Is UDA three letters you should worry about in Auckland?

Monday, 3 September 2018

Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford sees an Urban Development Authority as key to turbo-charging home-building in Auckland.

OPINION: Could an Urban Development Authority be coming to a neighbourhood near you, and should you be worried?

The answers are: Maybe, and: Hopefully not, but stay tuned.

UDA is the latest acronym in the discussion over how to turbo-charge the building of new housing in Auckland, re-building and modernising entire communities of 5-10,000 homes.

It would be a new, powerful entity - an almost one-stop shop - with the powers to plan, finance, and control the re-development of neighbourhoods in existing urban areas.

* Auckland Council rejects Twyford criticism of housing performance

* Wellington councillors give UDA idea green light**

In Auckland, the minister for Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford has talked of 12 to 15 such areas, primarily where the state has large blocks of existing housing. Northcote, Mangere, and Mount Roskill are often cited, and the newly acquired Unitec site in Mt Albert.

The idea has been canvassed for some years, and got serious early last year, when the then National-led Government called for submissions on the UDA concept.

There's plenty to mull over. A UDA could be allowed to build along to far more generous planning rules than would otherwise apply to the surrounding area. One city, two rules. Maybe six storeys high instead of three, as a hypothetical example.

Auckland Council last year provided its thoughts to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, largely in favour of the idea, but with plenty of conditions.

In short it's supportive, but not that a UDA should be able to operate in conflict with the ambitions of the council.

It argues the council should have the right of veto on some issues, and that in Auckland council agencies such as Auckland Transport and Watercare, should have a role in determining the parameters of a development.

Also that as the name suggests, a UDA should only be able to operate in existing, or already planned urban areas, not in infrastructure-hungry rural sites.

The one-city, two-rule book notion is not new to Auckland, and its first iteration has had mixed reviews.

The government-driven Housing Accord (2013-16) created Special Housing Areas (SHA) that fast-tracked more intensive density rules still in the pipeline in the Unitary Plan. Appeal rights were severely curbed to ensure undisturbed progress.

The key difference between a UDA and an SHA though is important. SHA was a policy, leaving the free market to decide whether to take up the opportunity and build.

A UDA would be a government-driven entity, which itself would deliver the homes sorely needed in a city estimated to be 45,000 short.

Twyford is making most, but not all of the right noises.

A UDA would of course work hand in hand with the council, he insisted.

But in Auckland's case, it's a council in which he still lacks public confidence, laying at the council's feet much of the blame for the under-building of homes over the past decade.

'It's largely the fault of land use planning, which is the council's responsibility,' Twyford said.

That's an accusation that mimics the lines of his predecessor, National's Nick Smith, and isn't winning favour inside the council.

Twyford said the all-important details of how an UDA might work could emerge in a few months, legislation following perhaps early next year, and a UDA itself maybe a year later.

Worry you shouldn't, watch closely you should.