An OVERWHELMING observation….
From: Elizabeth Kerr
Sent: Thursday, 19 November 2015 4:14 a.m.
To: Sue Bidrose
Cc: Elizabeth Kerr
Subject: Proposed 2GP – difficulty with ePlan document trackingAttention:
Sue Bidrose
Chief Executive, Dunedin City CouncilDear Sue
RE Proposed 2GP – difficulty with ePlan document tracking
In thinking through the public’s approach to carrying through on their submissions, further submissions, and within mediation and hearing processes, or indeed formal appeal processes via Environment Court – how will individual and group submitters and their experts contend with ePlan document tracking in these settings.
● Not all members of the public have access to laptop computers or the ability to use them efficiently in a formal meeting or hearing setting;
● In any case, participants will be disadvantaged if there are inadequate numbers of chairs and tables provided to facilitate safe (ergonomic) use of laptop computers – this also applies for those actively listening from the public gallery;
● Due to the unwieldy size of the (draft) ePlan at 1600 pages it is highly unlikely individuals will want to request print editions in order to ‘keep up’ with business in whichever forum.This perceived lack of accessibility and usability of the 1600-page ePlan in the delivery of written and oral submissions as well as the giving of expert evidence raises serious questions around fairness and justness – ultimately, a concern to all Dunedin ratepayers and residents, and the city council.
● I have absolutely no idea how submitters, experts, news media, council staff or commissioners will technically follow specific mention of ePlan sections and references, or achieve cross referencing swiftly and successfully, be it with or without laptops or printed copy.
Here looms a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare for all.
To be frank, I see no ready solution.
However, I invite council explanation if through media statement(s) or council website guides that might practically assist or calm the resolve of the interested public wanting to critically engage with the proposed second generation district plan in the coming months.
I look forward to your reply by email.
Sincere regards
Elizabeth Kerr
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
█ The public has until November 24 to make submissions.
█ Proposed Second Generation District Plan (2GP)
https://2gp.dunedin.govt.nz/2gp/index.html
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Watch your property values drop….
ODT 18.11.15 (page 14)
As for the notional concept of growth….
ODT 17.11.15 (page 6)
Further to Calvin Oaten’s mention of school rolls dropping….
Roll figures for 2015 show the city’s secondary schools have capacity for 9252 pupils, but 1513 spaces are not used in Dunedin – the equivalent of two secondary school rolls. ODT 18.11.15
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Related posts and Comments:
● 16.11.15 DCC operating deficit $1M worse than budget
● 11.11.15 Letter to DCC chief executive re extension for public submissions…
● 9.11.15 Letter to DCC chief executive re Proposed 2GP hearings panel
24.10.15 DCC and the AWFUL 2GP ‘threat of THREATS’
12.10.15 DCC Proposed 2GP (district plan) —DEFEND YOUR PROPERTY
3.10.15 DCC: Public Notice Draft 2GP + “Community Presentations”
3.10.15 DCC appointees to draft 2GP panel #greenasgrass #infatuation
● 2.10.15 DCC Draft 2GP hearings panel lacks FULL INDEPENDENCE
30.10.15 DCC 2GP molasses and the dreadful shooflies (You)
● 28.9.15 Message to DCC: The People can’t deal with your 2GP documentation…
26.9.15 DCC: Proposed 2GP to line pockets of cowboy developers #FIGHTDIRTY
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Elizabeth, your letter to the DCC CEO has put into words a HUGE problem with the first of the 2GP documents. And since time is short, my mind immediately rushes towards remedies. And I think of Rachel MacAlpine who is a leading light in the Plain English movement in New Zealsnd and who I made contact with over the incomprehensible nature of the ORC bus timetable. She is aware of Edward Tufte’s work, he being a leader in the field of the display of information.
In a hurry at the moment but I can see from your letter and my own study of the 2GP document (not the actual Plan itself but its mode of presentation) that there is a huge CROSS REFERENCE ISSUE. You cannot understand the text without the graphic images. But the texts are bounded (to physical pages) where the online map is effectively INFINITE. So our poor little human brains can’t easily (if at all) map A on to A’.
There IS a render for this which is do-able in the limited timeframe. Use computer technology to replicate the conventional series of overlapping map pages.
Hype O’Thermia: thank you for your appreciation of REDUNDANCY. Because lack of redundancy is exactly the problem here. The old text maps had redundancy because they had to be limited to what a human being could look at and take in at one time. Then to connect them they had to have overlap – which was redundancy, But that very redundancy was a REFERENCE POINT. Human beings can’t see unless they can focus.
This problem is hard to understand and see. No wonder the planners took out these map overlaps. Because a computer system could do it. But those redundant map ordinates (like a Cartesian graph) allowed people to take readily understood manageable chunks and map it on to the relevant text.
Imagine if the old plan had had ONE SINGLE ENORMOUS PAPER PRINTED MAP FOR THE WHOLE CITY. You couldn’t find a table big enough to lay it down flat on. And even if you could, the edge co -ordinate reference markings would be too far away from the centre of the map to be usable. Well, exactly the same thing is true of the COUNTINUOUS ONLINE MAP. Left brain understands the text but cannot do infinite. Very hard to explain. But the maps DO need to be printed out as pages, as before.
Good luck with this. Am tied up with work at the moment. But I am hopeful that the DCC DOES know there’s a problem with this online map (there’s only one – one much too big one!) and they are trying to fix it.
Such an interesting problem I am getting distracted. First, if you are a planner or other person using THIS MAP (only one!) a lot, then it is worth your investing the time to learn the system. If you want occasional quick reference, like most property owners, then it is not.
And since these quick reference users outweigh the planners and are also who the planners are making the plan FOR, the digital technology, which allows manipulation of ALL the data but ONLY once you are familiar with the system, should be at the back end, ie hidden or embedded, whereas the front end, the user interface, should look like normal paper stuff which is familiar. and doesn’t have to be specially learned. The planning question is hard enough for the non planner without compounding it with tech problems.
There is a useful comparison with the bus timetable problem here – computer search engine can be used to study and understand the behaviour of the system by sampling. But many people will not like using a journey planner because it is pretty dumb and spits out garbage too often.
Even if the DCC got it wrong, it’s still a credit to them that they tried this technology. Certainly their web maps are excellent and have been for years. My IT specialist son calls computer/digital innovation ‘the bleeding edge’ because there are ALWAYS problems at first. That pesky systems behaviour where Murphy’s Law rules… ie anything that CAN go wrong does – and then more than you hadn’t thought of – the good old ‘unintentional consequences’.
Your persistence is admirable, Elizabeth. It was almost in the ‘too hard’ basket for me. I really needed that “No, I can’t understand it either and I know I’m not dumb,’ input to continue.
Diane, even though self-taught on computers and a late starter comparatively, and as someone who just likes to use the automatic washing machine without worrying about what’s happening under the white skin inside the box…. (like so many car owners)…. my training and practise of architecture automatically makes me look at overview and detail simultaneously for the effects. The Proposed 2GP is unfortunately ‘black box’ – a painful object maybe revolutionary but made by the wrong hands leaping too far away from community nuts and bolts, and business ethics mixed with prudence in matters of customer service and economic morality. The wash comes out horribly stained and shredded.
I’m enjoying your explorations here.
Elizabeth: thanks for putting letters to the print edition of the ODT on here because people (like me) can’t see them on the online version of ODT. Yes, the hazards identification is inevitably going to be broad brush stroke stuff – so broad it’s inaccurate more than not. Very similar to property valuations where the people from Quotable Value sit in their cars and look around a neighbourhood and decide the houses they can’t quite see must be similar to the others. Ratable value (which used to be ‘government valuation’) is a joke and it’s quite likely the hazards identification is similar.
And Calvin is right about the aging population, not just in Dunedin but all round the developed world. So why do we need a more ‘compact’ = squeezed up without green spaces and garden and trees – city? We DON’T. But you can bet inner city property owners lobbied to maximize their investments. The ‘stakeholders’ looking after their steak supply.
is that where half of the “Winter Show” was held when I was a kid?
Next door south side at what used to be Browns.
I remember there being two adjoining buildings being used, the northerly one with animals on display and the southerly one (backing onto the fun fair on Vogel St) with stuff for sale and other displays
Correct. All of it became Browns (second hand dealers), which although in different hands now still has the Agricultural Hall sign on the modern frontage next door to Sammy’s on Crawford Street. The Winter Shows were fantastic!
There used to be a big auction at Browns to get rid of stock and make room for the Show.
I remember a New! Exciting! treat, brand new at the Show. Called Donald Duck TT2, it was a hazard-orange ice block on a stick, flavoured “orange” (note, “orange flavour” bearing no relation to the flavour of oranges).
As a kid I was thrilled. We didn’t have such exotic treats back home in rural Otago.
Each of the areas that I have lived in Dunedin. North East Valley, The Taieri and Warrington are now all hazard areas. Yet I paid for flood protection schemes in both NEV and The Tairei. My Regional Council rates on the Tairei were $800 a year in 2008. I’d hate to think what they cost now. But it’s still a hazard area and so is NEV where a flood protection scheme paid to ORC did not go ahead. So what the hell are these councils up to? They are charging people who live in their flood prone areas an arm and a leg yet they are still making sure that their properties reduce in value. Thank god I don’t live in Dunedin anymore where if I lived in a state house area next door to the Mongrel Mob or Black Power, I’d be considered as living in a hazard free area.
Carol, you’re absolutely right about the nonsense of both councils. They just turn up each day, scratch their heads and ask, “What’ll I do today?” Oh, I know, I’ll start a new Plan. Never mind that the inks not dried on the last one.
As a matter of interest, today I was driving north along Princes St and I decided to stop at Transport Place where my eye caught sight of buses. This was at 11.30am. I walked around the site and counted over fifty passenger buses. Granted a few would appear to be tour or charter types but the majority were obviously public transport units. Counting the ones out on the town doing the serviced time tables I have to believe there are probably in excess of a hundred in total. I guess new off the floor, each would be near a quarter of a $million to put on the road. It occurs to me that there is something very very wrong about the philosophy of public transport requirements for a city Dunedin’s size. At present this is all in the ORC’s camp funded in part by Central Government. When one observes the patronage of these behemoths trundling along the streets one wonders just how much tax/rate/payers’ money goes down the drain daily. Then I shuddered when I remembered that Dave Cull recently advocated taking back into the DCC’s control that “ELEPHANT”! One should never be surprised at the stupidty of the people who run our destiny.
Calvin: Not only is the local public transport system f**** up because of the split between ORC and DCC but also (as you imply) because of the crazy, counterproductive, ideological ‘competition’ method imposed by central government. It would be better to have a single agency with the responsibility for providing a certain standard of public transport for 1) Dunedin central city and suburbs and 2) the whole DCC local government geographical area. A setup directly addressing the problem and only – and ONLY – addressing the problem, not a setup aimed at proving some ideological point about ‘competitive’ models being better for everyone. The current bus provisions aren’t all even ‘competitive’ but some are ‘subsidised’ – you have to be very careful about exactly what you mean by ‘subsidised’. Are car drivers ‘subsidised’ by the employment of traffic cops? Are cyclists subsidised by the construction of cycleways and bicycle carriers on buses? Or pedestrians by the provision of pedestrian crossings?
Transport provision goals should not be to ‘save money’ for one particular transport mode but to optimise all the choices – including switching backwards and forwards between them and multi-mode use.
Elizabeth: You are right comparing the DCC Plan Review to a ‘black box’. But it could also be compared to a magician’s hat. Out of which rabbits may be pulled from time to time, according to the whims and fancies of the magician. I have noticed various public statements from DCC planners about the nature and impact of the new plan. But I can’t see any evidence for claims made traceable back to specific provisions of the new plan.
Ah yes. Aspirational PUSH for domestic economic development through property speculation underpinning mismatch with LACK of management for existing natural and physical resources [environmental sustainability]…… section, clause, wha…. ??????
But go to the Plan Overview and Strategic Directions at https://2gp.dunedin.govt.nz/plan/pages/plan/book.aspx?exhibit=DCCDefault – and also, Section 32 reports (see top of page menu – click on Supporting material).
ODT 20.11.15 (page 15)
Only way to DEFEND YOUR PROPERTY is by walking the Proposed 2GP tightrope armed with Lawyer and Experts necessitated by Madam’s UNPROFESSIONAL LACK OF DILIGENCE at her Playskool desktop, helped by her nasal consultant friends.
Errol Chave’s unabridged letter would be GOLD.
Doctor Anna has a splendid way of dancing on heads of pins without touching the substantive matters about which clarification was clearly sought by a party affected by the bollocking nonsenses that emanated from her cauldron of newts and candyfloss.
She is going to hung, drawn and quartered at the hearings. If time, I will be watching the circus highlights.
It’s hardly surprising that I was at first scared of you, Elizabeth. In fact, still am! I vastly ‘over -capitalised’ (real estate speak) my own home because I love it and want it to look and actually be nice, not because of its ‘market value’. Many ancestors of this city did the same (far better than I ever could). So I can understand how someone could get very angry indeed about the trashing of ‘heritage’ buildings, especially by drunken and unrepentent young louts. The very name ‘heritage’ used indicates these buildings AND THEIR GARDENS AND MATURE TREES AND SHRUBS!!!, should be preserved, enjoyed and then handed, in good or better condition to the coming generations. To destroy works of art and offend the ancestors is very risky behaviour since it warrants retribution. Sometimes it’s inevitable that those fighting this war take (or give) friendly fire. I will leave the hanging, drawing and quartering to you, Elizabeth, but, if any of the drunken louts were to be tarred and feathered in the night by persons unknown, I would not shed a tear.
Don’t be AFRAID, Diane. Ms Anna will be HD&Q by individual property-owning submitters, their lawyers and their experts – not I. And only metaphorically if not legally. Such is the 2GP.
Having been raised in the 1960s/early 1970s, I was exposed (as a believer!) to the delights of utter trouncings and bounce backs vividly portrayed in American TV cartoons from the likes of Hanna-Barbera (Huckleberry Hound, SnagglePuss and more) and Warner Bros. (Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies…. Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Wile E. Coyote, The Road Runner, Bugs Bunny and others) – completely unforgettable!! As were the characters’ wild accents and dialects.
These scenarios are owed a bit of side-apportionment to the horreur! of Medieval torture and Kiwi dogbox for (cumulative adverse) effect…. a scribbler’s paradise at #DUD.
‘Economic development through property speculation’ (quoting Elizabeth).
I imagine most Dunedin residents would NOT want that as either an intended consequence of the plan or as an unintentional consequence of the plan. This is why it is so important to understand the underlying philosophy of the plan. There must be one somewhere. And it’s important to be sure that it is NOT the above (economic development through speculation). Unfortunately, there is reason to believe that District Plans throughout New Zealand have not been able to prevent this outcome (despite being massive, expensive, wordy tomes) but have rather aided and abetted it – a prime example of a large, complex system WHICH HAS COME TO OPPOSE ITS OWN STATED PURPOSE!
I can’t resist drawing attention once more to one of the funniest (and, indeed, most sinister) aspects of systems. That when systems are operating in failure mode, either partial or complete, this is rarely detected and it can certainly be some time before it is. (I reject the idea that such failure will NEVER be detected, as being in the realm of the unknowable).
I think the whole last 25 years of planning in NZ, since the introduction of the RMA, is an example of a system operating in failure mode – because look at the outcome – precisely ‘economic development through property speculation’. But it might yet be possible to prevent that in Dunedin.
It’s what large complex systems end up doing. Strangulation by safety cords, and so on.
The attempt to include “everything” results in a 25-per-side Rubik’s cube.
Police computer system, mega-everything plus extras whenever anyone thought of something else to include, a frightful example.
Is it possible that the whole ‘heritage’ movement is driven not by love of old buildings, but by fear of what the developer/architect community will replace them with if they are removed? Sammy’s is an ugly building, but we may be sure that the average architect will have no trouble in producing something much uglier. Architects in particular seem to have got way out of hand, dismissing the views of the ‘plebs’ who will have to look at as well as live in and around their creations.
It’s not as if these hideous things are redeemed by a reliable level of functionality. The Commerce Building is a case in point. A nice gym was supplied for staff to keep fit in (sound mind in a sound body and all that). Sadly, it could not be used most of the time because it was placed directly over the MBA lecture theatres. The inhabitants of which objected to the inevitable grunting, whizzing and crashing from above.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of this is in the UK where heritage buildings often cannot be externally modified ‘in style’, but where hideous, loud and non-matching architectural excrescences are now a compulsory cost of continued functionality – ‘Restoration Man’ has had a couple of cracking examples.
Tweet [screenshot]
from
Dezeen 19.11.15 Architecture should not be comforting says Daniel Libeskind
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further down the article
The former home of an SS commander at Nazi concentration camp Westerbork, the Netherlands, has been enclosed within a giant glass vitrine by Dutch studio Oving Architecten.
….Will Dunedin’s 2GP allow this sort of commemoration as a granny flat in City Rise?
Unfortunately no, even if it was to keep her warm.
2GP discomforts
ODT quite forgot to provide a link to this 2GP query, published yesterday.
I wonder why.
[click to enlarge]
Received from Hype O’Thermia
Mon, 23 Nov 2015 at 10:09 a.m.
What I wonder is, what happens down the track? These small settlements, denser than permitted for everyone else, are to be permissible because that’s how Maori lived, or something. And it makes sense that if you have a decent chunk of land you’d like for your family to be able to live there too. People with town sections may build a granny flat if there’s need and room (and money – and granny), this is the same kind of thing but more so.
We all lived like that of course, going back a bit. The family farm or the lord of the manor’s estate, they required workers. Pre-bicycles and trains, workers had to live close to work. Industrialisation made little difference, most children grew up and settled within walking distance of the family. Change came slowly.
It’s here now and it’s not slow now. Even if they’d rather not, people have to move away from places they are happy, to find work. Often they are happy in the new place – then for a different job or improved prospects they have to move again. I know the unemployment stats for Maori are dreadful but policy shouldn’t be designed in the belief that many Maori will continue to be the under-educated jobless, living clustered together not only out of preference but also because of lack of wherewithal to do otherwise. And this brings me to the question – what happens to the houses of these denser-than-other-ethnicities’ housing settlements when family move out? Will houses be sold to whoever wants to buy? Will they be 99-year-leased so as not to lose ownership of the land on which they stand, or rented, or will they become downgraded one at a time as career-unemployables who can show whakapapa hear about their “entitlement” but have no idea about reciprocal duty to the community, not even their kin-folk. And we have seen, if not personally experienced, the effects of “neighbour from hell”. Let’s hope the Maori communities have more success in kicking out such types from their properties, than the government and councils from similarly blighted rentals because if not the reasonable people suffer. May even move away, so then another bunch of good-for-nothings move into that empty house – as long as there is one Maori with rights to that land, is there any restriction on the ethnicity of flatmates/boarders? …. And in that way a good neighbourhood can turn ugly if initial idealism isn’t matched by realism.
Have these matters, i.e. what happens a few years down the track, been thought about at all, when preparing this ethnic-origin departure from the usual rule in the muddle that is 2GP?
Contributions by DMVL of $750,000 are just transposition of ratepayers’ monies stolen from ratepayers by the DCC and added to the annual cost well exceeding $20,000,000 per annum foisted on ratepayers.
This gift giving is designed to make DMVL look like the Pied Piper when it actually represents all the worst of Dick Turpin, Ned Kelly and Clyde.
All of these were at least self-confessed bank robbers, DMVL is a clandestine bank robber- and it’s YOUR BANK.