Taking Steps Towards Sustainable Settlements in New Zealand
Prepared by Carlton Eley | December 2003
with funding from the sponsors of the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowships
in Public Policy
Carlton Eley is an
environmental protection specialist at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency where he has responsibility for designing and implementing
analyses on the economic, environmental, and community impacts of
smart growth construction practices and providing project leadership
and input from other EPA offices and outside experts and stakeholders.
During his fellowship, Carlton was based at the Ministry for the Environment
in Wellington where he assessed how local planning institutions and
developers have responded to the New Zealand Resource Management Act,
advanced mutual sharing of best practices applied by stakeholders
within New Zealand and the U.S. to facilitate smart growth, and conducted
a modified smart growth evaluation to gauge where New Zealand communities
stand in implementing smart growth. His project is titled Smart Growth
Down Under. |
Introduction
The purpose of my research has been to learn about New Zealand approaches
to facilitating smart growth. It is necessary to note that New Zealanders
do not use the term smart growth when referring to initiatives to bring
about sustainable urban form. Instead it is more common for New Zealanders
to refer to terms like liveable communities, new urbanism, or sustainable
urban design when discussing approaches to deal with the challenges of
sprawling patterns of development.
My research objectives for the fellowship were to:
· explore strategies to manage growth in New Zealand's larger
cities;
· assess how well smart growth principles are reflected in selected
New Zealand sites by conducting a score card exercise; and
· learn about implementation of the Resource Management Act (RMA)
by district planners.
I journeyed to Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, and the Bay
of Plenty sub-region and met with planners, Iwi management authorities,
academics, urban designers, consultants, and other practitioners seeking
to enhance community quality of life. In addition to learning about local
efforts to manage growth, the fellowship presented the opportunity to
take a closer look at smart growth related practices across New Zealand.
See figure 19 in the Appendix for a map of the cities visited.
Methodology
The research presented in this report is qualitative. District planners
were interviewed to learn how the RMA has shaped planning practice in
New Zealand. Strategies for managing growth were drawn from these interviews
as well as literature collected from the cities visited. The score card
exercise uses a checklist of smart growth principles. To assess how well
each principle was met, the scorecard was modified to reference indicators
from several existing smart growth score cards.
Limitations
As an approach, smart growth addresses patterns of development that shape
cities, suburbs, and rural settlements. Due to limitations in time, I
did not have the opportunity to explore smart growth consistently across
these dimensions while in New Zealand. The majority of my findings are
limited to the inner city (downtown areas and abutting lands) of New Zealand's
major cities. Research from other sources has been used to offer a comprehensive
perspective on the cities featured in this report.
It is not the intent of this report to sell the concept of smart growth
in opposition to other approaches for achieving sustainability in New
Zealand. It is an attempt to explain how smart growth concepts may be
in evidence, and in some cases not. Certainly, differences in policy and
economics may not allow a U.S. model for smart growth to be wholly applied
in New Zealand. Moreover, Kiwis will need to craft a sustainable approach
that works for New Zealand. It is the intention of this report to promote
public discussion about sustainable urban developments.
 Table
of contents
Foreward
Introduction
Chapter 1: Overview of New Zealand
Chapter 2: Why the Future Form of Growth Matters
in New Zealand
Chapter 3: Can Smart Growth Work in New Zealand?
Chapter 4: The Resource Management Act and Smart
Growth
Chapter 5: Lessons from the Cities
Chapter 6: Scorecard Exercise and Results
Chapter 7: Recommendations
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Appendix
| Smart Growth Down Under: Taking Steps
Towards Sustainable Settlements in New Zealand |
eleyc.pdf (7,952k) |
|
