spinofflive
Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

OPINIONPoliticsFebruary 8, 2023

The truth about new housing and the Auckland floods

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

A pair of Auckland councillors have leveraged the city’s flood disaster to protest government’s legislation enabling more medium density housing. Hayden Donnell says our elected representatives would be better off pointing the finger at themselves.

As residents across her ward worked to clean out their waterlogged houses, Mt Eden-Puketāpapa councillor Christine Fletcher logged into Facebook to take aim at what she saw as the culprit for the flooding which wrecked their properties. Her post didn’t mention Wayne Brown or Civil Defence. She identified another issue: the fact we keep letting people build houses. “We must stop those who are determined to foist more and more housing on Auckland, well in excess of the Auckland Unitary Plan. Their plans are flawed. Auckland cannot cope now,” she wrote.

That post was picked up by Newshub and echoed by Waitematā councillor Mike Lee in a story by the Herald’s Bernard Orsman. “We need to intensify where suitable, not intensify everywhere and every which way because that will only lead to more disasters,” he said, adding that development should only be allowed where good stormwater infrastructure is in place.

If these councillors believe Auckland’s development patterns have contributed to the severity of the floods, they’d do better to take a deep breath, put on a guided meditation, and look inward. While it’s true the government has moved to enable medium density housing across the city, its bill only became operative in part in August last year, and includes provisions for councils to restrict development in flood-prone areas. Unless the flooded houses were built in the last five months, they were consented under rules set by prior councils, including the 2016 Unitary Plan.

Māngere: Building density zoning under the Unitary Plan, left; and flood plain mapping, right. Zoning map legend: Pink and purple are business zones; tan, yellow and orange are housing – the darker the orange, the higher the density. More detail here.

That plan shunted disproportionate amounts of growth to areas like Henderson, Ranui, Māngere, Wairau, Sunnynook, and Mt Roskill, all of which went underwater last Friday. At the same time it banned dense housing in the places where it makes the most sense, restricting construction to a single house per lot across large swathes of the city’s central, well-connected villa suburbs under so-called ‘special character’ rules. Lee and Fletcher have been among the most vehement supporters of those rules, which cover 41% of all the land within 5km of the city centre and more than 90% of places like Ponsonby, but an analysis done for The Spinoff shows how they may have contributed to the damage wrecked by Auckland’s storm. In general, less of the residential land in special character areas sits on flood plains, while the poorer suburbs with fewer restrictions on development are more vulnerable to inundation. Outside of rural and coastal settlements, Auckland is building fewer houses where flood damage is less likely.

Houses in Auckland’s ‘special character areas’ are less likely to be located in areas at risk of flooding (an exception is homes on the coast). (Graph: The Spinoff)

A look at the council’s floodplain maps throws up some stark examples of this discrepancy. Dense development is almost entirely cut off in several areas least vulnerable to flooding, including Ponsonby and Herne Bay. In some of the most susceptible areas, including Henderson, Māngere, Ranui, and Mt Roskill, medium or high density housing is the norm. Auckland’s councillors are attempting to retain the vast bulk of their character protections even in the face of the new government legislation which makes them, at best, legally questionable. They continue to foist floodwaters on the poor in order to protect the lifestyles and aesthetic preferences of the city’s richest residents, who happen to be their most reliable voters.

Ponsonby and Herne Bay are filled with single-house zoning despite having almost no flood plains.
Henderson is zoned for dense development despite being heavily affected by flood plains.

Their planning decisions have also hindered our ability to build resilient, high quality infrastructure. With development cut off in many central, desirable areas, housing has sprawled across Auckland’s countryside. Drive 40 minutes in any direction from the Sky Tower and you’ll be confronted with affluent suburbs springing up in places like Warkworth, Drury, and Kumeu. Those kinds of greenfield developments are expensive, requiring new roads, power lines, and pipes. Multiple studies have shown that sprawl costs more than twice as much as more compact development. It’s hard to pay for a state-of-the-art stormwater system in the central suburbs when you’re having to plug potholes for thousands of residents in the backstreets of Pukekohe.

There’s a perverse logic to Lee and Fletcher’s response to these problems. If we simply don’t let people build so many houses in future, there’ll be fewer around to flood. But that begs the question of how Auckland will accommodate its future growth. One solution could be the construction of a wall at the top of the Bombays to keep out newcomers. Another is the forced relocation of housing opponents to Tauranga. Instead, both councillors lapse into magical thinking. Lee has long advocated a kind of degrowth agenda, while Fletcher says the city doesn’t need housing because it hasn’t had a lot of inward migration lately, which may or may not have something to do with a global pandemic which shut down most inward migration.

Coming up with these sorts of excuses to avoid having to build needed infrastructure is a patented, time-honoured technique for Auckland’s local body politicians. If the ideal approach to future planning is planting trees under whose shade you will not sit, their approach has generally been to have a meltdown over the price of seeds. Their short-sighted, penny-pinching history can be seen in everything from the city’s inadequate public transport network to its faeces-spewing sewer pipes. But the area where it’s most evident is housing, where planning rules designed to choke growth have contributed to a punishing and intractable price crisis.

The best way to avoid future disasters isn’t to perpetuate that crisis even further; it’s to build more houses in places that won’t go underwater. Thankfully there are several such areas in the heart of Lee and Fletcher’s electorates. If we want to prevent a repeat of the Auckland floods, constructing 20-storey apartment buildings in Ponsonby and Mt Eden would be a good start.

Keep going!
s0atnZac-FeatureImage_NZAUPM.png

PoliticsFebruary 8, 2023

When Chippy met Albo: The PM’s six-hour whirlwind tour of Canberra

s0atnZac-FeatureImage_NZAUPM.png

Chris Hipkins’ first overseas trip as prime minister heralded few surprises. But, as Stewart Sowman-Lund reports from Canberra, that’s exactly what he will have wanted.

It’s been just two weeks since Chris Hipkins was sworn in as prime minister, a fortnight that has seen him deal with devastating flooding, formalise a cabinet reshuffle, oversee domestic diplomacy at Waitangi, signal policy adjustments and, now, meet with his first world leader on his first ever trip to Canberra.

New Zealand’s new prime minister actually spent more time sitting upright in the red leather seats of the Air Force Boeing 757 than on the ground in Australia’s capital. If you take out sitting-around-in-the-airport time, he was in Canberra for about six hours.

Nevertheless, it’s unlikely Hipkins will have any regrets about racking up the miles on what was effectively an extended photo op. In part, that’s because any overseas travel as prime minister, particularly when parliament isn’t sitting, is a good thing. But also it’s because Chippy was able to meet with Albo – Anthony Albanese – and reinforce the relationship between New Zealand and Australia. It’s a relationship that appeared rocky during the Scott Morisson premiership, but was reinvigorated by the friendship between Albanese, elected last year, and Hipkins’ predecessor, Jacinda Ardern.

Chris Hipkins and Anthony Albanese meet for the first time (Photo: Samuel Rillstone / supplied)

Ardern, undoubtedly New Zealand’s greatest asset on the world stage, was a hard act to follow. But Hipkins – who admitted he has had relatively limited experience in foreign affairs – gave it his all. After rolling into the courtyard of parliament house yesterday afternoon, he was incapable of wiping the beaming grin off his face. He was soon anointed Chuffed Chippy by the media pack and later said it wasn’t for show, he really did like Albanese – though of course he wouldn’t say anything different.

The two prime ministers met privately for about an hour, with Albanese repeating his tried and true gift of a trio of Australian records – this time Gang of Youths, Alex the Astronaut and Thelma Plum. Hipkins gifted Albanese a pounamu in return. Then, it was down to proper business, over a lunch of scampi (Hipkins later chose to ignore a question on whether any sausage rolls cracked the menu).

A brief press conference was held outdoors, in the scorching Canberra heat, for both the gaggle of travelling New Zealand media and local Australian reporters. Just four questions were permitted, with predictably rote responses. “It means a lot as Australians that your first destination as prime minister is to Australia,” said Albanese. “This reflects the priority that Australia and New Zealand place on our relationship and the deep friendship between our countries, a friendship that has been reaffirmed during our meeting.”

Neither prime minister was particularly keen to divulge what specific policies or perspectives were discussed while they had chowed down on seafood. Albanese described the meeting as “wide-ranging”, while Hipkins said he looked forward to working with his new bestie on a “broad spectrum of issues”. Topics on the agenda included the economy, security and the role of Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific. That span of issues reflected the “breadth” of the trans-Tasman relationship, said Albanese.

The pair also confirmed humanitarian aid for earthquake-stricken Turkey. New Zealand has contributed $1.5 million, Australia $10m, and both leaders acknowledged those who had lost their lives. “We know a little bit about earthquakes in New Zealand and the significant effect that that can have on people, so our hearts are with them,” said Hipkins.

Here’s hoping Albanese’s musical gift selection is more successful than his last attempt. (Photo supplied)

While the PMs stayed mum on specific areas of conversation, a few were ultimately revealed after questioning from the media. Hipkins confirmed the pair discussed the path to citizenship for New Zealanders in Australia, and, unsurprisingly, the ongoing dispute over 501 deportees. Last week it was revealed that Australia had watered down the policy, a move that Albanese was at pains to label “common sense”. Australian officials must now consider how long someone has lived in Australia before deciding whether to deport them.

Hipkins said the policy update was an “encouraging development”, but made it clear that he’d sought further changes. “It’s a sign that the Australian government has taken onboard the concerns we’ve raised,” he said. “Over time I’m sure we’ll continue to have those conversations.”

Prime minister Chris Hipkins, sitting with NZ High Commissioner Annette King, meets Australia’s deputy PM Richard Marles during question time at Canberra’s parliament on February 07, 2023. (Photo: Martin Ollman/Getty Images)

Earlier in the day, Hipkins had the opportunity to reconnect with his former caucus colleague Dame Annette King, who is now New Zealand’s high commissioner in Australia. The pair were welcomed with a traditional Aboriginal smoke ceremony, designed to ward off bad spirits, before they took part in a closed doors round table that included Mfat executives and business leaders from both Australia and New Zealand. A handful of very vocal anti-vaccination protesters, seemingly unhappy with Hipkins’ visit to Australia, briefly disrupted the official welcome ceremony for the prime minister. It was moved to the other side of the High Commission’s office.

King stayed close by Hipkins throughout the day, including popping up among the media at both of his press conferences. At one point, she took on the role of disgruntled heckler, quietly expressing disappointment with a particular line of critical questioning. Later, when Hipkins was asked if King had given him any Labour Party leadership advice, she could be heard whispering “heaps”. Hipkins chose not to reveal any pearls of wisdom, but said that he would take her advice “when he wanted to”.

Hipkins’ final event of the day was an appearance in the Australian House of Representatives. There, he was greeted by MPs from across the political spectrum, including Albanese’s predecessor Scott Morrison. Most of Australia’s parliament, from all sides of the House, were keen to get a word in with our new prime minister. Hipkins said he “hadn’t even thought” about the fact he was stepping into Australia’s debating chamber as PM before he has gone for a spin in our own. This event was closed to New Zealand media, so instead we perused the Parliament House gift shop (I have no regrets over my magnet and pen, though ultimately chose not to purchase a mug with Julia Gillard’s face on it).

Those hoping for a political bombshell or any major policy announcement may have been disappointed by yesterday’s visit to Canberra. It provided few, if any, political surprises. But that wasn’t the point – and it achieved precisely what the prime minister set out to prove: that in his hands the trans-Tasman relationship is safe and he’ll keep pushing for New Zealand’s interests. But perhaps most importantly, Hipkins wanted to prove that New Zealand doesn’t need Jacinda Ardern on the world stage. That’s why this “photo op” wasn’t a wasted op.

Hipkins and Albanese will likely next meet at the coronation of King Charles III, while a visit by the Australian PM to Wellington is also on the cards for later in the year.


Follow our politics podcast Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

But wait there's more!