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Urban leader – A newsletter for urban design champions

Issue no. INFO 615 | 4 July 2011

Welcome

This regular newsletter contains interesting information to help you champion good urban design in New Zealand.

In this issue we have:

Signatory news

Wellington

To help with your future visioning you can read Growth Misconduct? Avoiding sprawl and improving intensification in New Zealand. Many of the contributing authors presented at the February 2010 workshop organised by New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities. Each chapter of the book is written by a different author and provides positive and negative evidence and examples of intensification from New Zealand and overseas.

Toward 2040: A Smart Green Wellington is Wellington City Council’s vision for the future development of Wellington. The Council is now seeking feedback on this draft spatial plan and central city framework. Or come along on the 10 July 2011and have your say at an NZIA Wellington Branch hosted symposium, on the 2040 strategy. Hosted by former Wellington City Urban Designer Stuart Niven this promises to be lively debate on the future of our capital city.

New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) has announced its plans for Wellington’s transport connections between the inner city and eastern suburbs. From 2 July 2011 people will have the opportunity to comment on the proposals for changes which include duplication of the Mt Victoria Tunnel and changes to the roading network around the Basin Reserve.

Christchurch

Christchurch City Council has run a 48 hour Design Challenge from 1-3 July 2011 at Lincoln University, School of Landscape Architecture. The Design Challenge provided designers and architects an opportunity to create their best plans for specific parts of the central city.

As part of its planning for the future of Christchurch,the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Agency (CERA) has asked the residential property development sector to provide information on proposed developments. CERA hopes to gain a better understanding of what housing developments are planned for the next 5 years and where these might be. In particular they are looking to identify any constraints to development and how to resolve these.

Through CERA you can now check the status of residential properties affected by the Canterbury earthquakes at LandCheck. This new website provides site-by-site information on the state of land, including how badly damaged the land is and whether rebuilding is possible or not.

See the results from the Magnetic South online idea-generating game. Held on 24 June 2011 this event also aimed to help generate ideas and discussion about the future of Christchurch.

Auckland

Auckland Council has just finished the first stage of consultation on a Central City Masterplan. The discussion document outlines a blueprint for the central city as part of the Auckland Plan. A draft masterplan is now being prepared. Ludo Campbell-Reid, Auckland’s urban design champion, puts forward his ideas on the Masterplan.

Upcoming urban design events

National

Have we lost the art of street design? The New Zealand Planning Institute is running a Good Streets, Good Places one day workshop this year focused on how to design streets for people and not cars. Workshops are on Rotorua (1 August), Invercargill (3 August) and Christchurch (4 August). The rest of NZPI’s CPD programme is now also available online.

International

Christmas in the UK anyone? London is hosting the Future Cities 2011 International Symposium from 15 to 16 December. The overall theme is sustainable development of urban areas covering a range of policy themes such as the global city, the city and the region, and the city of neighbourhoods.

Also in the UK, Birmingham is hosting the 2011 Royal Town Planning Institute Young Planners’ Conference from 21 to 22 October. With a theme of ‘planning for growth’ topics will include challenges to growth, opportunities for growth, and many case studies.

Useful links and current information

  • GNS has recently produced a Guide to Integrating Tsunami Modelling into Land Use Planning. The publication is part of a suite of informative guidance on hazards planning on their website.
  • Our Cities, Our Future is Australia’s national urban policy for delivering a productive, sustainable and liveable future. This initiative outlines the crucial roles of the national, state and local governments, along with the private sector, in planning for the future of Australia’s cities.
  • UK organisation Living Streets has recently released its new report Making the Case for Investment in the Walking Environment. The multi disciplinary research brings together and evaluates the health, economic, social and environmental benefits of investment in walkfriendly public spaces with several UK case studies.
  • Google Maps have launched Mapnificent. This new application allows you to specify a starting location and then see all the destinations that you can reach by public transport in a specified timeframe. In New Zealand it is available for Wellington and Auckland.
  • While its the middle of winter ‘down under’, in the northern hemisphere millions of people are about to embark on their annual summer camping holiday. This interesting article explores the history of the campsite as a ‘stripped down’ version of human settlement. It looks at concepts such as place making, the contradictions and irony of a ‘back to nature’ experience alongside other campers and with all modern conveniences available. In the US the demand for campsites is phenomenal with the latest proposal to turn an old airport in Brooklyn, New York, into a large scale urban camping ground.
  • In China, with massive urban growth, marketing of cities has become as much of an exercise as produce marketing. Read about how cities are trying to individualise and ‘brand’ themselves. Meanwhile city building continues apace in China, but many are vacant, as these aerial photos show. These Chinese ‘ghost cities’ are on the increase as China plans to build 20 new cities a year for the next 20 years.

Website of the month

A US website worth taking a look at is the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The website combines the resources of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Transport (DOT) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The website includes tools for groups wanting to build more sustainable communities.

Podcast of the month

Check out Return to the Red Zone. Not a podcast but a photo archive. The National Library funded photographer Ross Becker to systematically document damaged (and intact) buildings in central Christchurch. The photos will become part of the National Digital Heritage Archive.

We want your news items

Do you have news that you would like reported in the next Urban Leader? We welcome your stories, and would like to receive more information from Protocol signatories. Email us at urban.design@mfe.govt.nz.

Submitted articles may be edited by the Ministry for the Environment.