Auckland Mayor Len Brown concedes that Auckland's Unitary Plan might not be formally notified in September - as the council had intended - if sufficient progress is not made on some of the more contentious issues around it.
The draft Unitary Plan, Auckland's new "rulebook" was launched in March with the intention that after feedback and consultation it would be formally notified by the council, ahead of October's council elections, and with a three-year period for the plan to legally take effect. See here for all interest.co.nz's articles on the subject.
Since the launching of the draft the council has received about 3000 pieces of feedback, while over 11,000 people have attended meetings. Feedback closes this Friday.
Brown said on TV3 this morning that there had been an “excellent response” from the community to the plan, with "excellent meetings", sometimes with a "bit of fire", but "always constructive". There had been "brilliant buy-in" by the community.
The next stage would be council committee consideration of the feedback and some changes would be made. Brown said two weeks ago that some changes proposed in the plan might have been too-much-too-soon and could be softened.
“We expect that we will start issuing some of those decisions around some of the key issues – probably end of June,” he said.
“I said two weeks ago, you can see quite clearly we’ve got some areas in which we need to make some changes in terms of coastal towns."
In terms of issues, Brown said that the council would be examining the question of height restrictions in coastal towns, while there would also be consideration of areas of ecological significance and the subject of mixed housing areas..
On the question of whether Aucklanders have been given enough time to consider the draft plan, Brown stressed that the development of the plan would be a long process.
“This is the first part. This is a pre-consultation process. We will complete it on the 31st of May, this Friday, we will go through further discussions within the community, then we will be looking to notify the plan, then it will be open for further formal consultation – it’s a three-year process. And so I think it is really important that people not lose track of the fact that we are going through a long process here.”
As for the intended notification of the plan in September - the date the council has always given - Brown said: “We are considering whether or not we notify it.
"We would like to but it depends what sort of progress we make around the decisions on some of those key issues.
“I’m a very reasonable man, but I’m a determined man.
"It is quite clear how we want Auckland to go forward in terms of the shape of the city. We’ve debated those issues. We are not going to continually re-litigate that. This is our plan for going forward and we are moving. But what we are saying is that we will be making changes to reflect some of the deepest concerns, the best thought out concerns, we don’t have the silver bullet and we will be making changes over the next few months.
“We will be receiving feedback to the 31st, [of May] then we will consider all of that feedback, and as I say, we may, or we may not notify in September, it depends on how we are going in our deliberations."
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