Creating better outcomes in greenfield areas
How structure planning and improved street design standards in Auckland are paying off.
For several decades, New Zealand cities, like those in most Western countries, have primarily grown through greenfield development. Historically, there have been many poorly designed suburbs built with poor street connectivity, that favour driving over active modes and efficient public transport operations. Streets were often built with footpaths only on one side, if at all and with wide carriageways that enable and encourage higher vehicle speeds.
While the introduction of the Auckland Unitary Plan has seen a significant shift of development into brownfield intensification, there is still greenfield development occurring. There is also a shift in greenfield areas in terms of designs and outcomes which is a positive development. This article highlights the positive outcomes generated through improved structure planning and street design standards.
Structure planning
Redhills is a developing greenfield suburb in northwest Auckland, adjacent to Westgate. It is planned to reach around 10,000 dwellings when fully developed. It is also a great case study of the improved structure planning under the Auckland Unitary Plan through the use of Precincts and the work of Supporting Growth to plan key networks and infrastructure requirements.
A structure plan is a framework to guide the development or redevelopment of an area by defining the future development and land use patterns, areas of open space, the layout and nature of infrastructure (including transportation links), and other key features and constraints that influence how the effects of development are to be managed. - Quality Planning
The Redhills precinct plan, shown below, identifies key arterial and collector roads, intersections and public spaces that developments must contribute to and develop.
Improved Road and Street Design standards
In 2019, Auckland Transport launched the Roads and Streets Framework and Transport Design Manual, which includes the Urban Street and Road Design Guide. This change in policy has created a real shift in the planning and design of roads and streets within the Auckland Region, to deliver safer streets and transport choice.
The change is most noticeable in greenfield areas, where more recently consented developments are required to deliver a clear street hierarchy. This means arterial and collector roads are designed with limited access points (mainly driveways), making it easier to deliver high-quality footpaths, cycleways and stormwater infrastructure like swales, while also supporting more efficient vehicle flow and bus operations. Local streets are designed with narrow carriageways, and indented parking bays to create lower speed environments.
How Structure Planning and the improved design standards intersect.
In Redhills, we can see how the structure planning and design standards work together, to deliver better short and long-term outcomes.
The area within the precinct has many different landowners who will develop different sections of the suburb, at different times based on the market demand. This means many different developers are responsible for delivering relatively small sections of the arterial and collector roads within the precinct. However, the precinct plan identifies the location and alignment of these links, while the great work of staff within Auckland Transport and Supporting Growth ensures that the design standards are met.
The Redhills ‘Green Road” was identified through the precinct structure plan. This road is a collector road with restricted access, which means there are no driveways, supporting a safer designed bidirectional cycleway, shown on the right-hand side of the image below. It can be seen continuing on the other side of the paddock which currently is being farmed, but will one day be developed and deliver the missing section.
Redhills is not the only location where the improved standards are paying off. In Scott Point, the suburb adjacent to Hobsonville Point, many different developments are slowly being delivered along the length of Scott Point Road. This is a planned bus route and key cycle route, so as each development is completed, the previously rural standard road is being upgraded to include footpaths, uni-directional cycleways and bus stops.
How could this go further?
This is a significant improvement on historical development patterns and there is a lot that other regions in Aotearoa, as well as elsewhere, could learn from the recent changes in Tāmaki Makaurau. However, there is possible room for improvement. There are yet to be any new neighbourhoods designed as low-traffic neighbourhoods, whereby through-traffic is restricted, as is best practice in parts of Europe.
Similarly, new communities could be designed around neighbourhood busways, which connect to local centres and rapid transit stations. Neighbourhood busways are not like the Northern Busway on Auckland’s North Shore, which is designed for higher speeds to cover long distances, but are instead focused on local access. Neighbourhood busways are at-grade, bus-only roads with signal priority at intersections. Development is then structured around these busways, to maximise public transport access with private vehicle access provided from the edge of the neighbourhood. An example of a neighbourhood busway in Hoge weide, Utrecht, is shown in the video below.
As I have previously discussed, the need to drastically reduce emissions from transport means we need to consider options to disincentivise greenfield development in our major centres, which is more difficult to serve through public transport and active modes. However, in contexts where greenfield development is required, there is a real opportunity to deliver better-designed neighbourhoods. Many car-centric suburbs developed last century, including many of Kāinga Ora’s Large Scale Projects, need to be retrofitted to support increased density, all at additional cost. Getting these details right will support more liveable and sustainable neighbourhoods from day one and avoid costly improvements in the decades to come.