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WellingtonJanuary 30, 2024

Announcing the War for Wellington

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The capital is facing its most important decision in decades, one that will define the future of the city. Wellington editor Joel MacManus explains what’s going on – and how you can help ensure the council comes down on the right side of history. 

Today, we are launching a special editorial project: The War for Wellington. For the next two months, The Spinoff’s Wellington coverage will focus intensely on one issue: the new District Plan, the rule book for housing in the capital city. 

Wellington has the most restrictive housing rules of any city in New Zealand. For decades, height limits, character protections, and other strict zoning have made it far too difficult to build new homes. The result has been an enormous housing shortage, skyrocketing rents and house prices, old mouldy flats, urban sprawl and young people being priced out of the city. 

In 2024, we have the chance to change that. For the first time since 2000, Wellington City Council is rewriting its District Plan. It’s an enormous opportunity for Wellington to tackle its housing crisis head-on. It will decide between two starkly different futures: In one, Wellington embraces apartments and townhouses, builds tens of thousands of new homes, and grows into a thriving, liveable and equitable city. In the other, the city becomes a museum filled with villas owned by retirees, while young people flee for Auckland (or worse, Upper Hutt). We are unapologetic about our perspective: we believe density is absolutely necessary for the future of Wellington.

The new District Plan will be the single most important document for this city in our lifetime, but it risks flying under the radar, anchored down by layers of impenetrable council bureaucracy (the draft plan is 1266 pages long and filled with technical jargon). Our goal at The Spinoff is to fight back against that. We want to turn this into a story that ignites the entire city, so every Wellingtonian has at least some idea of what is happening, why it matters, and has the chance to call their local councillor and demand change. 

This crucial decision comes three years after Wellington passed its Spatial Plan, an ambitious document which hugely expanded the areas which allow apartments, and shrank the character zones, where rules make it almost impossible to tear down old homes and build new ones.

But the Spatial Plan is just a blueprint; it has no statutory power. The District Plan is the document that will make the change official. To throw a spanner in the works, there is no requirement for the District Plan to match the Spatial Plan. As soon as the process started, former mayor Andy Foster and a group of conservative councillors made moves to undo some of the most significant gains.

three houses with sky behind them. they are pretty victorian terraces but looking at them you feel almost certain that they are cold, expensive, and damp. it's just a vibe
What will the future of housing in Wellington look like? Photo: Getty Images

Starting next week, a panel of independent commissioners will release their District Plan recommendations in a series of council briefings. It will all culminate in one mega-meeting on March 14, where councillors will vote on changes and decide the plan’s final form.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it is. In 2016, The Spinoff ran a pop-up section called The War for Auckland, when our biggest city was debating the Auckland Unitary Plan. 

That was a once-in-a-generation moment when Auckland up-zoned the entire city. It has led to an explosion of new townhouses and medium-density apartment buildings. Research from the University of Auckland suggests the changes led to an additional 43,500 homes being built, almost doubling the rate of construction. As a result, rents have increased less in Auckland than Wellington, and the median income-to-rent ratio dropped in Auckland while it increased across the rest of the country. The average rent for a three-bedroom home in Auckland is an estimated 26-33% lower now than it would be if the Unitary Plan hadn’t passed. 

Source: Matthew Maltman, onefinaleffort.com

Now, it’s Wellington’s chance to up-zone. If you’re a renter, this matters to you. If you hope to own a home in Wellington someday, this matters to you. If you already own a home and want to be free to develop it, this matters to you. If you care about Wellington and the people who live there, this matters to you. 

The War for Wellington is about more than just the nuances of zoning regulations. It’s about the future of Wellington. It’s a chance to have a grown-up conversation about what kind of city we want to be. We’ll do that through in-depth coverage of meetings, explainers, satire, features, and interviews with the key players. But we also want to open this discussion up to the entire community, so you’ll hear from experts, activists, and all sorts of passionate people. If you want to contribute, you’re invited to contact me on: joel@thespinoff.co.nz

If you want to stay on top of everything that happens throughout this process, subscribe to The Spinoff’s War for Wellington newsletter. Each week, we’ll send a roundup of the most important stories about the District Plan process and the future of housing in Wellington. It will include highlights from our own coverage, as well as the best reporting from other media in Wellington. Sign up here.

The War for Wellington is being funded entirely with support from Spinoff Members. We’re asking for support to help us with this specific project, from both businesses and individuals. If you think it’s important that Wellington becomes a modern, fit-for-purpose city that can live up to its potential, we would love you to become a member and help us out. 

Thank you,

Joel MacManus, Wellington editor.

joel@thespinoff.co.nz

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’
Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor
Keep going!
a sign that says 'no exit' and also 'pedestrian route to te ahumairangi' which is very confusing and deceptive
No exit for whom? (Image: Shanti Mathias, design: Tina Tiller)

WellingtonJanuary 29, 2024

The joy and utility of pedestrian shortcuts

a sign that says 'no exit' and also 'pedestrian route to te ahumairangi' which is very confusing and deceptive
No exit for whom? (Image: Shanti Mathias, design: Tina Tiller)

Nestled in nooks and crannies of Aotearoa’s cities are walking shortcuts, beloved by locals. Shanti Mathias talks to people about why they love walking so much.

There are two little words that particularly annoy Tim Jones when he walks around his neighbourhood in Mount Victoria, a suburb in central Wellington. “There are signs that say ‘No Exit,’”, the president of walking advocacy group Living Streets says. “But if you’re a pedestrian, that’s not true.” 

Mount Victoria, like many of Wellington’s hilly suburbs, is filled with pedestrian shortcuts, narrow staircases and ramps cutting between houses, providing a route for walkers but not for vehicles. To Jones, they’re an example of what makes walking so enjoyable. 

a grey haired man with trees in the background
Tim Jones in the bush near his Mt Victoria home (Image credit: Ebony Lamb)

“Shortcuts are fun; discovering them is fun – it’s a way to explore your own neighbourhood,” he says. The sense that a shortcut is a secret, even though they’re widely used, adds to the affection, as if the path was put there just for you. Of course, not everyone can walk, especially on steep and narrow paths, but shortcuts do free up space on roads for people who need public transport or cars.

Wellington is particularly notorious for its shortcuts, especially steps, but they’re found all over Aotearoa’s cities, a reminder that despite the ubiquity of the private vehicle, walking is still an important form of transport – whether it’s a cracked pathway bending between two streets to the dizzying 279 steps of Jacobs Ladder in Dunedin. 

In Wellington, the history of shortcuts is one of colonisation. Gabor Toth, a historian who works for Wellington City Council, explains that shortcuts were a perhaps inevitable consequence of how the city was built by European colonists. Much of the land that now makes up Central Wellington was purchased by The New Zealand Company, with streets laid out in a grid pattern regardless of topography. 

a bald man in a short sleeved shirt in a shady cemetery
Gabor Toth has researched the history of Pōneke Streets for Wellington City Council (Image: Shanti Mathias)

“That’s how you got roads that are ridiculously steep, like Aurora Terrace and Bolton Street,” Toth says, placing his hand at a 45 degree angle to demonstrate. “But you also got planned streets that were so vertical, roads were never able to be built there. There are places that legally exist as a road but in practice are little sets of steps or pathways.” Orangi-Kaupapa Road in Northland – part of which is a very steep staircase – is one example of this. 

Walking routes are much older than cities. The route from Te Aro in Wellington to Porirua Harbour, through the Ngaio Gorge, was initially a trail used by Māori, before settlers widened it and started calling it the Porirua Road, Toth says. In Auckland, Karangahape Road was a key arterial route for Māori living around the Waitematā Harbour. Walking routes made by Māori navigators and traders were used by early colonial settlers across Aotearoa. 

Before becoming a historian, Toth briefly studied urban planning. He still remembers a piece of advice he was given: if you’re trying to figure out where to put paths, first observe where people actually go. “These days, we try to build roads that follow the natural curves of the earth,” he says. “But pedestrians just want to walk straight up the hill.”

stee stairs going down between houses near wellington motorway
A pedestrian shortcut near the Wellington motorway in Thorndon is much more direct than the road (Image: Shanti Mathias)

Called “desire paths”, more informal shortcuts may look like a stretch of trampled grass in a park, or a gap in the bushes between houses where people cut through to the next street. Animals do the same thing: think of deer trails, penguin pathways or the criss-crossing lines left by a herd of sheep. On your own two feet, there’s no need to consider parking or space to turn or track gradient: legs can get you there. “Tracks are often much faster than following the street,” Jones says. 

The convenience of time is one factor that draws people to walking paths, but not being exposed to cars is also a key appeal. In 2022, 34 pedestrians died in vehicle accidents, and a further 245 people were seriously injured.

“I feel much safer on a shortcut,” says Jones, the pedestrian advocate. He accepts that as a man, there could also be a gendered element to being comfortable on small pathways, and he’d like to see more for these pedestrian routes: regular maintenance, lighting at night

Most of all, he’d like to see signage. Not all shortcuts show up on Google Maps (and sometimes paths are tagged incorrectly, meaning confused cyclists find their route is in fact vertical). Walking through the bush section of Mount Victoria, Jones often sees people staring at their phones as they try to navigate. But digital navigation can make exploring less compelling — especially if you don’t know that alternative routes for pedestrians even exist. 

a photo of Mason's lane, on a paved lambton quay in central wellington
Clear signage making one of many pedestrian routes between Lambton Quay and The Terrace (Image: Shanti Mathias)

The question of how and where we can walk is deeply connected to where we can live, says Jade Kake, an architect with a kaupapa Māori design studio based in Whangārei. The expense of housing often compels people to live further away from the places they frequent. Her papakāinga developments in Northland are in some ways not ideal from a Western urban development point of view: they’re greenfield developments on land where there hasn’t been housing before. “I struggle with that balance of ‘good’ urban design – because these are just the pockets of land we have left,” she says. “I like to think of what the stories of the tupuna of that whenua were, how they were connected to their rohe.” 

Of course, that includes walking – the intimate knowledge that comes from being connected to the land every day. “Not living fast,” Kake laughs – she’s calling me from her car, a reality of life in Northland with limited alternative transport options, although she bikes and walks as much as possible when home in Whangārei. “Through walking, you can have a greater relationship to the environment and observe the living things there.” 

She’d like to see more pressure on inner city areas of Auckland to become denser and more walkable, rather than the burden being placed on communities that are already resource-constrained. She’s used to thinking generationally with her projects: not just about what a place will be like in 10 years, but in 50, or 100. The plan with the papakāinga for her whānau will include removing a rail line so there is easier access to the ocean, the kura kaupapa and the marae all within walking and cycling distance. “That’s the dream, of being connected, but we’re not there yet.” 

Jones intuits – although it’s difficult to find the data to back this up – that there are more walking shortcuts in older and hillier suburbs. That makes sense to Toth, too. “Car ownership has really accelerated, especially since they allowed Japanese imports from the early 1990s,” he says; newer developments are often designed with the expectation of parking and car use, not walking. Does this mean that pedestrian shortcuts will start to disappear?

From Toth’s research, and his own community in Ngaio, he’s certain walking routes will stick around. “People really, really love them. They love that feeling of secret knowledge that’s just for locals, and they love getting places fast.”

But wait there's more!