Auckland's Queen St upgrade prompts businesses to ask court to halt council plan

Thursday, 29 April 2021

More than two dozen shops are empty on Auckland's Queen Street as the economic effect of Covid-19 begins to bite. (April 2020)

A group of inner-city businesses and landlords is asking the High Court to urgently halt council plans to trial traffic restrictions and bigger pedestrian areas on part of the CBD’s main retail strip.

The group calling itself Save Queen Street has described the plan to start work in early May on the more pedestrian-friendly design between Shortland and Customs streets, as a “disgrace”.

It blames a makeshift reduction of general traffic lanes, installed during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, for some of the streets economic woes, with a large number of smaller stores now vacant.

Save Queen Street wants all changes of the past year scrapped, and a new discussion on how to best upgrade the street to begin, and will argue its case on May 4.

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An artist’s impression of the lower end of Auckland's Queen Street which will be upgraded later in 2021.

In the group’s statement of claim, seen by Stuff, it argued there was insufficient consultation by the council or Auckland Transport, in the steps from the temporary Covid-19 changes, to making them the basis for the more permanent upcoming trial.

It said the council’s City Centre Advisory Board approved $600,000 be spent on the longer term Queen St pilot changes, on the understanding the temporary Covid-19 work was unconnected.

Queen St has been hit by the absence of foreign tourists, cruise ship passengers, the loss of foreign tertiary students, and more office workers opting to at least partially work from home.

Dozens of smaller shops on Queen Street are now empty.

However, the society argued retaining the temporary changes, had contributed to the street’s economic decline.

Viv Beck is CEO of Auckland city centre business association Heart of the City.

“The Emergency Works have contributed to foot traffic in Queen Street declining by almost half since March 2020 because they make Queen Street a less pleasant place to be and make access difficult,” it argued.

“The Emergency Works have contributed to a significant decline in commercial activity in Queen Street.”

The changes have been backed by advocates for a cleaner, less traffic focussed Queen St, and Mayor Phil Goff supports the council plan, which is still open for public submissions.

In a statement, Goff said Auckland Council staff had multiple discussions with different parties regarding the future of Queen St, including business owners, residents’ organisations and business association Heart of the City.

“Those discussions are ongoing and will continue as we seek to make Queen St and the surrounding area a more inviting place to live, work and visit.”

One member of the lobby group is the downtown business organisation Heart of the City, which said it backed an upgrade, but the council process, starting with hasty changes, was flawed.

“Co-designing includes working with stakeholders at the beginning, so you understand all the issues that need to be dealt with from various users, which is worked through before deciding final steps,” said chief executive Viv Beck.

“What’s happened here, is you’re starting with something already in place. That’s a fundamental flaw in our view.”

The Queen St changes had a Covid-19 related start in 2020, but are also part of the “Access for Everyone” plan by the council, to make downtown streets more attractive, and less focussed on traffic.

The changes include a $1.1 million trial, that will restrict general traffic on the lower section of Queen St in peak hours, and widen footpaths using wooden boardwalks to test the ideas.

Queen St has in past years shown the country’s highest count of “black carbon” particles from the high volume of diesel vehicles, and the popular City Link bus service has just gone electric.

Auckland Transport is temporarily routeing more buses through lower Queen Street, due to other downtown road closures where the City Rail Link is being built.