Dunedin: Housing upgrade and “rearrangement”

Continuing suburban sprawl at Mosgiel and Abbotsford, and new subdivisions in St Clair, Corstorphine and Highcliff, are keeping the builders busy-ish. Is it a boom? Hardly, population increases aren’t driving this, it’s more of a rearrangement and foil to the council’s broader district planning aims. As always, it’s the developers that set the rules while the council languishes. Worst of all, nailing the City Development Team to policy planning and a flimsy ‘doctorate’ (as the council takes pride in playing its isolationist academic cards) isn’t the answer —just another point of remove from the industry boys.
Is it surprising.

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“Land in the more desirable suburbs usually has a house on it and usually the house is just a bit too good to knock down.” –Neil McLeod, DCC building services manager

### ODT Online Sun, 9 Nov 2014
Building boom in city
By Dan Hutchinson – The Star
Dunedin is experiencing the biggest new-house building boom since the beginning of the global financial crisis.
Building activity has boosted the number of people employed in the construction industry to an all-time high of 3590, based on figures provided by Statistics New Zealand.
Read more

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“The Mosgiel East and Taieri East areas are peri-urban areas that until recently were considered rural. Changes to the zoning by the council has seen these areas changed to residential zones for the development of subdivisions.” Ref: University of Otago (Geography) – TLA Approaches: Managing Effects of Rural Subdivision and Development of Peri-urban Lands (2011)

Silver Springs Subdivision, Wingatui Rd, Mosgiel UoO Link (2011)

Gladstone Oaks – Prudence Place Subdivision, Mosgiel RE Listing (2013)

“The expansion of the Mosgiel area has resulted in conflict between those wishing for short term capital gains and those looking towards a longer term gain through the productive use of the land. It has at times been a heated debate with both sides using the ‘Sustainability’ argument to support their views …. One clear fact can be surmised, The loss of high class soil areas to development is highly unlikely to be reversed. The decisions that have made on the Taieri Plains, although made in an attempt to bolster the economic prosperity of the area, have uncertain environmental impacts for the future.” UoO Link

Soil Map of Mosgiel [Source: DCC]

From an earlier comment:

Mosgiel’s future? Tawdry cul-de-sacs, cheek-by-jowl McMansions, high-cost retirement villages and horsy-jodhpur lifestyle blocks. DCC hasn’t got a plan, and it’s too late anyway – the developers with all the control only offer the bad-taste ad hoc.

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Related Posts and Comments:
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24.9.14 Dunedin old boys, councillors & staff collude on 5-star accommodation
16.5.14 Dunedin housing
19.3.14 State Housing matters
2.3.14 Dunedin’s social housing need —they built a bastard stadium
● 12.2.14 DCC: Growth v development contributions
25.10.13 Dunedin: “no-growth city”
20.10.13 Doh, low growth for Dunedin
10.10.13 Whistleblowers’ message heard ??! #OtagoRacingClub… [comments]
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
12.6.13 Dunedin housing: building up or Brown-like sprawl #intensification…
2.4.13 Dunedin: Developers stoop to resource consents instead of private plan…
29.3.13 Reykjavik, Iceland: The strongest mirror [speculative apartments]
21.3.13 Growth fetish ? Urban sprawl v Higher density living ?
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30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
14.4.12 How perverse is the New Zealand housing market?
8.12.11 interest.co heats NZ housing debate – listen up
25.11.11 South Dunedin and other flood zones
8.11.11 Development contributions
24.9.11 Kevin McCloud interview
27.4.11 What to do, what to do! [CHC #eqnz aside]
24.4.11 Oram on Auckland Spatial Plan, and more
23.3.11 Dunedin City Council’s rock and its hard place
2.2.11 Dunedin building and construction (+DCC fees)
9.1.11 Detroit: “Make no little plans”
29.12 10 Geospatial analysis, relieving burdens on existing infrastructure
28.12.10 ‘Light urbanism’ – planners influencing residential design
26.12.10 New Zealand housing, a sorry tale
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27.9.10 Cities: Wellington, or Dunedin?
13.9.10 Same again, Dunedin City District Plan about to be ignored
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

New Zealand Architects: Pete Bossley, and Ian and Clare Athfield

### radionz.co.nz Monday 18 June 2012
Nine To Noon with Kathryn Ryan
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon

Feature Guest – Pete Bossley
Auckland-based architect Pete Bossley last month won the NZ Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal for 2012. The Director of Bossley Architects is best known for his designs for Te Papa, the Voyager Maritime Museum and the McCahon Artist Retreat in Auckland. (34′00″)
Gallery: Architecture by Pete Bossley
Audio | Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed

10:40 Book Review – Athfield Architects
Written by Julia Gatley, published by Auckland University Press. Reviewed by Jeremy Hansen. (5′27″)
Audio | Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
http://www.homenewzealand.blogspot.co.nz/

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### radionz.co.nz Saturday 23 June 2012
Saturday Morning with Kim Hill
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday

10:05 Playing Favourites with Ian and Clare Athfield
Ian and Claire Athfield have been running one of New Zealand’s most celebrated architectural practices for over four decades, and their work is celebrated in a new book and gallery exhibition. (40′57″)
Audio | Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Note: *Radio New Zealand misspells Clare Athfield’s first name as ‘Claire’; the error is repeated in their Urls for the item.

Dunedin City Council and sustainability

### ODT Online Fri, 18 Sep 2009
Councillor attacks parts of report
By David Loughrey

Dunedin city councillor Michael Guest has attacked parts of a report on sustainability he said were “from the loony left”, and urged the council not to treat the idea as a religion.
Read more

– Councillor Michael Guest chairs the Dunedin City Council’s Planning and Environment Committee, strangely.

Report – FSC – 14/09/2009 (PDF, 152.7 kb, new window)
Sustainability Framework Update

###ODT Online Mon, 21/09/2009 – 4:54pm.
Comment by JimmyJones on Sustainability or common sense?

DCC Councilors have been pressured in recent times, by the DCC staff, to impose Sustainability on the city. Few Councilors have had the courage to stand up to these people – Cr Guest is one that deserves some credit for opposing aspects of the report.
Read more

On the sustainability question…

A birdie tells me councillors are looking at the potential of creating farm parks on Otago Peninsula.

This to stimulate economic development and lure private investment – after all, what do you do for the local construction industry and the investment community once the stadium is built.

Answer, as councillors, you try to sink the good people of Dunedin City into mass unsustainability practices.

If rural subdivision in Dunedin City gains more traction councillors would be seen as doing their damnedest to hike the infrastructure services bill to ratepayers, by permitting unmitigated sprawl and unsustainable land management practices…

More power to the few, is where it leads.

And hey. Local ratepayers will welcome an influx of rich folk to our rural climes – be they absentee property owners that want for no more than to run a horse for their darling children in a week of the school holidays – just like in Queenstown Lakes District?

The circus there of rural subdivision and housing sprawl, promoted by prominent Dunedin-based ‘entrepreneurs’ among others, hasn’t been a holistic or credible exercise in sustainability. It’s got them a functioning international airport though. So much for the aviation fuel industry.

A farm park is suburbanisation.

Farm parks are another enticement to life stylers that want everything pretty, tarsealed (oops, not so pretty) and fetching in terms of house aesthetics for guests (or renters at $1000+ per week), with a few hazelnut trees thrown in. The show ponies… the credit card set that blow hot and cold.

Let’s decorate Otago Peninsula with more of them. Why not.

It’s not like it is a rarity in New Zealand to have an outstanding set of existing coastal communities, to be found just a little bit further away than the Waverley sprawl. Is it?

Ransack the bays and the peninsula hills. Why not.

That’s productive isn’t it – we want to look and act like most of the world’s real estate greed incarnate. As soon as we can. We are the real sheep. Or diary cows, for want of a phrase.

Dare I say the sprawl at Mosgiel over the years has taught no lessons. There are, of course, the councillors that own property there in subdivisions, or who caused the subdivisions. We could name them after wider study of the Rates Book, which has gotten to be very interesting.

It all connects to the review of the District Plan in relation to rural land use.

A liberal entry at the council website says:
Monitoring Rural Land Use August 2004 (PDF, 460.6 kb, new window)
Dunedin City is unique amongst larger New Zealand cities in that it contains vast tracts of rural land. The District Plan seeks to maintain the productivity of rural land, to discourage rural land fragmentation, to maintain the character of rural areas and to provide for rural residential development in a sustainable manner.

It’s an observation shared that the planning staff at council – or one in particular – are of the view that market forces should dictate rural land use, leading to greater levels of subdivision of rural land.

This does not assist regional export and production. This does not restore an environment that has been highly modified in the past through exploitative farming practice and land clearing.

Fêting the creation of farm parks and rural subdivision as a whole perpetuates the ridiculous, mind numbing New Zealand preoccupation with pumping the housing market to the exclusion of making (organic) investment in productive industry and export.

Roll on, the consequences of the capital gains, the manipulative credit lines and the foreclosures… and further degradation of the environment over responsible farseeing stewardship.

Is this what the present councillors are pushing us to explore further? Is this what they think the community wants – no sustainable future?

In a word, shocking.

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References:

Zone Provisions – Rural and Rural Residential (PDF, 708.3 kb, new window)
This document explains the rural and rural residential zones and their management under the Dunedin City Council District Plan.

Plan Change 15 – Mosgiel Residential Expansion

Dunedin LMA Review – April 2007 (PDF, 4.4 mb, new window)
Boffa Miskell Limited were contracted by City Planning to assess the landscape values of Dunedin. This report contains descriptions, threats and values of the various landscape character areas identified. It also recommends a range of planning approaches for managing landscape values in rural Dunedin.

growRural Dunedin
growRural Dunedin is an initiative developed by the Dunedin City Council in conjunction with Dunedin Rural Development.

Post by Elizabeth Kerr