Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: The Unitec project: Something new, with a rolling start

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 09:13:41 +1200

Let’s see what actually gets done.
It will be interesting to see the total acreage of 'A4 sized areas' of Black Mould the Census reveals in NZ homes...

Neil

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 15:58:00 +1200

The tragic case of Vivienne Wright highlights amongst other issues the problem with Body Corp management.

Nikki Kaye has been one of the few MPs to recognise the significance and scale of this issue and try and push through legislative changes.

Perhaps now Twyford might pay some attention.

Neil

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 18:14:53 +1200

Lots of people had various reasons to
not want to know:

A health board boss says problems at Middlemore Hospital were "spelt out succinctly" in papers handed to the Health Minister [David Clark] before he claimed not to know about them.

I think a general denial of the full extent…

Sacha

Thu, 05 Apr 2018 10:25:42 +1200

Investing in community-based primary care and stronger IT to genuinely join up all parts of the health system greatly reduces the need for any more hospitals. Central govt and DHBs know this already. Let's see what actually gets done.

Bart Janssen

Thu, 05 Apr 2018 09:45:33 +1200

What south Auckland needs is a completely new hospital to meet demand and remediation carries large risk.

If you listen to the doctors working there their highest priority is not a new hospital.

They pretty much all say the problems are out in the community
Poor housing
Poor quality food…

Neil

Wed, 04 Apr 2018 21:21:55 +1200

With Labour all too willing to plough billions into the construction industry without getting on top of the problems there, and not pay teachers and nurses adequately, it’s a bit disheartening.

Neil

Wed, 04 Apr 2018 09:24:05 +1200

The delay in remediation of the Middlemore buildings may turn out to be somewhat of a blessing in disguise.

What south Auckland needs is a completely new hospital to meet demand and remediation carries large risk.

Remediation always winds up costing far more than planned and it doesn’t always achieve…

Neil

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 17:55:26 +1200

I’m not blaming Twyford for the situation at Middlemore, I’m arguing that there was information available that should have raised alarm bells on the broader problem building issue.

As I’ve said, that was also largely ignored by the National govt.

Neil

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 16:28:20 +1200

I’ll email you.

Russell Brown

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 15:26:27 +1200

I'm intrigued by the apparent attempt to spread blame to an MP who wasn't in government at the time.

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 13:35:49 +1200

I know the problem building issue was raised with both Twyford and Kaye.
...
Twyford paid little attention

Again, please provide evidence to back up this assertion. It's not one I've seen anywhere else. How should we believe it to be true?

Neil

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 13:16:39 +1200

Yes I did misread that but that doesn’t change the point that the DHB from very early on actively ignored their building problems and that would have involved their consultant engineers. Or worse – they didn’t consult.

It’s a pattern repeated in the private sector as the other article I…

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 11:12:06 +1200

So you have no evidence to back your statement about Twyford other than feeling it in your waters?

Sacha

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 11:09:33 +1200

The Middlemore Hospital maintanence person who tried to alert the DHB to problems early on mentions being overruled by “experts”.

He is referring to *himself* as an expert, over-ruled by non-experts. Read again.

Neil

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 09:46:20 +1200

The Middlemore Hospital maintanence person who tried to alert the DHB to problems early on mentions being overruled by “experts”. That would have been consultant engineers. One wonders how many other buildings they were called on to assess and said – nothing to see here.

Another big problem was the…

Tom Semmens

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 08:26:34 +1200

hmmm, a lot of posts from the resident National Party apologist on this. Putin's troll factories ain't got nothing on the frantic desperation of the National Party and it's loons to dissemble, deflect, delay and deny on the deliberate housing catastrophe they presided over.

Neil

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 08:18:39 +1200

Questions remain over just who knew what and when about the hospital's litany of building woes, and what was done about it.

The board said it became aware it had four badly leaking buildings between 2012 and 2013.

However, a hospital maintenance worker, who RNZ has agreed not to name,…

Neil

Mon, 02 Apr 2018 18:54:47 +1200

I would suggest contacting John Gray at HOBANZ.

His group has been trying for a number of years to put this issue on the radar of both National and Labour but with minimal success.

The current Minister for Building and Construction recently denied there were any leaky buildings at a…

Sacha

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 22:16:18 +1300

Twyford didn’t listen to those who knew

Any links about that?

Neil

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:12:26 +1300

The Auckland Council looking for a new HQ bought a leaky building. Worth pondering for a moment. If they can’t ascertain the quality of a building then who can. They signed off on that building.

No one did an inventory of buildings that could be problematic. Everyone just wanted the…

Neil

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:53:04 +1300

Say what? National spent nine years ignoring this. Labour has had 6 months to find out about it

The denial was (is) deap and wide. Nikki Kaye had little success bringing it to the attention of her cabinet colleagues and Twyford didn’t listen to those who knew.

nzlemming

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:43:17 +1300

It’s a steamroller of financial destruction. National largely ignored the problem but Labour also chose not to listen to people who knew the true extent of the disaster.

Say what? National spent nine years ignoring this. Labour has had 6 months to find out about it. Your prejudice is showing…

nzlemming

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:41:18 +1300

It used to work, and they haven't yet adjusted.

Score!

Neil

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:29:45 +1300

One of the problems we have is that we tend to run these sectors in isolation when we know they all have impacts across all sectors. I don’t think there is a perfect answer but I’m pretty comfortable with the idea of building good homes having pretty positive impacts for…

Bart Janssen

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:52:39 +1300

if this money could have been better off being spent on health and education – to the benefit of many more.

I've heard people from both health and education sectors say that if it was possible they'd probably get better outcomes in health and education by building quality homes for…

BenWilson

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 12:26:48 +1300

What is going on?

It used to work, and they haven't yet adjusted.

Tom Semmens

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:18:46 +1300

Farrar and Hooton appear to be determined to prove Joseph Goebbels dictim that a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.

I am staggered at their bare faced lying over the density issue. They just keep repeating their lie as a zombie fact, despite having the stupidity of their argument…

Neil

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 22:12:53 +1300

What’s the likelihood that this will just amount to the govt subsiding the middle class buying into Mt Albert.

Not many people see $600,000 as affordable.

We don’t know how much the govt is spending on this so we can’t really know if this money could have been better off…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 15:10:02 +1300

I'd really like to see them explore taking the crossing out of the equation and running the shared path under the bridge and directly to the Wairaka precinct.

That would seem to be the obvious solution. The Te Atatu tunnel is a great example of a bike/pedestrian tunnel. It shouldn't…

JessicaRose

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:36:46 +1300

I do hope there are plans in the works to make the main Unitec backroad more cycle-friendly as part of the Wairaka Precinct plan.

Based on this map (hopefully attached) that was produced by Wairaka Land Company, it looks like there was plans for this. Also this Bike Auckland article…

Russell Brown

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:35:31 +1300

Just like all the homes in National’s SHAs were ‘likely’ to be built – until those canny developers figured they could make more by landbanking and flicking it on unbuilt. Who could possibly have foreseen another market failure!

Quite. It's not realistic to pretend that the SHA model worked and…

Russell Brown

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:29:36 +1300

I will say I’d like to see serious effort to improve the already good cycle infrastructure. This density will only work if residents don’t all have three cars that need to be parked on the public roads. The Carrington Rd crossing has to be fixed and the route by the…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 09:44:04 +1300

Kinda funny to watch folks rant and rave about who started what when and exactly how many and how much.

What is being proposed is unlike anything seen in Auckland before. It's a development that has to be dense yet has to avoid being a slum. The infrastructure alone will…

Jim Cathcart

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 07:05:53 +1300

Public housing is also supplied by local bodies, as is the case with the Arlington redevelopments in Wellington.

Successful public and social housing infrastructure is driven by the public sector, like in S'pore and Japan. The premise is that it gives everyone the opportunity to participate in the economy, regardless…

Jim Cathcart

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 07:01:19 +1300

According to the government’s announcement, the cheap ones (which will only be 30-40% of them) will be $500,000 to $600,000 and the rest more. If it’s 4000 dwellings in total (1000 more than its zoned for), the population density will be 6x Hobsonville, but with a height limit of 27…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:50:27 +1300

2500 more than National were planning, though.

Can’t bite the “invisible” hand that feeds, eh? The very same hand that pulled up the ladder and laughed at everyone standing below, only to lose its grip when the Great Recession blew everyone down to the ground. Now that hand is holding…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:45:14 +1300

Interestingly the phrase “public” housing has been used repeatedly by Ardern and Twyford and I haven’t seen anything regarding Housing NZ involvement in the project

I wonder whether they have some other concept of social housing in mind.

Public housing is also supplied by local bodies, as is the case…

Sacha

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:44:16 +1300

they would likely have been built over the same decade that the new government is talking about

Just like all the homes in National's SHAs were 'likely' to be built – until those canny developers figured they could make more by landbanking and flicking it on unbuilt. Who could possibly…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:41:54 +1300

Oh, come on. They didn’t announce their housing plans during a campaign in which housing was a major issue because it might have been seen as pork-barreling? And $10 billion in roads and a new hospital in Dunedin wouldn’t have been?

Good grief.

You'd be forgiven that Simon Bridges and…

Joe Wylie

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 22:47:46 +1300

what ever the faults of places like Carrington those were not the fault of patients...

I suppose being classified as a "patient" absolves one from most responsibilities, though it's small compensation for the loss of civil liberties. Back in the Oakley Hospital era there was a pair of long-term male…

FletcherB

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:39:53 +1300

I do hope there are plans in the works to make the main Unitec backroad more cycle-friendly as part of the Wairaka Precinct plan.

More cycle & pedestrian friendly would be nice... and seems almost certain judging by the way such developments happen these days...

But just re-surfacing the existing roads…

BenWilson

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:08:02 +1300

LoL the apologists for National like Hooton are a pretty sad bunch of do nothing desperadoes, frantically spinning everywhere that crisis they created and pretended didn’t exist now can’t be fixed and even if it could be fixed it was already fixed by National even though there is no crisis…

Tom Semmens

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:09:11 +1300

Matthew Hooton

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:43:04 +1300

Not really. The PM told her press conference today the land is currently zoned for just over 2600 houses so they would likely have been built over the same decade that the new government is talking about. The only difference is now the government will be responsible for the work.

Neil

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:19:06 +1300

i.e what ever the faults of places like Carrington those were not the fault of patients and yet they were the ones that paid a price by losing the benefits of these very important and valuable resources.

The State took it and give a pitence back in return. A not…

Neil

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:56:15 +1300

The old institutions certainly has their problems but one of their main positives was the park like grounds which provided ample space for quiet time in a safe environment, a sense of community and for gardening activities including vegetable gardens. All that was stripped away and that asset base -…

TracyMac

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:17:19 +1300

I'm all in favour of housing densification, but I also hope plenty of green space and recreation areas are in the plans.

One thing that makes a city so dense as London fairly liveable is the amount of parks. And no, an adventure playground and basketball court jammed into a…

John Farrell

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:28:25 +1300

2500 more than National were planning, though.

Matthew Hooton

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:26:52 +1300

The PM now seems to be waking it back in her press conference to more like 2500 dwellings.

John Farrell

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:19:52 +1300

What – in spite of all that planning by National?

Russell Brown

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:44:05 +1300

This land was an asset stripped from the mental health system. It could be an opportunity to redress that wrong by providing much needed long term supervised accommodation for those with major debilitating mental illness. With some of the original parkland for recreation and gardens.

I've seen a couple of…

Russell Brown

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:38:58 +1300

I think they have probably released all the detail there is, because it feels like it was scribbled up on Friday as an announceable for the weekend rather than being a serious proposal – again, in the best traditions of Nick Smith.

You and Glenn are both right that there…

Matthew Hooton

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:25:58 +1300

Matthew Hooton

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:23:56 +1300

Very confident of zero before 2020. Maybe a show house or two for the media by then. Let’s check back then.

Glenn Pearce

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:18:55 +1300

Interestingly the phrase “public” housing has been used repeatedly by Ardern and Twyford and I haven’t seen anything regarding Housing NZ involvement in the project

I wonder whether they have some other concept of social housing in mind.

I’ve also seen talk of leasehold arrangements mentioned.

The Labour are really…

Russell Brown

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:16:57 +1300

Hilary Stace

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:11:23 +1300

Some is going to be state housing. Wellington City Council has several high rise council housing blocks so maybe they are going to be like that. If you look around other areas of (former) council housing like some in Freemans Bay there are well designed high density models. Just depends…

Neil

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:06:44 +1300

EE

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:55:20 +1300

I always see government initiatives like this in terms of privatisations.
When did Unitec acquire the land from what must have been government owned Oakley and Carrington Hospitals?
Why can't communally owned land remain owned by the community?

Matthew Hooton

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:47:31 +1300

Steve Markham

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:24:00 +1300

Agree on the information disclosure front, although the unspoken variable thus far in a fraught field (no pun) is levels: whether all residential units will be at grade or stacked (multilevel). The ~143 units per hectare is pretty impossible if all are to be at grade. The design solution has…

Moz

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:23:29 +1300

Just a sec, this isn't public housing? WTF? I can see benefits in having government build stuff like this because they're the ones normally left carrying the can for all the stuff profitable developers leave out. But I was really hoping this would end up as a mixed-ownership system where…

Russell Brown

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:11:15 +1300

$600,000 – and probably a lot more once building is completed – doesn’t sound very affordable.

It's cheap for a townhouse or terrace in central Auckland, but I'd imagine that apartments would be cheaper.

Russell Brown

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:10:02 +1300

The real question is how long before Occupy Garnet Road and She Who Must Not Be Named scent progress and descend on Unitec to ruin everything.

I checked, and not yet.

Neil

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:04:29 +1300

$600,000 – and probably a lot more once building is completed – doesn’t sound very affordable.

Labour mischievously campaigned on high house prices being due to a particular set of issues. Now they have control of this development how come they can’t bring the prices down to what would truely…

Stamper Stamp

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:51:34 +1300

Thanks Glenn – a voice of reality

Sam F

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:28:53 +1300

I do hope there are plans in the works to make the main Unitec backroad more cycle-friendly as part of the Wairaka Precinct plan.

The Waterview shared path is routing more people on bikes than ever into the middle of Unitec, and many of them are heading straight north on…

Moz

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:28:27 +1300

28 hectares for 80 apartment blocks is 3,500 square metres for each apartment block if I've done my maths right. That seems to be quite a large area of land, enough for a reasonable amount of green space and infrastructure.

Sydney is hardly an outlier for densification by world standards,…

James Dunne

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:10:26 +1300

The real question is how long before Occupy Garnet Road and She Who Must Not Be Named scent progress and descend on Unitec to ruin everything.

Ben Ross

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 12:38:27 +1300

1) The current zoning at Unitec is Mixed Use Zone (so can hit 8 storeys) and Tertiary Special Zone that probably some of needs a Public Plan Change to flip it to residential zoning most likely Terraced Housing and Apartments (allows to 7 storeys).

At 70m2 for a dwelling the…

Glenn Pearce

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 11:51:29 +1300

They'll have to go to the height all over it to hit Twyford's numbers. Quick back of fag packet numbers, 27metres = 10 storeys, say 5 apartments each floor, 350sqm footprint

= about 80 x 10 storey apartments to get to 4,000

And that's being generous, no allowance for green…

Russell Brown

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 11:41:08 +1300

6x the intensification of Hobsonville Pt?

What is proposed for Unitec is intensification on a scale unseen before in NZ. This will be nothing like Hobsonville Pt or Stonefields that people are likening it to.

It seems quite unlike those – clearly, they're going to build up. The Unitary Plan…

Russell Brown

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 11:32:48 +1300

Simon Bridges seriously straining credulity:

National was going to build 3000 homes in Auckland’s Mt Albert before it lost the election, but didn’t reveal the plans because it would have been seen as pork barrelling, Simon Bridges said on Monday.

Oh, come on. They didn’t announce their housing plans during…

Glenn Pearce

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 11:12:06 +1300

Correct me if I'm wrong but Transform Manukau involves 600 Hectares? Unitec is 28 Hectares. Manukau 21x the land area for 9x the number of dwellings?

Hobsonville Pt 167 Hectares, 4500 homes
Argent Lane Orewa, 190 Hectares, 2400 homes
Tamaki Regeneration 120 Hectares, 1200 homes

Unitec 28 Hectares, 4000 homes…

Ben Ross

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 10:54:05 +1300

Noting the second half of the column

Mt Albert whether wittingly or not becomes the test bed for even larger urban development programs like Transform Manukau where it is hoped we can up the initial 20,000 new residents to something like 100,000 (35,000 new dwellings)

Effectively Transform Manukau would be…

BenWilson

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 10:52:50 +1300

Having ridden through there countless times since the cycleway opened, it's struck me every time how underdeveloped it is. The perfect set for a NZ themed zombie series. There has even been an apparently abandoned car in one of the overgrown back lots, which are homes to hundreds of rabbits.…

Public Address

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 10:52:49 +1300

Discussion from blog post.