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Sustainable Cities - Regional Programme: Joint action plan for Auckland

The Auckland Sustainable Cities programme has now concluded. The programme ran between 2003 and 2006 and was a partnership between the Auckland region’s seven local councils, the regional council, and a number of central government agencies, including the Ministry for the Environment as joint central government leader. Local communities also participated in many parts of the programme.

The Sustainable Cities Programme of Action identified the Auckland region as a priority. This reflects Auckland’s status as New Zealand’s largest urban area, its rapid population growth, cultural diversity and the importance of its economic performance for the country as a whole.

The Auckland Sustainable Cities Programme was a pilot for sustainable development. This means it did not set out to tackle every issue facing Auckland, nor all of the critical issues to create sustainable development. The focus instead was on dealing with key issues facing the Auckland region.

A joint action plan and a series of projects that contribute to the objectives for Sustainable Cities were developed and agreed by the programme partners between mid-2003 and mid-2004. The projects were organised into six ‘work-strands’:

The Ministry for the Environment is specifically involved in two of these work strands - Urban Form, Design and Development and Transport and Urban Form.

Government allocated $4 million to selected projects in the Auckland programme over three years from 2004 to 2007. In addition, the Auckland councils also made significant contributions ‘in kind’ through staff time and linkages with other funded initiatives.

An important feature of the Auckland Sustainable Cities Programme is that all agencies have committed to actively learn better ways of working together (see also the diagram of the Programme structure on the Auckland Sustainable Cities Programme website). The key achievements of the programme were documented in the booklet “Success in Sustainability”

For more information visit the Auckland Sustainable Cities Programme website.

Last updated: 17 September 2007