Report and Recommendations of the Urban Taskforce – Executive Summary
The Urban Taskforce was established in 2008 to identify ways to improve urban development, particularly largescale higher density projects. The Taskforce was made up of industry, central and local government leaders.
The Taskforce recommendations concentrate on a small number of actions that will make a dramatic impact, through leadership, embracing a partnering approach, accelerating delivery, enabling better urban development and clearing roadblocks.
This work has broadened an appreciation of the value case for cities, and urban development. Successful urban development can make a tangible contribution to economic recovery, and to prosperity.
However, we are building too slowly. We are building some poor quality. We are building too much that meets yesterday’s needs. We fail to provide choices, and miss opportunities to make great places for communities. We have been building with an economic and financing model that will no longer work in the current economy. Without urgency, we lose the opportunity to bring forward urban development to spur an infrastructure led recovery.
We have pinpointed the main barriers and impediments to success. They are neither new nor unusual. What is new is the common cross sector view, and an imperative to make change. There is great opportunity.
Change can only be brought about by concerted private and public sector action that addresses shortfalls and shifts the balance away from conventional development. Neither the private sector nor the public sector acting alone will succeed. Greater leadership, and partnering to deliver development become the obvious options.
We find the challenge a compelling one.
OUR GOAL
Well functioning urban environments for New Zealanders that are efficient, productive and great places to live, work and visit
Building efficient and productive cities, which are great places to live, work and visit, is critical to New
Zealand’s long-term economic and social prosperity.
Why should that be?
- New Zealand is a highly urban nation with the third fastest rate of urbanisation in the OECD countries.
- We live in urban areas – 86% of today’s population is in towns and cities, and a high proportion has lived in towns and cities since even the 1900s.
- Some of our towns and cities are dense urban
economies with higher labour productivity – they contribute more to national GDP and
Government revenues.
- We can enhance these ‘agglomeration benefits’ with 2-3% lifts in GDP from urban development which better matches labour demand and supply, provides economies of scale and more efficient supply chains as well as attractive places for people to settle.
- Better urban development delivers greater value from infrastructure investment and efficiencies in the form of reduced energy consumption, higher usage of infrastructure capacity and fewer emissions.
- Urban development, coupled with infrastructure investments, provides economic stimulus.
Successful cities grow to be functional urban environments in a variety of ways – there is no one’right’ way. Some continue to develop new suburbs on greenfields sites on the fringe of existing towns and cities. Some cater for growth in more intensive urban developments. Most do both.
The important thing is to provide consumers with a choice of living environments that work, and that reflect the way New Zealanders want to live. As more and more people become urban and even inner city dwellers, and as household patterns move to smaller family units and longer living, the shape of housing and the services that people need close by has been shifting. Demand for new forms of higher density living has not been matched by supply.
The need to have good options for New Zealanders on how they want to live – including the option of living in higher density housing – is the critical mission for the Taskforce.
We looked at options to:
- bring housing onto the market more quickly – 20,000 units are needed each year. This requires the ability to assemble sufficient land more quickly, and for Council consenting processes to improve
- provide certainty of delivery of a complete development package – that is, coordinated and on time delivery of central and local government components (these can be consents, services, public amenities such as parks and town centre upgrades, and other infrastructure) alongside private sector delivery programmes
- allow the public sector to deliver its inputs in a way which secures both investor and banking sector confidence that development timeframes will be met, and returns achieved when expected
- create leverage points particularly in today’s changed funding environment – in the form of either
providing or assembling land, concessionary finance or planning exemptions, in cases where national/ local benefits and returns are clear and can be formalised
- reduce upfront development costs by looking at alternatives to local authority development contributions that spread costs over a longer term.
At the heart of seizing the opportunity is leadership, mandate, and action that leads and delivers complex urban development projects.
To accelerate both the quantity and quality of urban development, a tried and tested approach to complex urban development is needed. Urban development agency models are commonly used to bring all the parts of an important development package together in a consistent and integrated manner.
At the heart of seizing the opportunity is leadership, mandate, and action that leads and delivers complex urban development projects
Making projects happen is the core strength of private developers, but the Taskforce considers that complex projects (such as urban regeneration) require an intricate coordination of central government infrastructure, local government infrastructure and amenities, and the commercial and development skills provided by the private sector.
Put simply, higher density and more complex projects are too big for the market to deliver on its own. New ways are possible now for the public and private sector to partner in delivery.
Key Recommendations
Leadership
Identify a lead Minister for urban development issues,
supported by a lead Department to:
- champion quality cities and towns
- develop new responses to meet growth pressures and changes in consumer demands
- mandate and resource new partnering models to lead and deliver complex projects
- provide strong inter-agency coordination
- work with the private sector and local government across urban policy initiatives, including implementing the Taskforce’s recommendations.
Instigate a sector led group which makes itself available to Ministers, and which includes designers,
developers and financiers to:
- provide technical support to central and local government as they develop and implement new approaches
- meet at least six monthly with Ministers to track progress and keep up momentum alongside Government.
Partnering for delivery
Establish an Urban Development Agency model based on a set of clear partnering principles to deliver urban development projects.
Create acceleration
Initiate a partnering model on two to three ‘ready to go’ higher density urban development projects to address housing shortages, provide economic lift, and explore incentive and financing options.
Enable and incentivise
Establish ways to finance long life infrastructure over its lifetime, including debt instruments, and provide incentives to urban developments that create wider benefits to the community e.g. economies in the provision of infrastructure or amenities.
Clear road blocks
Work with Councils to establish teams with decision making ability and accountability to ‘account manage’ higher density urban developments, as standard practice.
Clear roadblocks for quality, affordable developments by concluding the current amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA), and in the next stage of the RMA review develop ways to quicken consent processes for large scale urban developments. This could be achieved, for example, by considering an extension of the proposed fast-track pathway under the RMA for major projects to cover larger scale urban development.
Review the Building Code to ensure that it adequately deals with consumer needs for quality medium/high density housing.