The Productivity Commission has released their draft report
on Better Urban Planning[1]. This
report follows their earlier investigations into Affordable Housing and Land for
Housing. Reading the Better Urban Planning report, you get the feeling that the
Commission is running out of puff. Not surprising given that the three
investigations cover much the same ground. Has one profession ever received so
much attention in such a short time span? On the positive side, the number of
investigations does suggest that what planners (and communities) do does make a
difference, even if that difference may not always be what some people might
hope it to be.
The response of the Government to the Commission's other two
investigations does not inspire confidence that much will happen in response to
the current investigation. In reply to the Land for Housing report - which
identified 70 recommendations - the Government recently issued a press release[2] saying
that they were doing three things: - The development of a National Policy Statement on Urban Development Capacity (NPS) which will require local councils to ensure land supply for housing keeps ahead of population and economic growth. A draft was released in June 2016.
- The creation of the Housing Infrastructure Fund which will address constraints faced by high growth councils by providing access to finance for core infrastructure needed to unlock residential development.
- The development of urban development legislation for designated large-scale developments anywhere in New Zealand.
Apparently they are doing more than this, with a detailed
response to the Commission available on the Treasury web site[3].
Of course the proposed Urban Development Capacity NPS gets
the headline, as that requires someone other than the government to do
something. How you keep ahead of population growth when migration runs cold
then hot is not explained, apart from the obvious need to have lots of spare
capacity available 'just-in-case'.
The Land for Housing report had quite a bit to say about the
funding and taxing of urban growth and infrastructure in a way that would
support better urban planning, but what pops out is an interest free loan to
fund infrastructure. But that loan has to be paid back using current funding
tools that are generally recognised as not being very good. The bigger issue of the financial risks to
communities of providing for infrastructure in anticipation of growth (and the need to have on top of that heaps
of spare capacity available should things suddenly hot up), but that
growth not eventuating is not addressed.
The third action listed by the Government is a curious one.
The Land for Housing report (re)floated the idea of Urban Development Agencies
(UDAs) as being a helpful tool. This is not a new idea of course, with publicly
funded and run UDAs common in many countries. It was an idea that the fourth
Labour-led government toyed with. In the
Government's reply to the Commission's call for UDAs to have compulsory
acquisition powers and enhanced planning powers, the response kind of goes sideways
with the statement that "The
Government agrees that granting different powers, consenting processes and land
use rules to designated developments warrants further consideration. The
Government has directed officials to develop urban development legislation to
enable fast-track development of high quality, at-scale projects that meet
certain criteria".
So rather than public UDAs, it may be any 'designated' private development that gets the extra powers? But it has to be high quality.
So rather than public UDAs, it may be any 'designated' private development that gets the extra powers? But it has to be high quality.
That last qualifier - high quality - leads us back to the
current Better Urban Planning inquiry. In this blog I want to look at the
Commission's take on the rationale for planning. The investigation was supposed
to be a first principles review, and so what the Commission thinks the purpose
of planning is, is perhaps one of the more important matters it has reported on.
After looking across various ideas and principles, the
Commission made the following findings:
The three main and well-founded rationales for urban
planning are to:
- regulate negative spillovers when people build structures, work and live near each other;
- make decisions about the provision and funding of local public goods to best meet the needs of residents; and
- invest in and run local and regional infrastructure to provide essential services for local residents and businesses; and to coordinate different infrastructure investments with land development.
Hardly an exciting list, but then you get the feeling that
the purpose of the inquiry is to put planning 'back in its box'.
The Commission is not very clear as to why these are
'well-founded' rationales.
The first rationale to regulate negative spillover effects
is the classic economic rationale for planning and something most people would
agree with. The question is: what is a spillover? I have got no idea if Section
6 of the RMA fits into this category.
Elsewhere the Commission does refer to "environmental bottom
lines" as being an important aspect of any planning system, so maybe
Section 6 sits above or under or outside the urban planning realm. But then
maybe not. According to the Commission, heritage protection may be best
achieved by non-regulatory means as it is not really a spill-over; rather it is
a nice to have so we should pay for it rather than regulate for it. Are Outstanding Natural Landscapes a
spill-over matter?
But what about Crime Prevention Through Environmental
Design, to take a different example. This is a government initiative that seeks the
review of developments to improve public and private safety. Is that a
rationale for urban planning? Apparently not as it may lead to too much "spill-over"
behaviour from planners themselves, spilling over into non spill-over matters.
Then there is urban design - remember the Government's response
to the Land for Housing report saying that high quality developments should get
a helping hand -well urban design is not really spillover material either. In
fact it is another "spill-in" type matter as urban designers meddle
in non-spill-over matters The point that
urban design is a means of managing the spillover effects of intensification,
density and mixed uses (all those good things that create positive spillovers)
seems to have got lost.
The second rationale is core local body stuff, although the
report says 'make decisions about' local goods, not provide local goods. Is
there another door opening here in terms of greater 'contracting out' of local public
goods?
The third rationale is perhaps a step forward from a very
narrow interpretation of urban planning ("just stick to the externalities"). At
least it mentions co-ordination of different infrastructure investments with
land development. This implies at least
some role for the staging and sequencing of growth, but that is a tentative
conclusion at best. Again there is a useful list of recommendations relating to
infrastructure funding. But you get the feeling that like the previous reports,
these ideas will not progress very far.
What irks is that the Commission's 'three main and
well-founded rationales for urban planning' are such an impoverished view of
planning. They are the classic neo liberal take on the role of government,
roles which seem increasingly out of date with the challenges faced by 21st
century communities: Think climate change, rising inequality, natural hazards, growing
debt, the financialization of housing, demographic shifts, the impact of information
technology.
The benefits from thinking (and acting) in relation to the longer
term, of looking across social, economic and environmental factors, of having
reference to the distributional aspects of growth and development all get swept
away on the basis of planning being no more than spill-over control.
There seems to be a big irony here. The RMA was often seen
as a tool to keep planning focused on the spill-overs and no more. For 20 years
the arguments have raged that planning hasn't stuck to the house keeping as
intended; that urban planning should work within the neo-liberal paradigm of 'more market, less
government' . Finally a strong push over the last few years on the back of the
housing crises to clarify the purpose of planning to this end. But this push is
just as the world takes another turn and the gloss falls off the neo-liberal
agenda post the global financial crises.
I am not calling for a return to some sort of modernist,
Keynesian, post war approach to town and country planning; of new towns, greenbelts and bulldozing of whole suburbs in the name of regeneration . Urban planning has to find its feet in the new
world, and this includes being much more aware of market processes,
but I do not think the Commission has found that place to stand.
but I do not think the Commission has found that place to stand.
