Auckland Council: Has the super city merger brought prosperity or pain?

Friday, 30 October 2020

A decade ago Auckland’s eight local bodies were at odds with each other, sometimes in court. Their local rather than wider focus was a handbrake on the country’s biggest region and one Royal Commission and a government decision later, they were merged into Australasia’s biggest single council. Has it worked?

It is symbolic that a spectacular cycle and walkway to be added to Auckland’s Harbour Bridge, will link the stomping grounds of two now-disbanded city councils.

The project, then-christened Skypath, was first floated by cycling advocates in 2008 and, like many bold ideas, divided the region’s eight local bodies.

Skypath was backed by Auckland Regional Council, got conditional support from North Shore City, but south of the bridge Auckland City Council thought it too costly.

Bevan Woodward, who led the Skypath campaign, said it would never have made it, had the city not amalgamated into a single Auckland Council in 2010.

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“It was quite remarkable what Auckland Council did for the project,” Woodward said.

With the backing of the inaugural mayor Len Brown, the council agreed to underwrite what was at one point proposed as a private-public partnership funded by tolls, and paid for a successful resource consent application.

Keeping the project alive paid off, when the Labour-led government at the start of 2020 confirmed it would build the $360 million link between Westhaven and Akoranga.

Other big ideas did not do as well, in pre-amalgamation Auckland.

In November 2006, the government proposed a $500 million waterfront stadium in Auckland to showcase the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

Two weeks later Auckland City Council gave a conditional thumbs up, the next day Auckland Regional Council (ARC) said no.

As the Rugby World Cup neared, the government proposed a fancy new cruise ship terminal for Queens Wharf, and a “party central” for cup festivities.

But Auckland’s informal club of eight elected leaders, the Mayoral Forum, couldn’t agree, with tension between proponent Mike Lee who chaired the ARC, and opponent, Auckland City Mayor John Banks.

Eight months later, Auckland’s collection of eight, often bickering, locally-focussed local bodies were gone, and the first single region-wide Auckland Council sworn-in, after three years of work.

They were once-dominant players in their parts of the Auckland region - the cities of Auckland, Waitākere, Manukau, and North Shore, the districts of Rodney, Papakura, Franklin and the regional council.

It was the boldest amalgamation of its kind and, in November 2010, created the most populous local government entity in Australasia, with a mayor representing nearly 1.5 million residents.

“For those in the middle of all that dysfunction, you don’t forget,” said left-leaning former Manukau mayor Len Brown, who became the first regional mayor.

”There’s only one example you need to refer to – the stadium on the waterfront in 2006 – Auckland basically tore itself apart over that,” Brown told Stuff.

Brown and 20 councillors were sworn in on November 1, 2010, at a gala event at the Town Hall, where the biggest applause came after he declared “we will build an inner city (rail) loop” (CRL).

Five years later, overcoming government disinterest, Brown’s council began work on the country’s biggest transport project - a twin-tunnel 3.5 km long underground rail line through the CBD, costing $4.5 billion.

The government came on board, and CRL became the symbol of what unity, and single-minded focus could deliver in the country’s only world-scale city, when only one decision was needed, rather than eight.

Political leadership was at the heart of Auckland’s problems, according to David Shand, who was on the Royal Commission that approved the merger.

“The issues were well known, at the officer level very good analytical work had been done, but as soon as it got to the political level it just fell in a heap,” Shand told Stuff.

“The politicians couldn’t find time to meet or did not want to be part of the discussion.”

Fast-forward two terms and the amalgamated Auckland Council has more than delivered on some headline goals – one of the biggest being changing the homes Aucklanders are building.

It produced a 30-year vision of how the region should evolve, called the Auckland Plan, as well as executing the biggest planning exercise in the country.

It produced a “spatial plan” shaping a more compact, lower-sprawl future with higher density housing, prompting a boom in apartments and town houses, around centres and key transport routes.

The awkwardly-named “Unitary Plan” completed in 2016, generated huge debate between those who wanted to retain their single-dwelling, quarter acre-style communities, and those who embraced density as a path to more affordable housing, and lower-carbon lifestyles.

Mark Todd, who founded respected apartment builder Ockham, was a strong advocate of the plan’s drive to remove rules restricting housing density in existing suburbs, widening the choice of homes.

“My building in Mt Albert (Modal) is 35 units on 700 square metres, and the average price in the building is $580,000 – while the average house in Mt Albert is $1.4 million,” Todd told Stuff.

“The Unitary Plan has definitely helped with creativity and widening price ranges across any given suburb.”

Todd’s firm has built 800 apartments with another 600 in the pipeline.

“I've got 600 units across four sites, totalling less than one hectare” he said.

Todd said it would be easy to reach the top of the city’s target range of 70 per cent of new homes being built in the existing urban area, but criticised the availability of public sector cash for infrastructure which encouraged large-scale growth on the rural fringes.

In August, just 40 per cent of consents issued for new dwellings in Auckland were for traditional, stand-alone homes.

Len Brown had delivered on his leading campaign promise – building an underground inner city rail loop that could double the capacity of the commuter rail network, and connect outer suburbs more quickly and directly to the downtown.

Getting a reluctant John Key-led government onboard will, by 2024, deliver a project likely to be judged by history as transformative as the 1959 Auckland Harbour Bridge which opened up the North Shore.

“One or two wise people in my early years said when in a position of leadership, concentrate on one or two things you know you can achieve, or are essential to achieve, and get those done,” said Brown.

“City Rail Link was top of the list because we knew that getting a mass transit system up and running in Auckland was 100 years overdue.”

There had been great public anxiety over up to 75 per cent of the council’s business being carried out by new council-owned companies (CCO)s, with boards of directors, and steered at arms length by politicians.

Watercare became the one-stop water and wastewater company. Until unprecedented drought in 2020 prompted outdoor hose bans, it had been well-regarded and largely self-funding.

Auckland Council has had to part-fund a $244 million acceleration of water production by mid 2021, which along with greater access to Waikato River water, will see supply back on track.

Auckland Transport runs everything from the evolving commuter rail network – electrified in 2014 – to roads and footpaths, and has presided over some of the region’s major successes.

Public Transport patronage has jumped from 60 million trips a year in 2010, to an annual 100 million before Covid-19 struck, and the country’s only electronic ticketing system covering buses, trains and ferries, rolled out from 2012.

The other CCOs run facilities, property and tourism and economic development. None had a blemish-free decade, and a 2020 independent review of their structure led to a merger of Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) with Regional Facilities Auckland (RFA).

“The other three CCOs are sound in their present form, but are not without problems,” said the reviewers.

You don’t make an amalgamation omelette without breaking a few eggs, and 10 years on from the inauguration, there are a few.

In one of the biggest public demonstrations against the shape of Auckland Council, more than 6000 marched up Queen St protesting the scrapping of dedicated Māori seats, which had been proposed by the commission.

“It was a big miss and 10 years has done nothing but confirm that,” said Ngarimu Blair, deputy chair of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust.

Blair helped organise the 2009 hikoi, but the government’s model delivered instead an Independent Māori Statutory Board, separate from but funded by the council, with seats on committees but not the main governing body.

“What we ended up with was an illegitimate body – the IMSB – which doesn’t get voted in by any Māori people and consequently it’s hard to say it has any mandate,” said Blair.

David Taipari who has chaired the IMSB since 2010 said the debate over seats was a separate one, and was hindered by “quite draconian” legislation and designed to disable moves to establish Māori wards.

“The board was never a substitute for seats, or for engaging with Māori direct,” he said.

Taipari said the board’s job was to keep the council focussed on recognising Māori as a Treaty partner, and the council had become more inclusive and considerate of Māori issues, but still has a way to go.

Some critics believed amalgamation should have reduced property rates, overlooking the rising costs of a city which since 2010 has grown by more than the population of Hamilton, to nearly 1.7 million.

Auckland Council has estimated that in cash terms, it is running $316 million dollars a year cheaper, than if the eight councils had remained, and cumulative savings have reached $1.9 billion.

After merging the eight ratings systems in the first years, rates have risen by either 2.5 per cent or 3.5 per cent with one layer of additional targetted rates brought in to accelerate environmental work.

The council is quick to compare it with rises of 8.9 per cent in Wellington City, and 4.7 per cent in Tauranga. Auckland also has a regional fuel tax of 11.5 cents.

The power gulf between the 21 low-powered Local Boards, and the region-focussed Governing Body, remains an issue, with communities and boards feeling they struggle to be heard.

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff agreed and said a pilot scheme on Waiheke Island giving the local board greater decision-making, might point the way to wider change.

The centralising of access to high-level officials and politicians is also highlighted by those who mourn the loss of the distinct “legacy councils”, such as Manukau City in the south, or Waitākere City in the west.

Penny Hulse was deputy mayor of the west’s Waitākere City, and continued that role at Auckland Council, guiding the major strategy work on the Auckland Plan, and the Unitary Plan.

Waitākere City under its mayor Sir Bob Harvey become a self-styled eco-city, championing community engagement, environmental work, and higher-density “liveable” communities.

“Waitākere was a city with a very clear sense of who we were, who our community was, and deep relationship between the community and the council,” Hulse said.

“That pride in who we were in Waitākere has taken a bit of a bash.”

But Hulse said community groups had begun working together to rebuild that connectedness, and the scale of Auckland Council had “worked hugely to the advantage of the Auckland region”.

With issues unique to each area, some people felt the merger saw local priorities fall “into the abyss”.

Former North Shore mayor and current Devonport-Takapuna Local Board deputy chair, George Wood, claims the “death of the Auckland councils” saw investment in local facilities drop.

He said North Shore City Council prioritised public transport facilities to encourage people to ditch their cars, including monitoring bus stops during peak hours to see how many people were travelling on the main routes and providing bus shelters and seating.

Now, it was hard to get just one shelter shed, which put people off using the bus, he said.

He added that rates on the North Shore were “substantially greater” than what residents would have paid at the end of the North Shore City Council, but the pay-off was minimal.

Out south, former Pukekohe mayor Mark Ball said the super city shift was never a comfortable fit for the rural population in his area, who still consider themselves “Franklinites”.

“I don't want to be derogatory but in Franklin, we speak a different language … they're [people in the rest of Auckland] our city cousins, but we're not Auckland,” he said.

As a farmer, from a farming region, he said he understood the needs and priorities of his community, and they were “very different from those in the city.”

While not an unqualified success, there’s a widespread consensus that Auckland’s amalgamation has delivered most of its promise.

A similar plan for an amalgamated Wellington Region under a single council failed in 2015 through a lack of consensus – underlining the challenge of community-driven, rather than government-imposed reform.

Ten years on, Auckland Council’s second Mayor Phil Goff saw improvement rather than big change, ahead.

“After the enormous change of 2010, now is not the time to put the city through a further major structural change, but working to ensure that what was hoped to be gained from amalgamation is being realised,” Goff said.

The list is mainly “back office” – fine-tuning the workings of the council-controlled organisations, and lobbying for the government to devolve more funding to meet growth-related infrastructure building.

The biggest question about Auckland’s 10-year experience of amalgamation, is whether any other regions will follow.