddock (like the Boeing that crashed there before).

[haughtney1]

Ive said it before and I'll say it again, this type of tinkering on the fringes is going to make very very little difference. The fact that the plan includes provisions for being close to NZWP is neither here or there, its not going to solve the structural, political and social problems associated with the Auckland housing market.
To understand the context of what I'm saying, you have to understand how the housing market in Auckland has been used as a vote winner and asset class for a block of voters who wouldn't traditionally vote the way they have. Put simply, when you have families who are asset rich (million dollar valuations on their pokey, damp and poorly insulated 1950's home) but cash poor (nothing left over by the end of the week) whom are convinced they are living the dream and that their home will continue to appreciate then you are headed sooner or later for a correction. The size of the correction depends on a lot of factors, but chiefly if there are low interest rates and a poor economic outlook, the magnitude of the correction will be greater...sound like anywhere we know? Couple this with a sizeable number of individuals in positions of influence who are heavily invested in the market themselves and whom refuse to believe (Publicly at least) that an average income to loan ratio of 10 or greater isn't a problem or unaffordable....then its most definitely gong to be messy.
The NZ economy, its real economy i.e. primary produce is in the toilet, tourism particularly inbound is stagnant in terms of income/yield, and yet people are continuing to load themselves up with debt that will be unaffordable when (not if, but WHEN) rates tick up...and they will be back at 6-8% faster than many people realise. I'm not clever enough to know when this is going to happen, but it WILL happen, and when it does there are going to be an awful lot of people with no chairs to sit on when the music stops.

[John L]

I'm glad now I left Auckland and moved to Rural Western Australia 10 yrs ago - we can see 3 houses from our house and the missus is complaining about how built up the area is becoming!! Oh well - just plant more trees (then worry about the fire danger...) Just the thought of all that infill housing on areas I knew as rural gives me the shivers! The farm I grew up on, in Albany, has long been subsumed by crap high density housing and commercial developments, just like the rest of Auckland.
Mind you, it's the way of all cities - Perth is now effectively a 100 km long city along the coast, as new centres sprout north and south.....

[Dave Homewood]

Even I remember when Albany was a remote rural village, it was not that long ago. The place is so different now.

[isc]

On moving back to Canterbury40 years ago I remember dad saying how Christchurch had grown then from what he knew of it during the war, he was at Harewood, then Wigram before going to Britain, and those two stations were separated from the city by farm land, although you could go to Wigram by tram. isc