The Prime Minister’s announcement on Auckland infrastructure was most welcome – it’s a confirmation of the good things happening in our city. However we must not lose sight of the fact that there is much more to be done.
Since the government announced its support for the City Rail Link (CRL) back in 2012, I have been asking them to provide certainty over timing and funding. That is what Auckland needed and that is what the government has now delivered. To reach our vision of Auckland being the world’s most liveable city, we need this to happen.
Aucklanders have been waiting for the CRL for decades and it’s been my number one priority since my first Auckland Council mayoral campaign.
Securing government funding and certainty for my number one priority – the City Rail Link - shows how much progress is being made. What we have done in the first five years of the united Auckland has built the foundations.
Big challenges remain
The government announcement shows that Auckland, New Zealand’s economic powerhouse, is starting to reap what it has sown. The government coming to the party is confirmation of my long-held argument that the rail link is not just about transport, but it'll also be transformational in boosting the city’s economic and social life.
In our ever-maturing partnership with the government, Auckland Council knows the importance of the inescapable link between transport and urban form and development. Transport and housing remain our two biggest challenges.
This August, agreement on the Unitary Plan is fundamentally important to Auckland’s future – as essential as creating better transportation to get employees into the central city or where they need to work.
The Unitary Plan, a single set of planning rules to guide Auckland’s growth over the coming decades, has affordable housing and integrated public transport at its core. It is these two essential issues that Aucklanders have been telling me for the past five years they want us to provide.
800 new Aucklanders every week
Our city is becoming desirable globally. Our population is growing at 3 per cent a year which means more than 800 new people a week are arriving, adding to housing and transport pressures.
As Auckland grows, and as our transport systems improve due to projects such as with the rail link, the options for people to live closer to transport links will get greater. That is, for example, why in the plan we are linking public transport corridors with terraced housing and apartment zones and limiting the amount of parking in centres where there are good transport options available.
This frees up more space for housing and provides greater incentives for people to use public transport.
All this is a work in progress for which there is no quick magic wand. Short of putting barbed wire around our city, telling potential immigrants they can’t land in Auckland and telling our citizens they can’t have babies, our city will keep growing.
City Rail Link just the start
The united city I have led has bravely moved forward with a new plan for the city including investing in our transport system. After years of bickering amongst previous Auckland councils and periods of disagreement with the government, we are now clearly working hard in partnership with government.
We are well into the work on a transport accord with the government - known as the Auckland Transport Alignment Project. By the middle of the year, we will have removed the hurdles over any differences on transport investment priorities and found common ground on how to fund the investment needed to get Auckland moving.
The CRL announcement is just a precursor. The transport funding debate which Aucklanders have also been engaged in for more than five years remains the most important issue to be resolved in Auckland.
Lowering barriers to home building
Likewise, the housing accord with the government is a springboard for smart thinking about reducing barriers to freeing up housing land. Even after all the streamlining of regulatory systems, I am as impatient as anyone that no one can hurry the time involved in the actual construction process of building houses.
Auckland’s population will reach two million people in the early 2030s. The collective work now being done means we have reduced the political hurdles to deal with that. Now comes the task of cohesively focussing on delivering on the present and future expectations of Aucklanders and New Zealanders.
While I serve out my present term as mayor of Auckland, I will continue to be totally focused on those goals.
