Sprawl vs compact development?

[Ocean1]

Now what I'm trying to establish is how do we marry the two... keeping existing suburban people happy that their precious suburbs are not getting destroyed by evil infill

You don't. The existing inhabitants paid the going rate for their properties because they wanted to live in that environment. Changing the rules controling their environment is always going to be seen as unfair. 'Cause it is.

[Ocean1]

I wonder why that is.

Apparently we humans do not function well consistently when in close proximity to masses of people (exceeding 150 - 170). We become very antisocial and things go bad. The higher the density the worse we get. Give us our fucking space or we will kill you.

Long accepted that, without too much recent evidence.

Sooo: http://geocommons.com/maps/14287

[blue rider]

But our suburbs are hardly what I would call in close proximity to masses of people? In fact, it's quite the opposite. Low density leaves people isolated, with little to do and noone to talk to.

Aside from people that are really antisocial, most of us prefer to have at least some contact with other human beings. There's a balance, and we definitely don't have it right.

And also, I know why we don't have many, if any, good local examples - crap development controls that don't allow good design.

Have a look at some of the new developments that are going up in Royal Oak. Buildings going up in 50 cm distance of the Neighbors property, subdivisions from Hell, yes you can put a 4 unit block and a 4 bedroom house what used to be a quarter acre, it just ain't pretty nor private, and definitively not soundproof. I can watch my neighbors around me live their lives, they have absolutely no privacy, and unless i board up my windows will not have any.....quite distressing sometimes for them and for me. Yet more and more of those Box buildings are going up.
Cheap n nasty, no double glazing to keep out the noise pollution, and insulate against the weather, no insulation in the wall for the same purposes, bathrooms the size of a shoe box, and rooms so small that if one enters to quickly they fall out of the window. Storage in your house....hahahahah good joke, go rent storage somewhere else. Central Heating?

this is then sold as design, because its painted grey, or beige,.......


There are under developed suburbs in Auckland (and surely elswhere in NZ) that could do with a bit of TLC, proper board walks, cycle lanes, adequate public transport, park and drive options, that are in need of shops and such. It might be better to uplift these "hoods" instead of creating new ones. One might even contemplate moving there if they were not such neglected holes.


As for my street were I live, if there is ever an outbreak of influenza this is not the place to be. It will spread faster than the pestilence in Germany in 1462.
The trouble with Auckland is that there never was and never will be any urban planning, just individual developers after a quick earning and council that will approve no matter what.


the city and many others in NZ speak for themselves. Which is quite sad, as there are some beautiful samples of architecture still around, however they might lend themselves to a 6 Story Brothel in the inner city. (insert sarcasm smiley)

[merv]

Lol the voice supporting railways speaks up - of all the cities I have visited in the World, the ones that hum have rails of some sort running through, under or over them, those without rail lack the vibrancy.

Aucklanders that don't embrace the city loop are crazy, but it can't end there you need rail under the harbour too to North Shore, airport etc. Christchurch needs to act now and build a rapid rail into its heart and then develop from there. Its better to build now, it will only get more expensive as more obstacles are put in the way.

Good examples over the World in their own context that I've visited a few times are:

San Francisco - so alive in its centre compared to Los Angeles - why? Because it has so many rail systems 1. the famous cable cars (now mainly tourism), 2. the street cars (also tourism), 3. the BART heavy rail system, 4. the Caltrain heavy rail system, 5. the Muni light rail metro system.

London and Paris are no-brainers - they are so big and so densely populated the Underground and Metro systems just carry people so quickly out of congestion's way.

Zurich - about the size of Auckland - man you should see the quality of its rail systems - heavy rail and light rail trams with airport routes. No buses operate in the main part of the CBD just the trains underground and the trams overground - it keeps it all so neat and tidy looking I always say it looks like a Marklin train set. Long distance trains run operate on at least a half hour service between Zurich and Geneva

Perth Australia - has a rail system that performs in patronage way beyond expectation, but they built rail in places in advance of the urban development - still a bit of a sprawl - but the trains get them to CBD quickly and easily.

I've just got back from Japan - Tokyo many people live there without ever having to own their own vehicle. Why would you when you can go everywhere by JR train (mainly above ground), on the various metro systems underground or on the Shinkansen trains long distance at better than twice the average speed you can do it by road. The Shinkansen are even more frequent than the fast trains are in Switzerland or France. Between Tokyo and Osaka - about 510km - they run about every 5 to 10 minutes - big 16 car trains that can carry around 1,400 people in spacious comfort.

Some may say that we don't have the population to support great rail systems but if Auckland bit the bullet and went with it growth would come. In NZ we have had a habit of letting developers develop suburbs basically in the wops and not supported it with decent public transport so people have to go by car then we get the congestion we paid for i.e. we were too cheap and get what we deserve.

So with time, and more immigrants who are used to this, I can see a denser housing future for Auckland but you can't skimp on the transport around the city nor in connection to other places that will make sure it works in a vibrant way.

[Gremlin]

Infill housing shouldn't be classed as compact development. Yes, it's more dense, but not the density Auckland requires.

It's a simple fact that delivering services to a high density population is cheaper and easier. In big cities around the world there are plenty of people with no car and no licence to drive one either. High quality public transport fulfils their needs.

[Ocean1]

All of these costs are rarely fully met by the property owner or occupier.

Indeed?

I'll give you the paved highway. Such as it is. Footpath? None. Power, phone, internet? All here, at the extra cost of a few metres of extra cable, a capital cost of about $100 each. Sewage, water, stormwater? No, no and no. And the rubbish collection is private.

And yet my rates bill is right up there at the pointiest of pointy ends.


But I only bitch about it if provoked by specious claims to the contrary.

[Usarka]

Lol the voice supporting railways speaks up - of all the cities I have visited in the World, the ones that hum have rails of some sort running through, under or over them, those without rail lack the vibrancy.

Aucklanders that don't embrace the city loop are crazy, but it can't end there you need rail under the harbour too to North Shore, airport etc. Christchurch needs to act now and build a rapid rail into its heart and then develop from there. Its better to build now, it will only get more expensive as more obstacles are put in the way.

It's a bit chicken and egg imho. All the cities you mention have high density housing to service the public transport.

I liken it to living in london. One train station would service about 1,500 homes within easy walking distance. In auckland it would be more like 250. Ok, I made those numbers up but you get the picture.

Have a look at some of the new developments that are going up in Royal Oak. Buildings going up in 50 cm distance of the Neighbors property, subdivisions from Hell, yes you can put a 4 unit block and a 4 bedroom house what used to be a quarter acre, it just ain't pretty nor private, and definitively not soundproof.

+1 to all this. Without decent regulation we get shit developed, which in turn attracts low income tenants (ie. become slums), which in turn drives away existing residents who are then told they should support high density housing.

[merv]

Yep it is a bit chicken and egg, but if you get on and build the transport then people will be happy to live close to transport hubs and the housing developments should then be built to suit. Urban sprawl is such that no decent transport system can be built to service it - except roads and cars at the moment.

Funny, check this out - everything we have said aside, Auckland still rates highly so they say - its on Wiki so it must be true - but see how the European cities rate too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_most_livable_cities

[Hellzie]

actually, I think wellington has done a reasonable job at avoiding both sprawl and too high a density
have a look at newtown, and hataitai particularly

dense enough to be not rambling, but not so dense as to provoke intense asociality

Thanks for that, I will have a look at Newtown. Wellington seems to be quite. Bit ahead of Auckland from what I've seen.

You had best look at the north shore as a prime example of infill housing.
Shockingly done and for the primary reason that the city council gets more rate-paying residents. Very little extra infrastructure is provided for this extra housing (sewer capacity, drainage, roading capacity, public transport, etc, etc) so it becomes much like a cash-cow for the morons in power.

Design of infill housing is poorly executed in a lot of instances (lack of eaves) to generate a floor footprint as large as possible for the residents.


The north shore is a prime example of a fuck-up. I'm glad I no longer live over there.

Exactly the issue, but the world is not static, and just because shit has happened in the past, doesn't mean the future has to be that way. Places evolve and shitholes become prime real estate.

Other way around - crap development controls that allow and encourage crap design.

Yeh totally agree with you on that one, hence the lack of good examples I guess... May need to look much further afield, if not think of something completely new...

You don't. The existing inhabitants paid the going rate for their properties because they wanted to live in that environment. Changing the rules controling their environment is always going to be seen as unfair. 'Cause it is.

That's great, so these existing inhabitants can live their happy little lives in their static environment that they bought into, as for some reason when their house was built it was somehow ok to change what was there before? Meanwhile, house affordability is sky rocketing as housing is pushed further and further out (and the costs of doing so are catching up to us).. So anyone that hasn't bought a house is pretty much screwed.

Infill housing shouldn't be classed as compact development. Yes, it's more dense, but not the density Auckland requires.

It's a simple fact that delivering services to a high density population is cheaper and easier. In big cities around the world there are plenty of people with no car and no licence to drive one either. High quality public transport fulfils their needs.

Yes but seeing as we have been developing Auckland in low density for a long time, we eventually need to start thinking about fixing what we have screwed up. And I'm not suggesting all intensification should be via infill, but it should be a part of it, and the big challenge is getting it right, while maintaining the amenity for existing residents. In fact, if it's done right, it will bring more amenity (in the form of a wider range of derives, transport options, etc).

[mashman]

Has terraced housing not arrived in NZ yet?

[Usarka]

Has terraced housing not arrived in NZ yet?

Trouble is, building houses back to back requires the walls to be made of something rather more substantial than plywood.

The only way it's been successfully done in NZ is in 60/70's brick and tile flats. Which as a rule are an eyesore.

[Hellzie]

Indeed?

I'll give you the paved highway. Such as it is. Footpath? None. Power, phone, internet? All here, at the extra cost of a few metres of extra cable, a capital cost of about $100 each. Sewage, water, stormwater? No, no and no. And the rubbish collection is private.

And yet my rates bill is right up there at the pointiest of pointy ends.


But I only bitch about it if provoked by specious claims to the contrary.

The are so many other costs you haven't taken into consideration... E.g. What about the fact that unproductive use of land in the form of lifestyle blocks results in food production being pushed further out, which then pushes up the price of transporting the food back into town?

And then there's all the non-monetary costs.. I don't care what people say, humans are social animals. We weren't made to live in isolation. It's not in our nature. Sooner or later, isolation screws with your head.

[Hitcher]

Yep it is a bit chicken and egg, but if you get on and build the transport then people will be happy to live close to transport hubs and the housing developments should then be built to suit.

There's a lot of snobbery about public transport, as the proponents of light rail in Wellington are a good example. We're also lucky to have a Mayor who believes she was elected to provide light rail from the Railway Station to the Hospital at a cost of $141 million a kilometre. Seriously, what's wrong with buses? A lot of those can be procured for the cost of one kilometre of Mayor Celia's fantasy. Perhaps they're not green enough.

[mashman]

Trouble is, building houses back to back requires the walls to be made of something rather more substantial than plywood.

The only way it's been successfully done in NZ is in 60/70's brick and tile flats. Which as a rule are an eyesore.

Only if you don't want to hear the neighbours though?

And they make a terrible mess when they fall down it appears. The cost of a plot these days is unbelievable. 550+sqm for 200k

[Hellzie]

Has terraced housing not arrived in NZ yet?

There are quite a few better terrace house developments happening these days (so far there have been a lot mor crap ones, but hopefully that's changing)...

And that's kind of different from what I'm looking at. That's generally when you have a bigger section and you can fit at least 5 or so new houses, and it's a bit easier to deal with privacy issues and relationship to neighboring properties etc. The challenge is your 18m x 30 or 40m lot with one house on it. They typically have a pretty poor interface with the street, and are rather wasteful in all sorts of ways. There's plenty of opportunity to double the density of suburbs made up of these lots, without diminishing, or should I say, while improving amenity for everyone.

It's not feasible to aggregate the lots due to ownership issues, so the key is to make it easy for the house owner to develop their individual sites. The idea is that it's better for all involved. You keep 1/4 of your back yard (not as much grass to mow, but still plenty of room for the dog to run around, or the kids to play), you build another house, sell it, have lots of money to spend going on holiday, buying things at the new cafe that's opened down the road now that there's more potential customers, playing in the flash new playground with your kids (built using all the extra rates the council is getting from the exta houses). Etc etc ... Sound good?