1 - Introduction
This Draft New Zealand Urban Design Protocol (Urban Design Protocol) is part of the Government's Sustainable Development Programme of Action. The Urban Design Protocol is a key deliverable of the 'Sustainable Cities' action area, which seeks to make our cities healthy, safe and attractive places where business, social and cultural life can flourish.
It supports and builds on a range of government strategies for improving our urban environments, encompassing economic growth and innovation, transport, housing, regional development, social development, disability, and culture and heritage (see Appendix 1).
The Urban Design Protocol will be supported by Urban Design Case Studies that provide practical examples of quality urban design; an Urban Design Toolkit that will provide a compendium of tools and mechanisms to help create quality urban design; a Summary of Urban Design Research, including current research in New Zealand on urban design and urban environments; and the Value Case, presenting a rationale and evidence for the link between quality urban design and economic, environmental, social and cultural value (see Section 4).
Implementation of the Urban Design Protocol will include actions by signatories to the Protocol, leadership by government, and raising awareness of the value of quality urban design across New Zealand and across all sectors.
What is a protocol?
A protocol is a formal undertaking between signatories. Parties to a protocol agree to support and demonstrate the principles outlined in the document. A protocol is an agreement and has no force in law.
What is urban design?
Urban design is about the design of buildings, places, spaces and networks that make up our towns and cities, and how people use them. It ranges in scale from a metropolitan region, city or town down to a street, public space or even a single building. Urban design is concerned not just with appearances and built form but with the environmental, economic, social and cultural consequences of design. It is an approach that draws together many different sectors and professions, and includes both the processes and outcomes of decisions.
What is the value of urban design?
Quality urban design is important for people because our lives are connected through our common built environment. We all live and work in buildings, and use streets, public spaces, transport systems, and other urban infrastructure. Quality urban design creates places that work and places that people use and value.
The value of quality urban design includes economic, environmental, cultural and social aspects. The economic importance of towns and cities to national economies is increasingly being recognised. The key competitiveness factors for successful towns and cities include quality of infrastructure and quality of life - both factors on which urban design can have a significant influence.
Research from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries shows quality urban design adds economic value through higher returns on investment, reduced management and maintenance costs, more productive workplaces, and enhanced image and prestige. Quality urban design also adds social, environmental and cultural value through creating well connected, inclusive and accessible places, delivering the mix of houses, uses and facilities needed by people, adding to the identity and pride of a place, enhancing safety and reducing fear of crime, improving energy efficiency, and revitalising heritage.
The benefits of quality urban design accrue to businesses through increased productivity and prestige; to communities in improved urban environments and safer, healthier places; and to investors and developers in better returns on investment. Research has found no evidence that design or development costs increase with quality urban design.
Quality urban design has benefits at a city-wide level as well as at the scale of neighbourhoods, individual buildings and spaces. For example, a well-designed transport network integrated with land use improves accessibility and mobility, contributes to a better quality of life, encourages healthier lifestyles, uses less non-renewable energy, and contributes to improved economic performance. Quality design of a building and adjacent spaces increases capital values and rental returns, reduces long-term maintenance costs, increases productivity, provides better security and less fear of crime, and increases civic pride.
Good design is fundamental to achieving value for money, by creating functional, productive, robust and attractive environments. Design costs are typically a very small proportion of whole life costs (less than 0.5 percent), yet design has a significant impact on construction and operating costs and on the wider community.
The Value Case will contain our research and New Zealand case examples that support this.
What can urban design do for New Zealand?
Many New Zealand towns and cities face growth pressures, from greenfield development, to intensification in city centres and suburbs. The design of new development will have a significant impact on the success of our towns and cities (see Section 2).
The growth of low density suburbs on the edge of our towns and cities has highlighted some of the consequences of poor design including increased travel distances, traffic congestion, social alienation and isolation, unnecessary alteration of our valued landscapes, and increasing levels of obesity. Poor design and development puts costly and uneven demands on energy use and urban infrastructure.
In our cities the trend towards apartment living and intensification of inner suburbs has exacerbated the issues arising from poor design. We need to address minimum standards for apartments and townhouses, the loss of heritage buildings, inappropriate design that doesn't reflect our culture or climate, a lack of affordable housing in accessible locations, and a lack of quality public open space.
In our smaller towns, where there has been stagnant growth or declining population, urban design issues include vacant properties, lack of a funding base for maintenance and renewal of infrastructure, and an acceptance of reduced design quality in the pursuit of development opportunities. Without a proactive strategy to ensure quality urban design, these towns may continue to decline.
The costs of poor design fall on those who work or live in badly designed buildings, those who pay for long-term upkeep and management, those who use dysfunctional spaces, people who have a heightened fear of crime in their neighbourhood, and people cut-off from essential services.
The message we can learn from overseas is that addressing these issues requires co-ordinated thinking and a more structured approach to urban management. In New Zealand, our thinking has concentrated on managing the effects of individual activities rather than managing urban systems and their interconnections. Urban design is still to be embedded as a core skill amongst most of our professions.
A co-ordinated approach
Creating quality urban design in our towns and cities requires action across a wide range of sectors and professions. Each group can make an important contribution to achieving the vision. Professionals in all disciplines need to work together in a 'common space', as no one profession can understand the full complexity of a town or city.
Each group has a role to play:
Central government
- Lead at a national level
- Demonstrate quality urban design through its own development and activities
- Co-ordinate policies and actions across whole of government
- Develop appropriate legislation and policy guidance
- Promote national awareness of urban design
- Support local government
- Co-ordinate urban design research
Local government
- Lead at a regional/local level
- Demonstrate quality urban design through its own development and activities
- Develop appropriate statutory policies, rules and guidance
- Manage statutory decision-making processes to ensure quality urban design
- Promote regional/local awareness of urban design
- Share research and 'best practice'
- Integrate urban management
- Work collaboratively with the private sector
Private sector
- Demonstrate quality urban design in every development
- Work collaboratively with local government
- Involve communities in projects
- Develop public/private partnerships
- Recognise the public interest
Professionals
- Champion quality urban design
- Develop 'best practice' approaches and tools
- Improve skills and knowledge through education and training
- Participate in local decision-making and design advisory processes
Educational institutes
- Lead research on urban design
- Work collaboratively with the public and private sectors
- Participate in local decision-making and design advisory processes
- Develop training courses to improve understanding and application of urban design
Sector organisations
- Work with their sector to improve understanding and application of urban design
- Advocate for quality urban design
- Work collaboratively with the public and private sectors
Community
- Demand quality urban design
- Develop community action projects
- Participate in community engagement forums
Quality urban design creates places that work and places that people use and value.
