There are two words that have communities revolting, mayors up in arms, and even a couple of National MPs speaking out: fast track.
Anger is growing over several housing developments that have been approved or are seeking approval under the fast-track process and residents are clear with their message in election year.
They say they don’t want the developments because they’ll ruin the heritage character of their villages; or their existing infrastructure cannot cope. They say their roads are already jammed with traffic, and their sewage and wastewater pipes block and overflow when it rains.
The fast-track approvals regime was launched in February last year, providing a one-stop shop for infrastructure, housing, and development projects with significant regional or national benefits. The new legislation sits over a bunch of other Acts, including the Resource Management Act, the Conservation, Minerals, Wildlife and Reserve Acts – about 10 in total.
The aim is to accelerate economic growth but Infrastructure NZ chief executive Nick Leggett says while it’s great for speeding up renewable energy and transport projects like the Bledisloe North Wharf in Auckland, it’s not so great for housing.
“I don’t think we should turn this [debate] into an anti-housing development, I think we should turn this into a very strong question mark and a request to review fast-track where it’s consenting housing over the top of massive local infrastructure pressures,” he says.
“The concern for the infrastructure industry is, where we can see fast-track working well, we are concerned that poor consenting of some greenfields developments could undermine the whole process. It shouldn’t be coming in over the top of city or regional planning that hasn’t previously forecast housing developments in the areas that have been consented, particularly, obviously, where infrastructure is not connected.
“And, who pays? We’re a first world country and we want to remain one. Having the right infrastructure to support people’s daily lives and new homes should be a fundamental.”
BusinessDesk senior journalist Maria Slade says Sunfield, east of Takanini and north of Papakura, is a case that’s caused a lot of raised eyebrows.
A panel of experts has approved it but Auckland Council immediately turned around and appealed that decision.
“It’s on a flood plain. It’s in the direct flight path of Ardmore Airport. There’s a high-powered gas line that runs over it. There’s no public transport whatsoever. It’s completely outside the council’s scope – it’s not even zoned future urban, which is the land that they designate that some time in the future they will develop it.
“So it’s completely out of sequence as they say; there are no plans whatsoever for providing infrastructure or developing that bit of land, because of all the problems with it. Yet it’s been approved for housing through the fast-track process.”
The developer, Winton, has had a lot of conditions put on the go-ahead for the project including flood mitigation and roading.
But Slade says there’s another giant sticking point. Listen to the podcast to find out what cynics say about the overlap here of another big fast-track project.
“A lot of people are saying [the fast-track process] might be okay for things like solar farms, hydro developments … but for housing it’s not necessarily very appropriate.”
She also points out that while it’s costing ratepayers big money to challenge these decisions, it could end up costing a lot more when they have to pay to provide services to them down the line. It’s not cheap for developers to embark upon this process either.
Slade says for a lot of these out-there, pie-in-the-sky developments, you have to ask yourself why are we doing them.
“It seems so much in contrast to the other drums that the Government keeps banging about, intensification around City Rail Link stations, you know … they’re doing that with one hand and with the other hand approving Sunfield.”
Chris Bishop, the minister responsible for the fast-track, has responded to the mountain of concerns about the pressure on infrastructure, saying the process does allow for out-of-sequence growth, but it’s important to remember that the panels assessing some of these housing projects “can and are” placing quite a lot of conditions on when they can actually happen.
Slade says the Government won’t back down.
“This is their baby. This is one of their big flagships for kicking us along and making development happen.”
Newsroom political journalist Fox Meyer agrees, despite murmurings of concern from some politicians about the number of housing applications going through.
At least two National MPs have spoken out against the process.
Last month, the Building and Construction Minister, Chris Penk, wrote to the Fast-track Expert Consenting Panel in his capacity as MP for the Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate, over the proposed 2000-home Waimauku West development.
In the letter, Penk says the area has been hit by devastating floods multiple times and that “any new development in Waimauku and the rest of northwest Auckland should properly account for the risk of flooding, as experienced previously, and also the cost of supporting infrastructure”.
Fellow National Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey also spoke out at a recent meeting of residents opposed to the proposed Pegasus golf course development.
“I’m not a fast-track fundamentalist,” he said.
Meyer says their decision to speak out is about local MPs representing their communities, and he hopes they’d be able to do that without fear of reprisal.
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