THEY ARE (today, already) RAISING THEIR HANDS IN DESPAIR AND WALKING AWAY
Council service centres have no printed maps for people to view.
Not all people are computer literate or have a computer that allows easy viewing – given their properties and districts may have (in MANY cases) substantial zoning change – GET MULTIPLE COPIES OF THE COLOUR MAPS PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED
…. and stop obfuscating.
![Dunce = DCC [via cliparts.co]](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/dunce-dcc-via-cliparts-co.png?w=197&h=300)
Otherwise, Democracy and Natural Justice are not being served.
And you, DCC, know what that means.
A mother of a clean up exercise on your heads.
D for DCC = Dunce
█ Proposed Second Generation District Plan (2GP)
https://2gp.dunedin.govt.nz/2gp/index.html
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Related Post:
26.9.15 DCC: Proposed 2GP to line pockets of cowboy developers #FIGHTDIRTY
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Image: cliparts.co – dunce
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Tagged as 2GP, BDSM, City Development Team, DANGER, DCC, Democracy, DESTROY DUNEDIN, Disturbed public, Dunedin, Dunedin City Council, High Court action, How many backhanders, Lack of accountability, Lack of consultation, Lack of transparency, Legal action, Manipulation, Methods, Narrow consultation, Natural justice, Nicola Pinfold, NO HERITAGE PROTECTION, Planning, Policies, Policy planning, Ratepayers and Residents, Resource management, Resource Management Act, Rules, Second generation district plan (2GP), Simon Pickford, SUE the bastards, The Developers' Plan, Zoning
![Dunce = DCC [via cliparts.co]](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/dunce-dcc-via-cliparts-co.png)
What if? Dunedin... 
DISORIENTATION
Clearly, the 2GP is not built on people’s understanding and navigation of the existing Dunedin City District Plan.
Big mistake.
Yeah, went to the DCC Service Centre, the 2GP pop-up shop information centre in George St near the escalator to the library plaza and then to the third floor of the DCC library (NZ Room) where local government information is kept. No hard copy maps. Online maps are not that easy to view, read or compare with the current Plan on PC. Worse to the point of being unreliable on iPad or tablet or the limited computer terminals available in the DCC Library NZ Room. So are they really currently ‘consulting’ when all the essential information is not publicly accessible?
Yes, planners at the pop-up shop will print out a colour map for you free of charge if you ask. But this will be a limited area relating to what property address you specifically ask for. Without browsable hard copy maps, you can’t get an overview.
This is a total Plan re-write, not just an update. The structure of the document is vastly different from the current Plan, making comparison difficult. The Strategic Directions (which the Objectives, Policies and Rules all depend on) are also vastly different. Planners told me they’ve been getting community feedback from stakeholder meetings over the last two years while they have been working on this. But this is NOT consultation – and trying to pass it off as such is just plain wrong. That means the residents of Dunedin have just two months to try to get their heads around this extremely complex and TOTALLY NEW critical document.
Yup. The reality is worse than imagined, isn’t it.
Which is why I mention bulldozers on fast approach. The document might be thought just incompetent for its layout and inaccessibility – but it is WAY more than this. The 2GP is with a mission to mystify, harass and impose – ALL DELIBERATE. The 2GP’s lack of continuity and coherence with the existing Dunedin City District Plan (via upgrade) is STATE OF THE ART OBFUSCATION. The 2GP document should be thrown back at CEO Bidrose with bells on, to fix. It is unacceptable in its current form and thrust.
Individual Submissions should reflect on that difficulty in terms of inability to navigate, LACK of democratic principle and the resulting LACK of natural justice. [your community, your property, your life, your investment]
Lastly —
‘If you [DCC staff] can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.’ (Albert Einstein)
About simplicity. I think Einstein also said that things should be made as simple as possible but not simpler. I agree that the DCC ‘kiddies’ drawings’ explanations are insulting. Planners have a tendency to become high priests as if members of the public couldn’t possibly understand all this. Well, this is a confusion between simplicity and clarity. They are not the same thing at all. You really, really have to be able to understand something in its total structure and underlying philosophy to be able to explain it with clarity. That may be the reason why I can get a sense of this document being a ‘compliance manual’. Maybe written by planners from their perspective to make their job easier. Understandable, I guess.
But, I agree, the essential democratic principles are missing from this new document. And so are the explanations for policies and rules, which I thought was a legal requirement under the Resource Management Act. But maybe that’s been changed.
Yes, re people’s understanding and navigation of the current Plan, the new document IMO is, in contrast, a COMPLIANCE MANUAL in its essential structure. This is totally different from the structure of the current Plan which is more about a consensus for the future of the city and the means to reach the objectives.
This fundamental change may be because cities have just become more complex since the RMA was introduced about 25 years ago. Or (scary thought!) is it instead because local government has become less democratic and considerably more authoritarian? … Or (even more scary thought!), does the increased complexity and the associated problems actually REQUIRE more rules, more stringent rules and a considerably greater limitation of property owners’ rights and freedoms?
I haven’t even got on to policy specifics yet. Just wondering if there’s any obvious way the DCC could have done the process better … apart from the need to have hard copy maps available!
The existing district plan, for better or worse, was “community owned” as it emerged from appeals and references.
Hard to think like ‘donating or buying a brick’ to make the 2GP a pretty cottage path for ALL.
This gets worse the more I look at it. Any citizens of Dunedin who thought this was their chance to have input into the future of the city in broad terms – sorry – your chance to do this was over and done with as soon as the Dunedin City Spatial Plan was finalised. The Strategic Directions used in the 2GP (the proposed District Plan re-write, currently open for submissions) come straight from the Spatial Plan. The Spatial Plan got about 230 submissions (some of which I read through today in the DCC City Library). Many of these were pretty obviously a result of networking through the arts and culture advocates in the city. If you took those out, then submissions to the Spatial Plan were pretty much a non-event, except for the extremely astute, businesses and planning professionals.
But the Spatial Plan is taking precedence over the District Plan here in Dunedin. Weird? Yes. Amendments to the Local Government Act about 2009 require Auckland Council, at least, to have a Spatial Plan. The Resource Management Act has required local councils to have a District Plan since its introduction about 1990. It’s not clear to me (and possibly not even lawyers) how the two plans will work together. (See: http://goo.gl/gV3qta)
But what is clear that the DCC did the Spatial Plan first and it’s made quite clear in the current adopted Spatial Plan that the decisions made there will inform the District Plan Review. And do.
So, as I said at the beginning, the chance to query the broad strategic directions of this new District Plan is gone. Submitters can now have hopes of only tweaking details.
Diane, thanks for your observations – that was certainly the DCC’S intention ie the (non regulatory) Spatial Plan to inform the review of the (regulatory) District Plan. Participants in the Spatial Plan processes were informed of this quite early on. Whether the correct breadth of public and private interests were consulted back then is moot – the DCC’s policy planners and RMA planners were strongly on a mission from Day 1, the slant was most obvious to those of us with closer knowledge of council processes it must be acknowledged.
Another very concerning issue about the 2GP document is that although it addresses ‘natural hazards’ (as required to do by legislation), it seems to leave flood risk totally in the hands of the ORC and information which they provide to the DCC. Yes, maybe natural hazards are identified here. But parts of Dunedin are known to be at risk from flooding from ‘unnatural’ hazards, namely the DCC’s seriously stuffed (in places) stormwater infrastructure and maybe sewers as well.
Add to this an increased residential density policy (effectively infill) and then flooding from overwhelmed stormwater systems seems to be on the cards and entirely predictable. But 2GP doesn’t address this, the assumption being made, I suppose, that drainage issues can be sorted out for specific sites when resource consents etc are applied for. Am not convinced, as infill housing and increased residential density can result in drainage problems way further down the drainage lines than just on or near the site in question.
Anyone wanting to protect heritage buildings IMO might find that, within the present 2GP framework (which it’s only realistic to believe we are going to be stuck with whether we like it or not), it might be worthwhile to question whether the current drainage infrastructure (and any reasonably affordable future improvements) would be able to cope with increased residential density. Particularly since many of these older buildings are on steep sites.
I paid no attention to the Spatial Plan because I thought the District Plan was what counted. And I was totally WRONG! Anyone wanting to understand 2GP IMO would be well-advised to read the Spatial Plan, a much, much smaller document. I don’t like the ‘strategic directions’ in it much – lots of abstractions and woolly ‘planner’ and ‘city marketing’ speak. Nor do I think much of the present mayor’s introduction to the Spatial Plan where he asserts that having such a plan will ‘future-proof’ the city against global threats like peak oil and climate change. Sounds like a belief in sympathetic magic to me – as if having a piece of paper which says we will all be just fine, then we will be.
This 2GP would have to be the biggest F**K UP since Dunkirk.
I have just rung the council to get some clarification about the 2GP, and been told that I will get a call back within the next two days. This is not good enough. Surely we can expect to be put through to someone who can, or could assist me with my enquiries, and not have to hang about for two days, in the hope that someone may ring me back.
### dunedintv.co.nz Wed, 30 Sep 2015
DCC’s new natural hazards plan out for public consultation
A proposal to change the way natural hazards are managed is drawing substantial public feedback. A new plan by the Dunedin City Council is out for consultation.
Ch39 Link
39 Dunedin Television Published on Sep 29, 2015
DCC’s new natural hazards plan out for public consultation
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█ 2GP Section 11 Natural Hazards Link
Or search *natural hazards* at the 2GP index page – https://2gp.dunedin.govt.nz/2gp/index.html
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█ Proposed Second Generation District Plan (2GP)
https://2gp.dunedin.govt.nz/2gp/index.html
The biggest natural hazards the people of Dunedin face are the city councillors. Who continually attack our pockets for $384,615.38 weekly to run the stadium for their rugby mates.
I have come to the sad conclusion that city planning is now just broken and unfixable. 2GP depends conceptually on the Spatial Plan and here are the Strategic Directions from the Spatial Plan (quoting):
The Spatial Plan is based on six key Strategic Directions: 1) A liveable city and 2) An environmentally sustainable and resilient city, (which) are supported by four strategic directions: 3) A memorable and distinctive city; 4) A vibrant and exciting city; 5) An accessible and connected city; and 6) A city that enables a prosperous and diverse economy. (ends)
Just as people say about using computers: GIGO (garbage in, garbage out), if you start a plan with GARBAGE, you can’t possibly end up with anything but garbage. 2GP just lifts this ‘vibrant’ and ‘exciting’ woolliness from the Spatial Plan and will give specific Rules supposedly derived from it the force of law in the new District Plan.
And no longer are explanations for District Plan Policies and, more critically, Rules required by law. So the local authority doesn’t have to justify the existence of a Rule at all, let alone in any accountable way. Rules can now exist just because they say so. (Definitely more authoritarian.)
If anyone wanted to understand what kind of city 2GP is likely to result in when operative, then a useful approach might be to work backwards from the Rules. I am quite certain that the Rules will not result in these green Utopian, ‘affluence and fun-for-all’ Strategic Directions becoming anything like a reality. Especially when you take into account how little money is likely to be around in both the private and public sectors to make some of these wish-list items happen.
More likely, there will be plenty of business for planning professionals and lawyers to try to clarify and argue how Rules etc might be applied to a specific site and proposed use. All trying to make sense (for a fee!) of what will appear to the vast majority of people as a chaotic and incomprehensible mess.
Diane, your comment will be converted to a new post later today. A very useful series of contextual observations for those approaching the PROPOSED 2GP.
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DCC: Public Notice Draft 2GP + “Community Presentations”
Wouldn’t it be a reassuring sign that the belfry was at last bat-free, if…
The Spatial Plan is based on six key Strategic Directions: 1) An affordable to live in city, where the reality of indebtedness is fully acknowledged and addressed by concentration on necessities first and foremost, nice-to-haves postponed until prudent stewardship has undone the follies that got us into this mess, and 2) An environmentally inoffensive city where noise, littering and despoliation of built environment not ignored in favour of wittering about fluffy nonsense (which) are supported by four strategic directions: 3) A memorable and distinctive city, not in the sense of being a laughing stock through the rest of NZ; 4) A place where people can lead exciting fulfilling lives according to their own lights; 5) An accessible and connected city, i.e. one from which streetscapers have been ridden out on a rail 6) A city that enables rather than red-taping and getting in the way of enterprising individuals, and diverse economy not kneecapped by extreme green ideology.
Hype O Thermia, you got it – ‘fluffy nonsense’ is exactly right. I hate to knock things without suggesting a better alternative. I want ‘strategic directions’ (hot topics! Or ‘clear and present’ dangers!) expressed in concrete, readily understandable language. I want all realistic options for growth and change listed and then binary choices democratically made ie Should the city boundaries be extended or development be more intensive? (a question all cities must consider in terms of growth). How do we know we will have a sufficient and secure supply of potable water? (A serious issue for cities all around the world.)
Which issues and concerns are most important? The Spatial Plan presently makes no heirarchy re its Strategic Directions but claims that they will all combine to result in an integrated vision. No. In the real world you have to make hard choices. You can’t have everything you want because you can’t afford it. You can’t have everything you want because things which seem desirable so often conflict with one another.
Is there a planning fix? Only a very radical one IMO – that a Unitary Authority should have one single Plan which is totally autonomous as long as it doesn’t contravene natural justice (which statute law should reflect anyway). The amount of work the DCC must have to do to devise, update, integrate, implement and monitor this profusion of plans is mind-boggling. Most of this ‘work’ is imposed on them by central government. A lot of which is to do with centralised control of regions – which then have to pay the high costs of this themselves.
@ Diane Yeldon
October 3, 2015 at 6:54 p.m.
You observe the following:
The Spatial Plan is based on six key Strategic Directions:
1) A liveable city; and
2) An environmentally sustainable and resilient city, (which) are supported by four strategic directions:
3) A memorable and distinctive city;
4) A vibrant and exciting city;
5) An accessible and connected city; and
6) A city that enables a prosperous and diverse economy. (ends)
You also and make some sharply pointed comment that I agree with.
To me, this woolly set of six statements seem rather more suited to the beginnings of a sermon from a religious idealistic zealot than the starting point for a district plan that establishes rules to conduct the planning affairs of a community.
Just as a few points about these statements.
1. Like what city in the world is not liveable? So to start with this is in itself meaningless.
2. And what is or is not environmentally sustainable? That is also meaningless. All and any environment that one likes to consider is in a state of change. So what is sustainable about evolutionary environments? Resilience is often dependent upon evolutionary change.
3. What city is not memorable or for that matter distinctive? It could be memorable and distinctive because it is dull and boring for example.
4. What constitutes vibrancy and distinctiveness and what city is not vibrant or exciting to some degree?
5. And what city is not accessible. Can one not enter any city? (Perhaps the Forbidden City is the exception).
6. And finally, a city that enables a prosperous and diverse economy. Now there you have me. When I look at Dunedin I see only a diminution of prosperity and diversity of its economy.
Maybe that last one is the one that we should focus upon and leave the rest to the Pope.
Lastly. This city is not going anywhere. It is shrinking. Maybe the planners should be thinking about that.
Douglas – you have done a ‘semantic audit’ of the ‘strategic directions’ quoted, demonstrating that they are abstract, ambiguous and vague to the point of being meaningless. Not surprising when we have a university system which will reward people with PhDs for a thesis full of meaningless twaddle, specially if it claims to be ‘post modern’. Anyone interested might like to Google ‘the Sokal affair’ which most amusingly demonstrates the point!
Sokal, what a guy! “What would matter would be ideologic obsequiousness … and sufficient quantities of the appropriate jargon.”
Bring on the ‘fluffy nonsense’! And impressive long words or worse still, words from common usage redefined with some arcane new meaning such that in use they now carry the weight of 2 messages, one plain, the other fancy jargon perfect for obscuring >> obliterating rational evidence-based thinking.
(4) Memorable – oh dear, if only Dunedin were distinctive for being dull! Yet again on radio news earlier today, mention of the South Dunedin flood complete with statements from man saying how many tradies were still working out there, how slowly repairs were progressing, the item ended with announcer saying Mr (sorry I forget his name) was in the process of selling up to move to somewhere on a hill.
Nearly every time I hear “Dunedin” on the radio it’s about a screw-up (plain reporting) or in the context of folly esp the Fubar.
Dunedin – A Bonza Bijou City, Pity About The Council.
(New slogan, because new slogans are like new flags, they improve reality outtasight. Don’t they?)
Yes Diane, wishy washy means that you can be robbed with impunity for any spurious reason by anyone with any power either by penalty or by an increase in rates and taxes.
Clear laws and visions predetermine the actions of a citizen wishing to avoid giving any of these “b…..ds” an opportunity for their satisfaction and a potential for their salary increase as a result of your unwilling “contribution”.
“Clear laws and visions” would also prevent the appointment of yet more staff to “advance” and “progress” and “liase with” fluffy wishy-washy “objectives” that are not objective, not realistic, not necessary, not affordable and general none of us asked for them, they were dreamed up by the fluffy bunnies who haven’t yet caught up with the fact that Dunedin is already deep in debt. Buffoons..
Hype, once you have rabbits you will get plenty of fluffy bunnies.
Parkinson recognised that staff numbers will increase in line with budgeted funds available. The secret to controlling bureaucracies is limiting their available funding. The problem with the New Zealand local government system is that local authorities can in effect and in law, create as much budgetary funds as they may want merely by charging ratepayers whatever they determine.
What we must try to achieve is to take away this umbilical financial cord from local authorities. That is why Lawrence Yule is in fact the greatest threat to ratepayers. He and his cronies are suggesting further taxation to enable greater budgets for loacl authorities.
The setting of Rates must be lawful. Most councils including DCC appear to be, under the LGRA, setting rates through unlawful processes. Kaipara ratepayers and residents together with Penny Bright of Auckland have unearthed what is really happening. Lead Cull out at dawn.
Gurglars, you say:
“Clear laws and visions predetermine the actions of a citizen wishing to avoid giving any of these “b…..ds” an opportunity for their satisfaction and a potential for their salary increase as a result of your unwilling “contribution”.”
Not really – see latest updates at Kaipara Concerns re unlawful rates (ref LGA and LGRA).
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“Unlike taxes which are levied by statutes that are unconditionally binding on all citizens, rates are only binding if they comply with the law. Local government in New Zealand has long suffered from a chronic case of ADOTROL* disease [Arrogant Disregard Of The Rule Of Law] which has caused it to adopt procedures and documentation that are lazy, slovenly and simply fail to comply with the law. That means that most of the rates set by local authorities are unlawful.”
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/kaipara-concerns-adotrol-disease-dunedin-mention-again/