It’s good to report back on our 31st year and, from this, to think about the future for Wellington, and how we can contribute to it. Since the Civic Trust began in 1981, our aim has been to help make Wellington the best of all possible places to live and work. Our founders, drawing on the 1960s Civic Trusts’ work in the UK, and on the later ones  in New Zealand which we heard about at last year’s AGM, set these goals (amongst others) in our constitution which still frame our work now:

• To stimulate public interest in and care for the beauty, history and character of the City of Wellington and its surroundings and adjacent countryside and coastline and its dignity as the Capital City;
• To preserve, develop and improve buildings and features of general public amenity or historic interest or beauty;
• To create or improve features of beauty or interest in and about the City and its contiguous countryside and coastline;
• To promote high standards in architecture, landscape management, building and town and country planning.

Many agencies, public and commercial, and many NGOs and community groups are also active in all of this. Our approach is that we are voluntary; are not based around any particular single issue; work for well-informed critique and information sharing; and look to how every aspect of our city interacts in often fuzzy ways to produce the distinctive character that is the enduring Wellington we live in.

All this has hard pragmatic edges. The Christchurch earthquakes have reminded all Wellingtonians of our fragility and of the risks to our urban form. We have set up a working group to anticipate the effects of such an event here so that we can make informed contributions to the inevitable changes which will follow the release of the Royal Commission’s report. Heritage, safety, and future-proofing are not just words, but things we aim to be clear about in the context of our Civic Trust purpose.

At the local authority level, the key instruments for the quality of city form are the District Plan and the Regional Plan. We keep a close watch on both, and on the RMA and other centrally-driven reforms which will affect the Councils’ ability to keep citizens confident about the essential character of the city. Wellington City’s 2040 project, which last September shaped into the “Smart Capital” goal, is we believe a good one, and is one we keep bringing into the practical dialogues about the Basin Reserve overbridge and other large projects on which we comment.

We have organised two public events this year. The first was the Civic Trust Awards programme in April 2011, which our last Annual Report described. The enduring theme of the Awards has always been to celebrate excellent design quality in our built and natural environments — and the ways in which these intertwine.

On August 14th 2011 we held a public forum at Te Wharewaka to mark the 25th anniversary of the first concept plan for redeveloping the post-industrial part of the waterfront. It was a great success, with over 80 there on a bitter day; on the strength of this, we offered all members a free copy of the printed Proceedings but were disappointed in the low take-up. The main thing is that we brought views together at the forum, created a permanent record for future reference, and contributed to raising awareness of the issues underlying what is now just taken for granted as Wellington’s “jewel in the Crown”. Nothing can ever be taken for granted; the City Council’s review of the 2001 Waterfront Framework came and went with the conclusion that it remained fit for purpose; exactly our position as noted in last year’s Annual Report. We opposed the WCC’s Variation 11 with the hearings commissioners and, with some improvements noted, have decided on pragmatic grounds not to appeal, in contrast to the stance of Waterfront Watch and some others. Our view is that the current proposals for new structures on the “campervan” site are consistent with the Framework and that a six storey building on that site is a more appropriate use than public open space. At the same time, we believe that the vacant waterfront site to the north of the Meridian building should be public open space. The quality of the whole waterfront, working port and all, is crucial to Wellington’s commercial and amenity benefits: the Civic Trust will continue to place a high importance on it.

The harbour and the hills surrounding it are the setting which gives Wellington so much of the character to whose best interests the Civic Trust is committed. We were delighted with the mid-year announcement – over a decade after our 1995 seminar on the topic — that with Defence and Prisons no longer having a use for the land they occupy on the Miramar peninsula, its future use would be as a public reserve. The future of the hilltop Town Belt, even as now shrunken from its 1839 scale, raised a submission from us to the City Council’s Town Belt Principles review; this is the Town Belt, not just another open space. At Mt. Cook, the 1920s vision of a grand boulevard sweeping down from the war memorial carillon to the sea never took hold and now we confront the decision that half of State Highway One will, because it is “of national significance”, continue to run right through the middle of the incipient National War Memorial Park there.

The Road of National Significance decision by central government to enlarge SH1 between Cobham Drive and Buckle St. was released for “public engagement” in July 2011. It was made quite clear that this was not “consultation” in the 1991 case law sense, but a communication of decisions already made along with some interest in opinions on the precise siting of the overbridge across the Terraces. Our submission was e-mailed out to members too, as we consider this to be a project with major implications for Wellington’s future on all sorts of grounds — traffic management, urban design, public transport, decision-making process, and emissions reduction among them. NZTA’s summary report on this “Public Engagement” was only posted on their website in April 2012 and we’ve not yet digested this 109pp epic; but a preliminary look confirms the intention to not take SH1 under The National War Memorial Park, and denies any commitment to build a free new grandstand for the Basin Reserve as part of the work. Watch this space — the Civic Trust will be.

We have always placed great value on good public transport as a way of lessening the demand for roading space, and for improving the “people quality” of the city. There are two projects going on right now in which we have an interest; the “High Quality Public Transport Spine” study framed (like the Basin Reserve area State Highway changes) by the 2008 Ngauranga-to-Airport Strategy; and the “Wellington City Bus Review” proposing some increased frequencies, hubbing and bus exchanges. The quality of our public transport network remains a strong Civic Trust interest.

At Kaiwharawhara the main road and rail corridors pass through a narrow throat, part of the Northern Gateway which has been the topic of three Civic Trust seminars in the past. A Ngaio-based group has been working for some time for rejuvenation of the waters of the Kaiwharawhara stream and for public access to the reclamation area (largely closed off as port and rail land) where the stream enters the sea. We have now agreed to the Ngaio group’s request that we take over responsibility for this project at the reclamation end as part of our active Northern Gateway interest.

At the start of this report I noted the importance of the District (and Regional) Plans as statutory influences on the sort of city character which the Civic Trust through its constitution seeks to protect and advance. The whole matter of whether the present pattern of separate city and regional councils is sustainable for Wellington continues as a public issue and we look forward to hearing our guest speaker’s thoughts on this at tonight’s AGM. On one level it is an intensely boring subject; on other levels it raises actual public interest because of the different approaches now taken to regional government matters in both Auckland and Christchurch. Either way, this matter is crucial for Wellington because it shapes the nature of local democracy and of decisions about city infrastructure, resource allocation and planning consents. One of the ways in which we may be able to help is our credibility and track record of sponsoring neutral public forums where awareness can be raised through informed presentation and debate on issues like this.

All these, and other, matters are debated and worked through by your Board of Trustees, to whom I am grateful for the honour of electing me Chairman. They are all busy and successful citizens, as well as a fine collegial bunch, who give much to the Civic Trust through monthly Board meetings, other task-specific meetings and much e-mail dialogue. During the year following the last AGM, Sharmian Firth resigned as a Trustee and Judi Keith-Brown, Callum Strong and Gerald Blunt were all co-opted; but our number (14) remains below the 15-20 members specified in our constitution. Linked with this difficulty in attracting Trustees, we continued to experience a slow decline in personal membership numbers. We need the numbers to do the work; we need to demonstrate the work to attract the numbers. It could be that the Civic Trust is perceived as rather old and establishment at a time when on-line presentation and single-issue enthusiasm has more appeal. The answer, as always, is “all of the above” and your Trustees are committed to building on core values while at the same time embracing new methods and approaches. Our website will continue to be developed as a reliable and attractive source of information about what we are asserting and what we are doing — there is a huge potential there, so long as we ensure that all members and others interested know about our work both on-line and in print. The work will go on. We need the help and constructive ideas of you, our members.

Finally, thanks to my predecessor as Chair, Sharmian Firth; all Trustees and to their families and friends who support this part of their lives; the Mayor, councillors and officers of the Wellington City Council; the Chair, councillors and officers of the Greater Wellington Regional Council; staff of NZTA and of Wellington Waterfront Ltd; colleagues at Civic Trust Auckland, the Christchurch Civic Trust, The Architectural Centre, Waterfront Watch, and other related groups; members and their friends and supporters.

Alan Smith, 21 April 2012

Guest Speaker: John Shewan, of Shape the Future 

Please join members and trustees for drinks from 5.30pm. 

Our logo is the only graphic we use in these newsletters — because we want them to be best known for the facts they convey to members and supporters. Should we put effort into more attractive communication, or would this detract from the Board’s focus on the Wellington issues which are our core focus? Something you might like to come along to the AGM on Monday May 14th and discuss – the notice of Agenda and of our guest speaker, John Shewan, and the Annual Report of our actual work through 2011/12, come with this mailout. There’s also the invitation to renew your subscription. The Civic Trust needs your continued support, and continued new members. The annual fee is kept low, but like many small costs it is tempting to save on them. The Annual Report, and this Newsletter update, will I hope confirm the value of the Trust and the value to you and to our city of your being a supportive member.

This Newsletter is the last one to be edited by Peter Brooks, who is standing down from the Board at the AGM after a distinguished contribution over many years as a Trustee. Thank you Peter. So we need a new editor as well as further new faces on the Board. It is satisfying work with a congenial team, working together for the Wellington we love. So to each member — please think about putting your name forward at the AGM for the role of Trustee on the incoming Board.

Alan Smith 

Regional governance

An organisation, Shape the Future, has been established to push for reform of the governance structure for the Wellington region. The group supports the general thrust of proposals advanced by some regional councillors late last year. Those proposals involved the disestablishment of the current regional, city and territorial authorities in the Wellington region and their replacement by an integrated council (to most a supercity, but the authors reject the title!). As noted in the Chairman’s message, John Shewan, a member of Shape the future, will be the guest speaker at our AGM. We hope members will take the opportunity to question our guest on the implications of this radical proposal and especially whether under such a system the public would be able to have an effective say in determining the character of their neighbourhoods.

The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) has announced that it intends to appoint a panel to develop a proposal for the governance of the region which would be referred to the Local Government Commission for its consideration and determination. At the same time the government has announced that it intends to alter the legislation to make it easier to refer such proposals to the commission. At present it would seem that before the commission could process such a proposal the GWRC would need to get the support of the other councils in the region or 10% of the electors in each of the affected districts. Alternatively the minister would have the power to submit the proposal

We are endeavouring to clarify the procedure which the GWRC would need to follow, bearing in mind that the government may well have plans to alter the current legislation. It seems unlikely that all the other councils are on side. Each appears to be taking its own course in developing options and consulting the public. What started off as a concerted regional effort under the Mayoral Forum to consider reform options, supported by a commissioned consultants report, has lost momentum and cohesion. Those that believe that all this can be sorted in time for new structures to operate for the elections due in 2013 must be counting on divine intervention from the Beehive.

Greater Wellington Regional Council long term plan

The GWRC recently invited public submissions on its draft long term plan. The board intends to make a submission on aspects of the plan. It is likely that it will comment on the proposed integrated electronic ticketing for buses and trains.

Wellington City Council long term plan

The council’s proposals for the long term plan covering the next ten years were published for public comment on 16 April. The public has until 18 May to have its say. There will be provision for oral hearings in the period 21 to 24 May. The final plan has to be adopted by 30 June 2012.

The council’s total rates requirement for 2012/13, based on the proposals in the draft plan, is forecast to increase by 4.6% (4.1% average ratepayer impact after allowing for growth in the ratepayer base). This would result in an average increase for a residential ratepayer of 3.7% and for the commercial sector of 5.3%. In her introduction to the plan the mayor says she wants to get the overall rate increase to at or below the target figure of 3.8%. The public is invited to participate in this hunt for further savings. The board intends to unleash its dogs and enter the forest.

Long term planning is a difficult task at the best of times and now times are far from their best. It is not only the need to adjust to a sulking economy, but the urgent requirement to strengthen council buildings and infrastructure networks to resist seismic shocks. Weathertight building liabilities too must be funded and these two areas account for an expenditure of $68.3 million over the first eight years of the plan. It is inevitable that many residents will be disappointed that pet projects cannot be accommodated in the foreseeable future and even more will be concerned not only with the rising rates burden, but also the increase in charges for many council services.

The board will be studying the plan over the next few weeks and will make a submission before the deadline of 18 May. We encourage members to get a copy of the plan from the City Service Centre (it is an excellent publication and a very good document for finding out some basic facts about how your city is managed). It is also available online at Wellington.govt.nz

Wellington City Bus review 

The board recently made a submission on the GWRC’s bus review proposals. The regional council’s proposals are very significant; every bus route would be changed. About 10% of passengers would need to change buses during their journeys. It is claimed that the number of people within a 10-minute walk of a high frequency all-day route would increase from 58% to 75% and the number of bus trips would grow by 15%.

There has been strong public feedback, much of it critical, and as a consequence it seems likely that changes will be made to the original scheme.

Waterfront

Last month Wellington Waterfront Ltd (WWL) released its plans for a new six storey office block on the waterfront site next to Shed 21 (Waterloo on the Quay Apartments) and opposite New Zealand Post Headquarters. The trust has previously advised the company and the council that it believes that site 10, Kumutoto, is an appropriate site for a building of that size and height. As envisaged in the waterfront framework the Kumutoto area is appropriate for new building and the revenue from site leases is needed to help fund public space development on the waterfront. That need has been highlighted by the news that the waterfront companies debt to the council has risen to $14m. The standards set for the site are set out in Variation 11 which is subject to appeals by Waterfront Watch and Queens Wharf Holdings. Hearings have been completed and the court’s decision has yet to be announced. Resource consents for the new building will not be sought until the appeal has been determined. If Waterfront Watch’s appeal succeeds the resource consent application would be notified. If the company gets its way the application would be considered without notification and therefore without the opportunity for further public involvement in the decision making process.

There has been criticism of the waterfront company’s handling of this project. Two prospective developers of the site have suggested that they offered more for the site than the chosen Auckland developer, the Newcrest Group. Wellington Tenths trustee Peter Love has criticised the company for not putting the site out to tender and Richard Burrell of Building Solutions claims the company should have first chosen a design, obtained resource consent and then put it out to the market to find a developer.

Richard Burrell, in our view makes a valid point. In response to these criticisms the council has commissioned an independent review. We welcome that; it should throw more light on an area of company operations often protected by the cloak of commercial sensitivity. However, we would not wish the company to decide development solely on the basis of who offered most for a site lease. Each proposal has to be considered in the light of the Waterfront Framework principles and the design standards established for Kumutoto. This is the waterfront not the CBD.

Moreover, there is already a great deal of information on this arrangement in the public domain. Last year the company advised the Council Controlled Organizations Performance subcommittee that it had entered into an agreement with an Auckland based property developer:“WWL entered into a formal Memorandum of Understanding with a substantial Auckland based property developer, granting the developer a three month exclusive option to develop a preliminary concept design for consideration by WWL and TAG (Technical Advisory Group). The developer’s requirement for an exclusive option is to give the developer sufficient confidence to invest significant amounts of time and money into the preliminary planning of a major development. In the event that both WWL and TAG approve the preliminary concept design the developer has the right to the grant of three further exclusive options of three months (to 29 February 2012) subject to satisfactory progress being made on the developed design. (Page 5, WWL Report to CCO performance subcommittee for the quarter ended 31 March 2011)

We are surprised that developers appear to have been unaware of the WWL’s dealings with the Newcrest Group. Not only was the above information in published council documents, but it was reported by us in our Newsletter of August 2011. If developers would like to keep abreast of waterfront and other civic issues they should become corporate members of the trust. They would be welcomed.

Kaiwharawhara Stream and estuary 

Over the last ten years Frances Lee of the Trelissick Park Trust has driven a project to improve the quality of the lower Kaiwharawhara Stream. The upper reaches of the stream, from the Karori Sanctuary and its Korimako branch through Ngaio, is of a fair quality, but affected by surrounding residential developments, stormwater run-off and leachate from old landfills. Where the stream passes through the industrial area at the bottom of Ngaio Gorge, stream quality is poor. These facts have been established by a recent ecological study, funded by the City Council, CentrePort and the GWRC. The trust has been approached by the Trelissick Park Trust with a proposal that we should take over the issue in the hope that we might be able to convince the several authorities that have an interest in the area to agree on a management plan to remedy, over time, the problems of the lower Kaiwharawhara Stream.

The trust has a long term interest in the Northern Gateway approach to Wellington, having hosted two seminars on the future development of that area. The treatment of the estuary and the development of the related reclamation area therefore come within existing areas of interest to the trust. We have agreed to continue with our work in this area. The trust intends to seek assurances from the regional and city councils and the minister for conservation that the beach and estuary will be protected as public recreation space. We will support endeavours to ensure that any resource consents for developing the reclamation will have conditions to protect the beach and estuary and public access to them and that the forthcoming review of the District Plan will also have provisions to that end.

The board does not believe that the Civic Trust’s resources would be used effectively in a leadership role in respect of the upper Kaiwharawhara Stream. Our view is that action there should be led by organisations with ecological objectives, like Trelissick Park group and possibly Forest and Bird and other organisations with strong environmental objectives.

This Newsletter was edited by Peter Brooks and issued on April 26th 2012. Feel free to quote from it, with reference to the source — Wellington Civic Trust Newsletter, April—May 2012. 

We are pleased that two regional councillors held public meetings to hear first-hand the concerns of the users of these services. We would have wished that all the Wellington regional councillors had taken the opportunity to engage directly with the public on this important issue.

Our Civic Trust interest is in how the proposed network would help make Wellington the best of all possible places to live and work. We welcome initiatives that promote greater use of public transport because it:

• reduces traffic and pressure on road widening at the expense of other land uses,
• increases the attractiveness of the CBD by letting more people get there, and
• helps induce the urban vitality and people-based activities which make up the character of the city,

We support the concept of a core service network, giving those routes a sense of permanence and encouraging transit-oriented development, and we note the other benefits that the review proposal is expected to generate.

We would like to comment on the following particular aspects:

The Golden Mile and the CBD

Bus congestion along the Golden Mile is a significant issue, and one of the ways of addressing this would be to remove some routes to other roads. While this could improve the situation, GW needs to work with Wellington City Council to safeguard the benefits of concentrating all public transport along the Golden Mile, in that it creates an easy link between every suburb and every CBD business, giving a strategic advantage for Wellington city and region. To help protect this, other ways of alleviating bus congestion also need to be considered, such as:

• reducing dwell times, e.g. by off-bus ticketing and all-door boarding and alighting,
• removing 9 of the 15 traffic lights (pedestrian crossings are only necessary because of cars on the Golden Mile and bus drivers do not leave gaps between buses when stopped),
• giving buses priority at the remaining traffic lights,
• closing side streets (e.g. Mercer Street could become like Grey Street), and
• removing private cars from single-lane sections such as Willis St northbound.

The principle that we understand is used in Zurich – that the only time buses and trams stop is for passengers to board and alight – would be a good one to introduce.

If some services are to be transferred to The Terrace, all pedestrian links between The Terrace and the Golden Mile need to be identified and upgraded, and links through buildings checked to ensure that they comply with any relevant resource consent conditions (e.g. 24-hour safe access and signage). These links would be vital to ensure the viability of any re-routing, and we would like assurance that the routing is feasible both operationally and from a passenger access point of view.

We view the proposed peak-hour routing along the quays with some concern, both in principle and in detail. It seems to have the following disadvantages:

1. it uses roads that are already heavily congested at peak time;
2. it is along the very edge of the CBD, maximising walking distance;
3. having bus stops on the far side of the multi-lane Jervois and Customhouse Quays, difficult and very slow to cross, may create significant safety risks with people in a hurry to catch their bus;
4. having to choose between a short walk to a frequent regular bus and a longer walk to a faster (perhaps) but less frequent peak-only bus may well create a barrier to bus usage.
5. putting extra traffic along the quays conflicts with the Wellington City Council’s objective of improving pedestrian access across the quays to the waterfront.

While not perfect, the routing proposed in the consultants’ report seems to be better in most of these respects than the route in the consultation document, but we wonder whether the cure would still be worse than the disease.

The trolleybus network

We note that trolleybus wiring should not stand in the way of an optimum transport network, but we have concerns about substituting diesel buses for electric ones. The environmental and health effects of extra diesel bus operation along The Terrace, and of the withdrawal of trolleybuses from Taranaki St, Constable St and suburban routes are important issues, and we urge that wiring the gaps on proposed Route C along The Terrace and Ghuznee St and through Miramar Cutting be pursued as a matter of some urgency.

To help with the provision of new wiring, we suggest that the question of ownership of the trolleybus overhead be examined carefully, with a view to rationalising the current arrangements.

Proposed interchanges

An essential feature of the proposed network is that the interchanges operate effectively. This means emphasis on:

• the physical environment (comfort, convenience, accessibility and safety);
• the duration of wait;
• the quality and immediacy of information;
• passenger-focused operating practices;
• effective bus priority to ensure that timed connections are met;
• having no financial penalty for interchange, irrespective of mode or operator.

Free transfers are long overdue: it is notable that Wellington is the only city in the region that does not already have this facility between services run by the same operator. Extending this concept to all transfers, regardless of mode or operator, will be an important step.

Relationships with the WCC Johnsonville–CBD–Kilbirnie Growth Spine and the GWRC/WCC/NZTA high-quality public transport spine

It is not clear how well the review relates to these two “spines”. The growth spine requires a seamless high-quality public transport route between Johnsonville and Kilbirnie, and the public transport spine similarly between Wellington Station and Wellington Hospital. This review does not appear to deliver on the former, and may well be overtaken by proposals resulting from the latter. We suggest a co-ordinated approach between the three parties to ensure that the three projects are aligned.

Alan Smith, Chairman

From the Christchurch Civic Trust:

Online Petition: Stop the destruction of Christchurch heritage buildings

Wholesale destruction continues. The former Sydenham Post Office: demolished. Only 2 or 3 historic / heritage buildings left on Colombo St, Sydenham: unbelievable! Christ Church Cathedral could be demolished in part or full: unthinkable! The owner of the former Chief Post Office in the Square wants to demolish. The former Christchurch Railway Station is still under threat. 

That icon of modernism, the Christchurch Town Hall, could be demolished: inconceivable! We know the signature total reached in the next week or two, including Christchurch Civic Trust hard copy versions, will have an impact. We would really appreciate your renewing / extending any contacts to increase the online total. Each signing sends the petition letter to the Minister of Earthquake Recovery, Gerry Brownlee; Roger Sutton, Cera CEO; Cera demolitions & communications managers & the Minister of Arts, Heritage & Culture. We really appreciate your powerful & heartfelt comments! A very sincere thankyou for your wonderful support from Christchurch heritage groups, IConIC and ChristchurchCivic Trust and a very sincere personal thankyou.If you have not signed the Stop Heritage Destruction petition, or have contacts you think would sign, please use the link above. We are trying to raise our grand total of signatures (currrently at about 1500) as high as possible. It is very encouraging to read many wonderful comments from around the world on the change.org site.

The Wellington Civic Trust has told the Wellington Regional Council to think again. It has asked the council to withdraw its support for the flyover alongside the Basin Reserve, and the other roading plans being pushed on to Wellington by the NZ Transport Agency.

The Trust says the roading issue is of great significance to the city and the region. It challenges the council’s belief that the subject lacks sufficient “significance.”

Read the rest of the story on Scoop.co.nz

1. The draft before you is about the July 2011 NZTA “Public engagement” scheme. They’ve made available the public feedback about it to inform Council’s submission. We’re heartened by that, it’s what your press statement of July 4th committed to; it’s worth noting in the submission itself.
2. One of those 2000+ giving feedback was us, the Civic Trust. We said then that NZTA billed its scheme as “an improvement for a successful capital city” and our stance then and now is made in this light. 
3. The scheme is presented as “all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it, no-cost-to-council”. Your draft prefers option A, what the Dominion Post editorial last Saturday 1 October 2011 called “the cheapest option”.
4. We all know the realpolitik – NZTA will just press on regardless of Council’s view. Or the scheme might be scrapped in wider cost-cutting, or to switch funds to Christchurch, and blamed on you as an excuse. So Council might just as well take the long-term view and not be framed just by cheapest option factors. So:
5. The environmental factors are covered by your Climate Change item you are dealing with later on in this meeting. You’ll ensure that both are in synch with each other – no silo thinking here?
6. Starting from the airport end: for Ruahine St and Wellington Rd, the 2008 Ngauranga to Airport Corridor Plan agrees on four lanes. Your draft #8.6 seems also to prefer this over NZTA’s planned 6-8 lanes, but its wording is too coy –worth strengthening. Likewise #10.2.2 about the Pedestrian and cycle lane – again your wording is too coy. These uses needed to be differentiated. Work on this part of the scheme is not intended to start until Transmission Gully is completed, in say 2021. The Council officers’ report #5.12 recommends against seeking to speed this up. By then totally new trends in road use may be clear, and these eastern works may not need this scale.  So we urge taihoa on any “interim improvements” due to start in 2014/5 (see #4 5th para of the officers’ report) because of the risk of these morphing by scope creep– you know, the way these “interim works” tend to do.
7. On Buckle St factors: the War Memorial park is considered solely as a highway cost. NZTA tell us they can’t spend on anything which does not have a transport benefit. So the Memorial Park is reduced to roadside landscaping. The Parks’ functions are well described in #4 of your draft submission, where #4.3. is at odds with the cheapest option. The Architectural Centre’s Option X deserves at least a mention – you can’t just pretend it isn’t on the table. Your officers’ report #5.3 last 2 paras says that such tunnel options are “unaffordable in the context of the current land transport programme”. A big plus is the Memorial Park which obviously isn’t a transport function – but responsibility for it has been passed to the transport agency! That itself is worth challenge by council. Instead of a memorial worthy of its deep values, we get a park divided by a multi-lane highway. Here’s what we said to NZTA in our July submission: “Both State Highway One and the National War Memorial are Crown assets; it is a reasonable citizen expectation that decisions about a matter affecting both would be made in a “joined-up” way, and not as implied here by expecting some transport benefit, whatever benefit cost numbers are used. The War Memorial Park is a policy decision in its own right.  It would also have transport benefits if it were made by a tunnel for SH 1. The Civic Trust believes that the decision to transfer responsibility for creating it to the state’s roading agency is both insulting to the war dead and unrealistic for NZTA to achieve”. Now you might say “that’s nothing to do with us”. Yes it is. You as civic leaders will be standing there on April 25th 2015 and will want to feel proud of what the city’s achieved over those 100 years since ANZAC. And the Memorial Park is not just a Gallipoli thing. It commemorates the dead of all wars past, present and future. It could be achieved for a small fraction of the cost of all wars since the Carillon was built.
8. On Vivian St factors: #5.6. in your draft notes “once the 2nd tunnel is built there will be no future opportunity to increase capacity from Hataitai to City”. There is no comment about the continuation of half the route west of Mt Victoria continuing to run along a CBD street laid out in the 1840s (Vivian St). Is this really what council wants? It hardly sounds like a real road of national significance.
9. On Flyover factors: The Dominion Post Editorial on Saturday October 1st said: “NZTA will also fund the $11m grandstand.” Your draft supports Option A with “significant mitigation”. You should specify Grandstand if that is what you mean. The new road would be a 380m long curved bridge – it’s an elevated highway really, so any mitigation would need to be around 15m higher still to block out the cricket ground. It might be cheapest, but it sounds like ugliest too.
10. This isn’t just about transport – it’s about what you want the shape of our city to be. So, based on you draft submission, the Scenario in 2040 would be:

• SH1 via Karo Drive and Vivian St. with traffic lights etc as now.
• 380m long bridge of boring design over Kent/Cambridge.
• No War Memorial Park beyond a bit of roadside landscaping.
• Wide 60 k/h highway through Hataitai reducing Town Belt size.

Alan Smith, Chairman

The Trust agrees with the main finding of the report — that the framework is fit for purpose. The Trust has never understood why the Council would wish to disturb a set of objectives and principles which were the product of a consultative and collaborative process and which had successfully established benchmarks for evaluating specific proposals. 

However, we are pleased that the opportunity was taken to go beyond a simple answer to a simple question about the utility of the Framework and find out what the general public, through the use of focus groups, and the special interest groups, through interviews, thought about the health of the project. The Trust was also pleased to be invited to participate.Unfortunately our pleasure was short-lived. The views of Waterfront Watch, Architectural Centre and the Wellington Civic Trust have been condensed into five lines of typed comment in the feedback report. Those interviews would have involved some three hours of detailed questions to, and comments from, the three organisations. All you are told is that their views largely mirror “those of the public focus groups.”

Anyone who knows the views of the three interest groups selected for interview will be aware they are not as one on, for instance, the balance between new construction and open space.

The only way in which the disparate views of those organisations can be said to accord with the views of the focus groups is if the latter’s views are so imprecisely expressed as to be made to fit any interpretation. The report achieves that dubious purpose.

In the third paragraph of section 6 of the report the focus groups were said to:

like the current balance of built form and open space and would like this to continue to the northern part of the waterfront which desperately needs improving

‘Desperately’ is a strange word to use in that context and what is meant by ‘the current balance of built form’? As you will know the current balance of built form does not involve the three buildings proposed for North Kumutoto, the construction of which is dependent both on the approval of Variation 11 and finding developers. Neither does the current balance include the three buildings which were proposed for Waitangi Park.

If the focus groups are saying ‘we like the waterfront as it is — do no more new building’ – then Waterfront Watch will be well pleased. But the organisation I represent would not. We believe that building on sites 9 and 10 at North Kumutoto is justified and, irrespective of design considerations, probably necessary to avoid the ratepayer being presented with a very large bill.

But we do not really know what the public thinks. Maybe they would rather pay than lose public open space to more buildings. This exercise had the opportunity to help clarify that issue – on the basis of the feedback report it has served only to confuse it.

I quote from my notes which I used for the meeting with Litmus (a copy of which I left with them):

The issue is not no new buildings, but rather the balance between buildings and open space and the height and mass of new buildings. Framework is still sound on this, but WWL and Council need a better indication of how the public want those principles interpreted especially at Kumutoto and Waitangi.

We are particularly concerned about the Waitangi Park sites. We know that neither of the two public-use buildings, the UN Studio and Wardle Architects designs, will now go ahead. So what is proposed for those sites? What process is proposed for reconsidering future use? How will the public be involved?

The Trust believes that the Council should make constructive use of the current market conditions to thoroughly review its options for Waitangi. There should be a public discussion.

In contrast to the sparse and inadequate feedback from the public, the report devotes a full page to the views of TAG. We endorse much of what TAG has to say. We especially welcome the comments on public access to ground floors. In our discussions with Litmus we suggested that somebody, the waterfront company and/or the building owners, had misread the market in terms of appropriate rentals, particularly in respect of the Chaffers Dock ground floor. We assume that any waterfront space would be rentable at a price.

If the Council determines to build another seven or so new buildings on the waterfront, it will need to find a way to deal with this problem. We think you will be disappointed if you pin your hopes on better access from the CBD. A test will be provided by the rebuilt Overseas Passenger Terminal. Ground floor space on a long finger wharf, well away from established foot traffic, is not a formula for the designers’ much-beloved active edges.

TAG’s final comment is a lament that whereas lucky Auckland does not have to bother about what its citizens want on their waterfront, in Wellington consents have to be notified and people may derail a developer’s best laid plans by objecting and then appealing. The Trust opposed Variation 11, because we thought it provocative and unnecessary – the same certainty for developers could have been achieved if sites were marketed with consents already attached. Indeed that approach had been recommended to this committee by officers in December 2008. On the other hand the Variation process achieves much the same opportunity to object and appeal and Waterfront Watch and others have done so. What surprises the Trust about Variation 11, is that what was seen as a matter of great urgency in 2009, now ambles along the hidden paths of mediation.

I draw the committee’s attention to a comment in the third paragraph of section 6 of your report:

Whatever decisions are made must be taken with extreme caution and very careful consideration as we have got it wrong a few times, for example Queens Wharf.

That is a perceptive comment. If we have now a project which largely meets the expectations of the public (and we all deserve some credit for that), we did not get there by rushing into building 31 storey towers, or hotels with problems of access, or by shifting heritage buildings around the wharf as if they were chess pieces. We did it by allowing for second thoughts, by acknowledging that a place for people can only be created by listening to people. That might not be the way they do it in Auckland, but so far at least we in Wellington are not encumbered by a local government structure that inhibits public engagement. Our disappointment with the Litmus exercise, as reported, is that this opportunity to engage was not as productive as it should have been.

Peter Brooks
Peter.brooks@xtra.co.nz / Ph: 479 6812
Convenor Waterfront Issues
Wellington Civic Trust

This is our submission on the Town Belt Guiding Principles (public consultation closing 9 September 2011). It is of enduring interest to us, and we wish to be heard in any oral submissions process on this consultation.

Overriding paramount principles

1. Firstly, the Wellington Civic Trust (the Trust) recommends to Council that there be overriding paramount principles.  The foremost of these would be that the Town Belt is to be accorded a mana and a sanctity that place it supremely above all other public reserve and recreation areas.  The other overriding principle would be that each generation of Wellington Councillors and citizens honour the responsibility of protecting and enhancing the Town Belt as open recreational space for future generations in perpetuity. This is not just another park. 

 Legislative review

2. Curiously, the explanatory booklet lacks any context or commentary for the legislative part of the proposed review.
3. The Trust believes that it would be more enlightening for the public of Wellington to have from Council an outline of the legislative changes that will be sought. Preferably timing for such disclosure would be before the guiding principles are adopted and before the review of the management plan.  This will enable all participants to comprehend the end game before detailed consultations commence.
4. Of primary importance is for the amending legislation to establish a legal process for returning original Town Belt land back to Town Belt status enjoying statutory protection as well as the protections bestowed by the 1873 Trust Deed.  Rather than requiring amending legislation as at present, provision could be made for returning land to be mandated by an Order in Council on the joint recommendation of the Mayor and City Councillors as Trustees and of the Minister of Conservation.  Removal of Town Belt land on the other hand  should require amending legislation.
5. The broad intent of the 1873 Trust Deed needs to be upheld: that it is a public recreation ground available as open space to all, at all times, in perpetuity. The legislation should make reference to the original ideals enunciated when the Town Belt was established in 1839.
6. The temptation to expand the definition of ‘recreation’ needs to be resisted.  Instead, consideration could be given to spelling out those activities that are not compatible with the ideal of universal accessibility.  For example, these could include educational institutions, commercial ventures, and allotment gardens.  It is the Trust’s view that any widening of the interpretation of ‘recreation’ has the potential to seriously and perhaps permanently undermine the integrity of the Town Belt.
7. Another feature that the Trust would like to see in the amending legislation is formal status being accorded to the position of Town Belt Curator.  The statute could require the Mayor and Councillors as Trustees to appoint a senior officer with experience in the management of parks and reserves.  This would help ensure that the Town Belt is perceived by Council officers and by the public as having a status unique from other reserve lands.  It would also assist in establishing clear lines of responsibility.
8. Submissions for improvements to the wording of the proposed Principles, plus some explanatory comment, follow.

Principle 1

Proposed wording in Council’s brochure

There will always be a Town Belt in Wellington

Suggested changes

The Trust recommends that the wording of this guiding principle be changed to read as follows:

There will always be the Town Belt in Wellington, held in trust for the citizens of Wellington in perpetuity.

It needs to be emphasised that there will always be the Town Belt, not ‘a Town Belt’ and that the boundaries be defined as those established in 1840 by William Mein-Smith. Confining the term ‘Town Belt’ to the original intention gives that part of the city an historic and legal identity that sets it apart from all else and gives it a unique status.  It also acknowledges that over time areas have been alienated and that every opportunity should be taken to restore those areas to the Town Belt.

Principle 2

Proposed wording in Council’s brochure

The Council will work in partnership with mana whenua to manage the Town Belt

Suggested changes

The Trust recommends that the following wording be adopted for this principle:

The Council will work in partnership with mana whenua and will acknowledge the value of the Town Belt to Wellington by actively consulting with other guardian groups in the community that have maintained a long-lasting commitment to protecting and managing the Town Belt.

Principle 3

Proposed wording in Council’s brochure

 The Town Belt’s natural character will be protected and enhanced

Suggested changes

We suggest that the wording be changed to read:

The Town Belt’s natural character of open space and visual beauty will be protected and enhanced.

Principle 4

Proposed wording in Council’s brochure

The Town Belt is for all to enjoy

Suggested changes

The Trust suggests that this principle be more comprehensively defined, and read as follows:

The Town Belt is for all to enjoy and is to be freely accessible at all times.  To this end buildings and carparks will be kept to a minimum and over time be Council owned and operated as multi-purpose facilities available to a wide variety of recreational groups.

The Civic Trust favours a gradual change in the ownership and control of buildings on the Town Belt.  Exclusive use by individual clubs should over time be set aside and succeeded by multipurpose facilities that can be pre-booked by a wide variety of recreational groups.  The Council would then have more freedom to influence higher standards of building design and of maintenance.

Principle 5

Proposed wording in Council’s brochure

The Town Belt will be used for a wide range of recreational activities

Suggested changes

It is suggested that this principle be changed to read as follows: 

The Town Belt will be primarily used for casual and organised outdoor recreation activities, without compromising its natural character. 

The definition of ‘recreation activities’ is the linchpin to this whole exercise.  It is recommended that a very constrictive approach be taken to defining what constitutes recreation.

Definitely to be excluded are any educational facilities. These invariably involve either Government funding or commercial interests, and would inevitably lead to Town Belt land being sequestered by specific interests.

Another concern is the idea of creating recreational hubs.  There is the risk of these being regarded as areas for more buildings with sporting codes pressing for exclusive use.

Principle 6

Proposed wording in Council’s brochure

Management of the Town Belt will acknowledge historical and cultural links to the land

Suggested changes

We suggest the wording be as follows:

The Town Belt is to be celebrated for its longstanding historical cultural importance to Maori and to Pakeha alike.

The Civic Trust is wholly supportive of greater emphasis being given to pre- and post-European history and settlement and is keen to see greater balance in relating the history of both cultures.

Why the Wellington Civic Trust is making a submission

1. The Wellington Civic Trust has as its first object “to promote a civic environment whereby the City of Wellington, its surroundings, and its adjacent countryside and coastline become a resource for the use, benefit and enjoyment of all Wellington citizens.” (Constitution and rules, Objects, Clause 4 (a)) The NZTA proposals are billed as “improvements for a successful capital city.”  We have therefore approached this project in that light.  Would it promote that object set out in our constitution and in so doing would it make this capital city more successful?

 Public engagement

2. The Trust understands from NZTA workshops that this is not “consultation” on the Cobham Drive – Buckle St. SH 1 proposals in the statutory RMA sense, but “engagement” with the community on decisions already made.  SH 1 sections of the agreed 2008 Ngauranga-to-Airport Corridor Strategy (N2A) have been lifted out and given Roads of National Significance (RoNS) status because of their place in “a transport system that supports the growth of our country’s economy to deliver greater prosperity, security and opportunities for all New Zealanders”, and funded as a priority ahead of that agreed in N2A.
3. A basic tenet of the Trust’s work is that decisions affecting our city and our citizens must involve those affected. There have to be ways whereby they not only have their say, but have a real chance to affect outcomes.  These SH1 plans are presented as an “all or nothing, take it or leave it, no cost to the city” package.  If this is not the best solution then there is a cost to the city and in the absence of honest consultation it is very unlikely that the best solution will emerge.
4. The Trust convened a seminar on engineering projects in the Basin Reserve area (Round about the Basin, August 2009).  It brought together a wide range of experts, including those who had expert experience of living in the communities likely to be affected.  The major outcome was a request to the authorities “…to establish a joint working group, which would include community representatives , which would have access to all relevant information concerning options for the development of the transport spine.” (Round About the Basin, proceedings of the Wellington Civic Trust seminar, 8/8/09)
5. NZTA was asked following the seminar to establish structures and procedures to enable community representatives to have full access to options for the project.  On 22 September 2009 the Trust was advised by NZTA that they intended to establish a Community Connect Group and that engagement would begin in early October that year.  The group was not established. What has now emerged is not the result of such engagement. Faith in the process and support for the outcome has suffered and a weary cynicism is growing.

Assessment of need

6. We acknowledge that it is government’s responsibility to provide the highway infrastructure required to meet future needs. But what is that assessment and on what criteria and assumptions are they based?
7. The RoNS strategy has a clear economic objective.  It is one of the chosen tools to lever up economic productivity.  The published benefit cost numbers would suggest that it is an ill-chosen instrument and that it will result in a misallocation of scarce capital.
8. The Trust accepts that the city’s population will expand, and that Kilbirnie and Newtown may (through intensification) increase at an above average rate.  There are other factors working in the opposite direction. Recent figures show that vehicle use has plateaued, presumably as a response to higher vehicle running costs.  All the signs are that such costs will escalate at a rate well above normal price rises as the impact of peak oil and carbon reduction policies take effect.
9. Moreover, as long as sufficient funds are put into public transport development private vehicle commuter travel will become increasingly less attractive. The N2A-agreed high quality public transport spine study has now begun, for completion next year. This will provide a much better basis for evaluating public transport’s ability to take a load off SH1s capacity to serve the eastern suburbs and how best to meet the conflicts between north-south and east-west traffic flows, while still safeguarding the integrity and values of the Basin Reserve.
10. There is no indication that NZTA has taken the above factors into consideration in its assessment of need for large increases in road capacity, yet they are very relevant.

 The NZTA overbridge proposal

11. Having expressed our misgivings on the accuracy of its assessments of those needs, we seek to limit the harmful impact of the intended work on our city.
12. The Trust has no view on whether overbridge option A or B is better. As presented, both structures violate the urban design qualities of the area.  The workshops made it clear that an “iconic” design was explicitly rejected.  That does not dismay us because we cannot conceive that an obtrusive overbridge cutting through the structured sightlines of the two terraces (identified for enhancement under Smart Green Wellington) could ever improve the presentation of this part of the cityscape.

Second Mt Victoria tunnel

13. Whatever solution is decided for Basin Reserve traffic, no commitment need be made to the second Mt Victoria Tunnel or to the major upgrading of Ruahine St. and Wellington Rd until the effects of improved traffic flows at the Basin Reserve are evaluated. To that end an undertaking should be given that resource consent applications for those works would not be sought unless and until that evaluation proved the need – the point agreed by all N2A participants. N2A agreed that there would be 4 lanes: that has grown in the current plans to up to 8 lanes, with large earthworks to lower and ease the corner where Ruahine St and Wellington Rd. meet, so that traffic can flow though at 60kph. The real transport benefit of this is questionable (unless it is to accommodate even longer and heavier trucks than at present) and hardly desirable in a suburban residential area. There is a risk of “interim improvements” from 2014 morphing to a scale which presupposes the up-to-8-lanes solution on which work is not (according to the “public engagement” material) scheduled to begin until 2023, or thereabouts, after Transmission Gully has been completed.  By then a totally different trend in road use may be apparent. These eastern works may not be necessary on the scale presented in 2011 and public money can be used on more productive national projects.

Other options

14. An earlier Option F, with northbound SH1 in a tunnel from Dufferin St to achieve grade separation under Kent and Cambridge Terraces, was ruled out by NZTA before the “public engagement” because of cost, despite its urban design (i.e. its impact on the surrounding city, as distinct from its vehicle movement function) being clearly superior. NZTA’s December 2010 War Memorial Tunnel Scoping Report notes (p.5) that “if it was decided that the preferred option for the Basin Reserve was to provide a tunnel around the Basin to avoid the visual impacts of elevated structures, then it would be necessary to construct the war memorial tunnel”.
15. The “Option X” produced by the Architectural Centre at the time of the July workshops has attracted a lot of public attention and support, and deservedly so. In terms of producing a quality urban environment it is far superior to the NZTA model. We do not have the expertise to assess its traffic engineering merits and we are concerned that the inevitable extra costs involved would amount to a further diversion of funding from public transport.  Nevertheless, such an innovative and environmentally attractive proposal demands attention not only from the general public, but also from the governing authorities, national, regional and city.

War Memorial Park

16. The Architectural Centre’s option also has the great merit of providing a War Memorial Park worthy of the name.  The NZTA’s project is essentially a roading project which makes a gesture to meeting another public policy objective, the memorial park. But that gesture is a futile one.  Instead of providing a memorial worthy of the deep values such a park has to express, we get a park divided by a multi-laned highway.  It is an appalling example of a facility which should express national values being distorted and degraded by “silo policy-making.”
17. The NZTA cannot fund a required War Memorial Park because such a park would have no transport benefits.  But it can, it seems from unrefuted media reports, fund a quite superfluous grandstand which would do nothing to ease the flow of traffic, but which might do something to stem potential criticism from a certain quarter.
18. Both SH 1 and the War Memorial are Crown assets; it is a reasonable citizen expectation that decisions about a matter affecting both would be made in a “joined-up” way, and not as implied here by expecting some transport benefit, whatever benefit cost numbers are used. The War Memorial Park is a policy decision in its own right and one which we believe has wide support.  It would also seem to have transport benefits if it were achieved by a tunnel for SH 1. The Civic Trust believes that the decision to transfer responsibility for creating the National War Memorial Park to the state’s roading agency is both insulting to the war dead and unrealistic for NZTA to achieve.

Conclusion

19. The move from private transport to public transport is likely to be a key agent for change for the city over the next thirty years.  A major shift from providing for the needs of private vehicular traffic to one of investment in public transport, taken gradually over many years and working in sympathy with national pricing signals would produce levels of economic and social benefit not achievable by NZTA’s SH1 project.  That would be an investment strategy for the coming decades when the nation will be forced to face the consequences of climate change and the demands of a low carbon economy. The Cobham Drive to Buckle Street project as presented is an anachronistic imposition on the city and irrelevant to our present and future needs.  NZTA needs to go back to the N2A drawing board and it needs to take the public with them.

Alan Smith
Chairmam