Team NZ Threaten America's Cup Success
Yesterday was a good day for Auckland's waterfront. The perspective image above was available from MBIE's website. Part of a joint release from Minister David Parker and Auckland's Mayor Goff after...
View ArticleVolvo Event in Auckland's Waterfront without Fuss
This montage of pictures was taken at lunchtime on 1st March 2018. It shows the way the round-the-world Volvo yacht race is being hosted in Auckland's waterfront over period of about 4 weeks using...
View ArticleSubmission: Panuku's AC36 Syndicate Hosting Application
The following is my submission to the Panuku resource consent applications BUN60313877 and BUN60313923 for America’s Cup 36 Base Infrastructure and Event, and Fishing Fleet & Ferry Relocation...
View ArticleCrazy Prices: Home and Land in Perth
I attended the Planning Institute of Australia conference held in Perth 9th-11th of May 2018. In my role as Policy Adviser to NZ Planning Institute I've also been to the previous conferences held in...
View ArticleBad rap for Auckland public transport
I was following up an NZ Herald newslink, and stumbled across this World Economic Forum research into relative/comparative global city costs of commuting using public transport. It's apparently based...
View ArticleNew Orleans and Katrina
Visited New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. Stayed in French Quarter. Spent a couple of day trips exploring the area of New Orleans hardest hit by Katrina floods - known as Lower 9th. It's taken a...
View ArticleNew Orleans: French or Spanish?
I spent a wonderful week in New Orleans in May 2018. This posting reflects the little learning I picked up while there about the urban morphology of the French Quarter part of New Orleans in...
View ArticleTexas Property Files
During my recent trip to New Orleans I spent a week in Austin, Texas. There for music and culture and a bit of an explore. Prior to this trip I had attended the PIA planning conference in Perth where...
View ArticleDriverless Bus in Perth
Another field trip at the PIA (Planning Institute of Australia) conference held in May in Perth. This time to learn about Australia's first driverless electric shuttle. The Royal Autoclub of...
View ArticleMurals - Not Advertising Signage
Readers will be painfully aware of the visual pollution evident throughout Auckland streets - where there is commercial activity - because of our city's highly permissive rules on advertising and...
View ArticleMangawhai Interlude Pictures
It's been almost two years since my last post. Been distracted since going to New Orleans. Smelling the roses a bit more. However this COVID19 pandemic has got me thinking. In the meantime - a single...
View ArticleEssential Development Vs Shovel Ready Planning
The following text was penned for NZ Herald a few days ago.... New Zealand’s immediate response to the pandemic includes prioritisation of essential services and protection of essential workers....
View ArticleMissing the Point - Moving the Port
For a good while now, NZ Herald has been publishing opinions about Auckland's port, and when, where, if, and how it might be moved. Its opinion writer of the year, Simon Wilson, can't let the story...
View ArticleWho is Auckland's CBD for?
COVID19 is like no other disruption we’ve seen in a lifetime. A gift from hell considering its dramatic and universal impact on human health. A gift from god considering the opportunities opened up as...
View ArticleResilient Cities need Balanced Capital Investment
The impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic are still being understood, but it seems clear that this crisis will force changes in cities, physically and socially, that will echo for generations....
View ArticleNZ's Covid-19 Truth is Hiding Behind Numbers
Science and Sensibility Long ago, in my post graduate studies and my London based operations research working career I did a lot of computer modelling of scientific systems, and built computer models....
View ArticleSubmission Kaipara District Council Plan Change 78 Mangawhai Central
According to Kaipara District Council website information: Private Plan Change 78 (PPC78) was lodged on 3 December 2019 by Mangawhai Central Limited. PPC78 seeks to rezone 130ha of land contained...
View ArticleWhen does Tiny House need Building Permit?
A two storey Tiny House was towed to this residential site in Mangawhai a couple of weeks ago, and since then the owner has been systematically preparing it so he and his partner can live in it...
View ArticleAuckland Water Shortages and Watercare
It seems like yesterday to me, but 1994 was a while ago. Auckland had a much bigger water crisis than we're experiencing now, and it was part of my political education. At the time Watercare was owned...
View ArticleCommercial Bay in a COVID context
A few days before official opening it was all go in the covered laneway that runs between Lower Queen Street and Lower Albert Street, and is where Queen Elizabeth Square used to be. The public space...
View ArticleCOVID kills DOLPHINS
As a s.274 party I have just received a joint memorandum of the Environment Court recording that Panuku wishes to surrender resource consent CST60323353 authorising the construction of the Queens Wharf...
View ArticleWhy is Central Government Reducing Local Government and Democracy?
This is an OpEd piece sent to NZ Herald a couple of weeks ago. Unpublished. So here it is:While it is concerning that all of Auckland’s and Northland’s mayors are resigning ahead of upcoming Council...
View ArticleHidden Cost of Three Water Reform
After 12 years Auckland Councillor; Watercare Shareholder Representative; Three Water specialist; and Mangawhai Ratepayer Representative, and other stuff - I wrote an OpEd for NZ Herald on 3...
View ArticleWater: Sense and Sensibility
I write on 3 Water Reform - again unpublished by NZ Herald - as a former Auckland Councillor and Regional Councillor now Mangawhai resident. This post focuses on the idea of co-governance.... After...
View ArticleHurricane Katrina and Cyclone Gabrielle
What’s the difference between Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone Gabrielle? The answer is: wind speed and air pressure. But apart from that, what happened in Hawkes Bay in those deluges around the time of...
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