To launch the new Figure.NZ feature on the Spinoff, here’s how New Zealand’s biggest city has increased in population, and how it is projected to increase further. To completely disabuse readers of any impression that the Spinoff is Auckland-centric and fixated on the city’s growth, we’ve chosen for the inaugural installment of our new collaboration … Read more
Which of the mayoral candidates have the most effective hoardings, and what hidden meanings do they reveal? The Spinoff’s chief billboard semiotics correspondent, Toby Manhire, reports. It’s just like Christmas but without anything remotely joyful. All across the country, the mugs of the brave individuals hoping to represent their communities in local body politics have … Read more
Deputy mayor and Unitary Plan hero Penny Hulse has told the Spinoff she is ‘vaguely uninspired’ by the candidates for the Auckland mayoralty, saying she’s waiting to hear some ‘genuine vision’. It is an irrefutable fact that the most exciting things to happen in the Auckland mayoralty race so far have been: first, the bizarro … Read more
In the third Earth-shattering installment of The Spinoff’s recently renamed Warcast, we talk to Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse about the Unitary Plan, the disappointing Auckland mayoral candidates, and why she got upset with Mayor Len Brown. She should have been sleeping off a hangover after finally, incredibly, passing the Unitary Plan. Instead, newly minted teetotaller Penny Hulse got up … Read more
In a shocking twist, mild-mannered economist Shamubeel Eaqub has taken a break from calling bullshit to call “good shit” on Auckland Council for passing the Unitary Plan. We thought it would be so hard. Just a few months ago, dozens of people trundled into Auckland Town Hall to yell insults at anyone who’d ever had a positive … Read more
Hallelujah! The Auckland Council has signed off the Unitary Plan, the crucial rulebook for the city’s future. But there remains plenty to fight for, write Hayden Donnell and Toby Manhire The biggest battle of the War for Auckland has been won with barely a teaspoon of blood spilled. In a stunning, gravity defying moment the … Read more
The new rulebook for Auckland development is almost certain to be approved by Council today. It means a final goodbye to the half-gallon, quarter-acre, pavlova paradise, and that’s a good thing, writes Leonie Freeman, former general manager of Housing New Zealand. Make an acronym of Unitary Plan and you get UP. That’s apt: the adoption … Read more
As the otherwise excellent Unitary Plan speeds to a near-inevitable passage today, one part of it remains both intact and very problematic. Dr Hirini Kaa reflected on the abandonment of the mana whenua provisions in a superb essay for e-tangata yesterday, which they have kindly allowed us to republish on The Spinoff. I’ve grown up in Auckland. I … Read more
Auckland’s housing issues won’t be solved by short term fixes to deep rooted problems. The government and Council needs to stop the blame game and start working together, says property expert Leonie Freeman. Faced with a crisis, we tend to focus on finding the silver bullet to deal to it. Usually without success, silver bullets … Read more
Achieving a better, fairer Auckland involves much more than just building affordable homes. Urbanist Jenny McArthur explains why liveability should be a key demand of the War for Auckland. As an academic specialising in infrastructure and urban growth, I’ve been delighted by how The Spinoff’s War for Auckland series has helped stimulate the public’s interest … Read more
Hayden Donnell heads out to the leafy suburbs, to see how the new Unitary Plan is being received by those who were so furious about it earlier this year. He found them oddly becalmed. Well, most of them. Last time I saw the residents of Kohimarama, Mission Bay and Glendowie, they were yelling angrily at the … Read more
The Unitary Plan debate is long and complex. Even the councillors sometimes look like they’re wishing for death. But it’s incredibly important. Thankfully, Niko Elsen of Generation Zero has put together a list of the reasons why the plan should pass, in GIF form. The final skirmish in the five-year Unitary Plan battle is underway … Read more
A shock hero has risen up at the Unitary Plan hearings. Hayden Donnell spent the day watching the drama unfold. Today’s Unitary Plan hearing was held in a parallel universe. Up was down. Right was left. A group of elderly people were wearing warpaint – though it turned out they were environmental campaigners, not furious Boomers defending their land. There are … Read more
The Spinoff presents a beautiful way to see what the new rulebook provides for your street, neighbourhood, and the city as a whole The Spinoff’s War for Auckland bunker is shaking with excitement today as we publish a bold and beautiful bunch of accessible, zoomable maps to illustrate the Unitary Plan. Using data sets provided … Read more
A thoroughly snackable summary of the late changes to Auckland’s doorstop rulebook being sought by the wonks at the Auckland Council The dizzying dramedy of the Unitary Plan has spun through one last plot twist before it lands in front of the ladies and gentlemen of the Auckland Council this morning. The council planning wonks have … Read more
Who smashes their opponents with the biggest plan amendments? Who has the most insanely sensible policy platforms? Who has a sixth sense when it comes to acing urban planning? We dusted off the Spinoff’s loyal and 100% objective format to appraise the 20 councillors and mayor – elected by just 34% of eligible voters – … Read more
In the second scorching installment of the Spinoff’s War For Auckland podcast, we discuss the political responses to the revised Unitary Plan and take bets on whether the Auckland Council will vote it through The adorable old labrador we call the Unitary Plan moves closer to maturity on Wednesday this week as it arrives before … Read more
Amazing political news: a grand coalition was brokered on the Unitary Plan. You just might have missed it because it was signed off in the witching hour on Prime TV. August 3, 2016: the day peace broke out in New Zealand politics. After decades of bickering, sniping, and releasing lists of questions no-one will answer, our … Read more
As Auckland contemplates a future of greater housing density with more crowded suburbs and schools, there’s an extreme, low-rise example happening in three of its suburbs. Tim Murphy spent some time in Tāmaki and listened to the man pulling it apart. Auckland’s biggest housing project, the Tāmaki Regeneration, is something to behold. It is on … Read more
Thousands of ordinary homeowners in Auckland’s affluent suburbs are about to be torn from their historic homes, which will be forcibly demolished. That’s the impression you’d get from a string of stories published under a particular byline, at least. Take, for example, this morning’s scaremongering codswallop … In some of the wealthy suburbs of New … Read more
Green MP and planning geek Julie Anne Genter reacts to the Unitary Plan – and announces a four-step programme to radically evolve our urban environment into the future. I love city planning – I’m a planning geek. So it’s pretty cool seeing people get excited about the Auckland Unitary Plan. The actual document might be … Read more
After being elected unopposed at the last election, councillors Dick Quax and Sharon Stewart finally have some opposition in Howick. Councillor Dick Quax and his ally Sharon Stewart were elected unopposed in the Howick ward last election. That’s a shame, because Quax is what would happen if you put skin and a moustache on an … Read more
Enough heeding a small group of angry residents, time to listen to the experts. That was the message yesterday at the launch of the pro-Unitary-Plan campaign group Coalition for More Homes, writes Tim Murphy. The rowdy hordes have had their say on the Unitary Plan. Now it’s time for the experts. So says the prosaically … Read more
Jazial Crossley grew up in Auckland in the ’80s, the daughter of a teenage solo mother who spent her early years on the DPB. In this essay for the War for Auckland project, she describes her childhood, and wonders what might have happened to her had she been born today. When I was growing up … Read more
Labour says the Unitary Plan won’t provide affordable housing. Our mild-mannered economist Shamubeel Eaqub says that ignores the basics of supply and demand. People are getting worried the new Unitary Plan won’t provide enough affordable housing. Modelling done for the Independent Hearings Panel that authored the plan appears to show only 15% of the 247,000 new … Read more
A group calling itself ‘The Coalition for More Homes’ emerged this morning, bringing yet more pressure on the Auckland Council to pass the Unitary Plan. This morning The Spinoff received an email from a group calling itself ‘The Coalition for More Homes’, demanding, essentially, more homes. What’s interesting and significant about the group is its … Read more
Introducing The War For Auckland podcast, where we discuss the Unitary Plan, the local body elections, and other incredibly interesting topics. This week we are literally accompanied by the sounds of Auckland being constructed as the Spinoff’s senior pet correspondent Hayden Donnell and political editor Toby Manhire talk to former Housing New Zealand head of development Leonie Freeman and … Read more
Today we introduce a new series, ‘Shamubeel calls Bullshit’, in which prominent economist Shamubeel Eaqub swears at people who say moronic things about the Unitary Plan, the housing crisis, and the local body elections. Shamubeel Eaqub isn’t given to fits of rage. But even the most self-controlled economist can be driven mad by a bombardment of bad opinions, and the Unitary Plan debate … Read more
Attempts to have Māori Statutory Board members excluded from the vote on the Unitary Plan called for a proper Mayor in the Chair. So up stepped Len Brown. Tim Murphy watches a critical chapter of council squabbling Have we just witnessed Len’s Last Stand? One day after the Unitary Plan landed back in the Auckland … Read more