By Carolyn Hill*
A minor culture war has broken out over Auckland’s urban identity since Auckland Council responded to the government’s new housing rules: on one side, defenders of “special character” areas of historic housing; on the other, advocates for higher-density development with fewer constraints.
The debate can be heated, as people identify with their city in different ways and want different outcomes for its future.
To recap, the recently passed Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act seeks to ease the housing crisis by setting “medium-density residential standards” (MDRS) across all of Aotearoa’s major cities. This allows three storeys and three dwellings per site in all residential areas – except where councils can demonstrate “qualifying matters” apply.
In response, Auckland Council has identified “special character” as a qualifying matter that would shield parts of the city from MDRS intensification. But it also reduced special character coverage by about 25% to carve out room for inner-suburban intensification.
A key line of argument against reducing special character protection involves the importance of Auckland’s old housing neighbourhoods – with their Victorian and Edwardian villas and bungalows – to the city’s “identity”.
Appeals to collective identity can pack a pretty powerful punch when it comes to influencing urban decision-making, so they need to scrutinised whenever they’re asserted.
Identity politics
The preservation of our cities’ built form is not a politically neutral remembrance of yesteryear for future generations. Just as history is written by the victors, decisions about what is important to collective identity have always been made by those with the power to decide.
It’s worth remembering that Auckland’s first formal protection of historic places in the 1950s occurred in the same decade as the Crown seized the last papakāinga (Māori housing on ancestral land) of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei at Ōkahu Bay, part of preparations for a visit from the queen.
Buildings like Mission Bay’s Melanesian Mission were preserved and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s remaining ancestral homes were demolished for closely related reasons – preserving “historical interest and natural beauty” on the one hand, and removing “an eyesore” on the other.
Two decades later, as Auckland Council first created zoning controls to protect “areas of special character”, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei protesters were occupying Takaparawhau/Bastion Point to oppose the Crown’s plans to develop high-income housing on their remnant rohe (tribal district).
While it may be convenient to hold these two legacies separately, it’s an important reminder that buildings have the power to reinforce dominant expressions of identity – and to silence others.
New kinds of heritage
Uneven power is nothing new for Māori in Aotearoa’s cities, and it increasingly plays a role in intergenerational tension as young adults excluded from home ownership – or even an affordable place to rent – challenge the entitlement of those invested in the status quo.
It’s telling that young adults are commonly identifying what used to be called “historic” houses as “colonial” houses, a deliberate word shift from neutral to political. It’s also a recognition that built form, like identity itself, does not have a fixed meaning.
Auckland’s population is getting younger and more culturally diverse. These trends present an opportunity for new ways of making a future heritage for the city. Cultures, communities and different age groups need be celebrated by more than just festivals, arts and sports. They must be built into new neighbourhoods that can permanently house and home them.
This is already happening in projects such as Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s Kāinga Tuatahi residential development on tribal land, and COHAUS, a high-density co-housing development in Grey Lynn. Special character may be a part of Tāmaki Makaurau’s identity, but it’s time for other versions of urban life to be recognised too.
What identity are we celebrating?
After all, what are now considered special character areas largely began as part of Auckland’s “ordinary” story – places on the tramlines where people built a house, put down roots, aspired to a stable and prosperous future.
According to Auckland Council, their built character “shows past social values, influences, fashions and philosophies that have shaped Auckland over time”. What they now most obviously highlight, however, is Auckland’s divide between rich and poor.
It’s no coincidence special character suburbs are some of Tāmaki Makaurau’s most expensive, commanding a price premium precisely because of the expectation their historical look and feel will be retained.
Also, because of its emphasis on pre-1940s housing, the “special character” designation is almost entirely absent from the city’s poorer areas.
According to the council, special character areas “have importance to people beyond those who live there” due to the role they play in illustrating the history of the city. That may be true, but it’s also important to acknowledge that urban areas are overwhelmingly experienced by those who live there, not by those passing through.
A city for all
While historic residential neighbourhoods may be part of the city’s broad identity, it is the residents of special character areas who really get to experience their qualities. The good tree cover, proximity to the central business district, high-quality outdoor spaces and access to public transport are in stark contrast to other parts of Tāmaki Makaurau.
And yet most of the densification burden will be directed into communities already lacking nature, amenity and infrastructure.
The next two decades will decide Auckland’s future identity. The council’s response to the government’s new directives go some way to opening up new possibilities, but more will be needed to stop social and spatial fragmentation being baked into its character.
Making space, in both the decision-making and the built environment, for radical priorities – housing people, transport reform, reforesting urban spaces – will be essential in forging an identity that brings meaning and security for more people who call Tāmaki Makaurau home.
*Carolyn Hill is a Teaching Fellow in Environmental Planning at the University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
49 Comments
Interesting article. The author is right - if we are to have special character exemptions, let's protect some of the state housing (particularly the neglected, run down ones) in areas such as Ōtara - because these have contributed to the character of these areas just as much as the fancy pants bungalows of Epsom. What's good for the goose is good for the gander right?
If people reject these arguments, they reject their own logic.
A modern, warm home with large windows and non-rotting windowsills? I grew up in a villa, and my first home was a 1970s house which I renovated and modernised from the ground up. My 2010s home (the newer) is better.
My last rental was a townhouse. Awful, but also a 1980s townhouse. A 2020s townhouse would be better. If it had a backyard.
I can't speak to the beachhaven ones but those old Northcote state houses are dumps and need to be torn down.
The area itself was also left to waste away. Whether the replacement builds is the right idea is a separate issue (it's also mixed development, I think i recall 1/3 is for state housing).
Compare with other countries. For buildings to survive from the past requires three factors:
1. they were well constructed and were pleasant to live in
2. comparatively wealthy people lived in and maintained them
3. enthusiastic town planners didn't get their hands on them.
So the English cottage was never lived in by farm labourers; they were houses for farmers. The British towns and cities worth visiting for their heritage buildings are the ones that were too poor to be redeveloped post-war: Glasgow, Halifax, Liverpool whereas much of the wealthier southern towns were destroyed by town planners doing what Hitler never managed.
Visit Howick Historical Village where a range of NZ historic building have been preserved. It contains examples from a Māori hut to a Victorian two storey house that I wouldn't mind living in today. But most of the buildings although quaint and attractive would not be acceptable to any Kiwi living in them today.
So worldwide heritage does mean preserving the properties that wealthy people built; there is nothing wrong with that. Any tourist in Europe will tell you the same - it is wise to preserve heritage buildings.
'It’s worth remembering that Auckland’s first formal protection of historic places in the 1950s occurred in the same decade as the Crown seized the last papakāinga (Māori housing on ancestral land) of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei at Ōkahu Bay, part of preparations for a visit from the queen.
'Buildings like Mission Bay’s Melanesian Mission were preserved and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s remaining ancestral homes were demolished for closely related reasons – preserving “historical interest and natural beauty” on the one hand, and removing “an eyesore” on the other.
'Two decades later, as Auckland Council first created zoning controls to protect “areas of special character”, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei protesters were occupying Takaparawhau/Bastion Point to oppose the Crown’s plans to develop high-income housing on their remnant rohe (tribal district).'
Here's an echo from America:
https://bostonreview.net/articles/brent-cebul-tearing-down-black-americ…
There is no housing in the world, that on a like-for-like basis, has gotten cheaper with increased density, irrespective of your culture or age.
If increased density was a proxy for affordability, then Hong Kong would have the cheapest housing in the world, not the dearest. Or is it just because they are Chinese.
The price of an Auckland Shoebox apartment would get you a grand old villa in Houston, Texas, and a dozen other cities in the states.
The exact same article argument could be put forward as to the price difference between Character homes and smaller higher-density apartments in Houston. But when the price of ALL housing in Houston is approx. 4x median income multiple, compared to Auckland's 10x, then the absurdity of such an argument means it's a non-event.
Such an argument is for people that do not understand basic land economics as described by Adam Smith, Alan Evans, and more recently Alain Bertaud.
If you want people to have more affordable housing, then change the land-use policies that prevent that from happening.
Of course, that might mean people would have to get off their arse and vote for it.
Maybe Interest subscribers should organise some passive resistance and keep a marker pen in their pockets to cross out any foreign words seen around town (perhaps starting with the cultural based pseudoscience at the Wellington Observatory and moving onto other rocks of Colonialism afterwards).
That and not wearing a mask in shops.
Omg, you do realise you wiped out someones heritage and culture when it was named "Hamilton"??? lolz.
No one is trying to erase your culture, just restore it to it's first and rightful name. You can keep calling them Hamilton or New Plymouth if you like.
Happening in Australia as well, I'd get used to it.
https://theconversation.com/celebrating-kgari-why-the-renaming-of-frase…
I'm English by birth but have taken the time to read some history. The Waikato wars were a crime and stole prosperity from Waikato Maori who were the main food producers for settlers in Auckland. It was a shameful act by the English and the continued use of the names of British Military personnel in the place of Maori names is embarrassing. I have less strong views about European place names prior to the invasion of the Waikato as in many areas European settlement was welcomed at the time.
Kapai WH. If you spend any time on the Marae and with elders you will hear the stories passed down, most hapu have stories of land confiscation and being treated like second class citizens. We actually have a line in our hapu's pepeha referencing a piece of land stolen . Changing the name back is a small thing yet mean's a lot.
Te Kooti has the wrong end of the stick. Computer isn’t ashamed about the acts of aggression of the British Army. They are not his fault and he doesn’t have to feel bad about them. It is part of his story and he doesn’t want to give it up. He embraces the opportunities offered to him through colonialism.
Also suspect Te Kooti and Waikatohome are user accounts run by the same person.
I can assure you that I am not Te Kooti. We just happen to be in agreement on this issue. I prefer Maori place names to colonial names, just as I preferred Welsh place names (Abertawe vs Swansea) when I lived in Wales. Names that have a connection with the land have more meaning than the name of some aristocrat or foreign military figure. Hamilton was an English naval officer who came directly from England, he wasn’t a Kiwi and he died in Tauranga. He should be remembered for his part in history but not have a place named after him.
Hamilton did have a place named after him which is both a popular name used elsewhere as well as part of our culture. At least it's not a mouthful or something you have to spell when on the phone. There are maori street names that the maori girls you're talking to do not understand. How pathetic is that.
There is more than enough Maori place names already... let's not have the whole country including the country itself renamed. Geepers. Anyway what's the point of doing that, will the country be a better place to live in if we start calling Hamilton kikiroa or auckland tamaki mak? I doubt it, it is increasingly overrun with ferals that wag school. Spend your time changing that problem TK
Maori is our first language so that makes perfect sense to me. There are still loads of English place names that won't change anyway so I have no idea what you're so triggered about. You can keep calling Hamilton by that name, many others won't though.
As for "ferals that wag school", what is your point, that Maori are feral?
Golfer
1) I didn't say he felt ashamed. .
2) If you really think I care what you or any of the readers here think enough to have two accounts and try and fabricate a narrative, you are sorely mistaken. It wouldn't have crossed my mind.
3) There are plenty of pakeha like Waikato who have taken an interest in our history and have open minds. Why would you think it had to be me out of curiosity?
It's ok, I get where your bitterness is coming from. It's all going to work out, you'll have time to practise the pronunciation.
The problem with NIMBYism is that in driving sprawl it is creating higher rates for everyone, because maintaining sprawl is incredibly expensive. If we are to have authoritarian NIMBYism preventing others from building on their own land, we simply must recapture some of the cost it causes by raising the land-value based component of rates significantly.
For those who object to developments add a charge to their rates accounts so they get the message of what their opposition costs others. Doubling their rates bill would wake them up. Costs are increased rates due to sprawl, higher house prices particularly for fhb due to less choice, more transport costs and times living remotely
Edit: add the ridiculous waste of time and extra expense for developers, and councils going through the RMA process
If you think Sprawl is expensive, then retrofitting the existing subdivisions to increase the density is even more so.
And it's the extra rates the council gets from the sprawl that increases their revenue to help pay for the upgrade of older existing city infrastructure, which they say they need to do because of the sprawl, but in reality, they need to regardless because they never charged enough rates in the first place to maintain and allow for depreciation costs over time.
In the price of any new greenfields section, is the cost of the section, plus the full cost of roads, footpaths, and parks within that subdivision, plus the developer levy (which parts are going to upgrade worn-out existing infrastructure) to the council to pay for everything else, and the council gets the rates from day one, whereas the developer has to maintain the subdivision for approx. 3 to 5 years regardless.
If true costs, (stripped of their non-value added bureaucratic monopolistic rentier waste) were allocated fairly, then the land would be less than half the price, and rates 50% higher.
Cool. Well then let's start stripping out things like Link buses and other frequent transport amenities from the places that don't want intensification so we can give it to the places who are actually putting up with it. It's funny how these people never want to give up their gold-standard transport and such other things that the others bits of cities would kill for.
Point missed.
I said 'If true costs, (stripped of their non-value added bureaucratic monopolistic rentier waste) were allocated fairly, then the land would be less than half the price, and rates 50% higher.'
Yes higher rates, so you would have more money to fund other real things and their true free market price.
But while we are on the subject of Transport, yes, let's have a true user pays, all transports costs would go up, including PT by about 500% plus. but if your house and rent are costing 50% less than what you need to pay, then you can afford the transport you like.
At present we are overpaying for CAPEX and underpaying for OPEX.
Stories of "Big houses on small sections" fill the nonsensephere but actual consents (https://www.interest.co.nz/charts/real-estate/building-consents-type) show that currently we are already consenting more townhouses than any other type.
Council should not have the right to make arbitrary regulations that it doesnt bear the cost of, nor has probably not undertaken a social cost benefit assessment of.
If the Council wants to have special character areas then it should be forced to formally designate the buildings and land.
House owners would then have the right to sell to Council if they so desired when they desired.
Council (ratepayers) would have to fund the special character fund, setting up a way of valuing the special character vs ratepayers desire to pay the rates to cover the fund.
Is there really a pattern where special character / preserved areas get better infrastructure or amenities than newer or densified areas?
Truly bizarre. If an area is naturally desirable because of proximity to the coast or _something_ then that is likely too important to be deemed a museum or monument to the achievements of the past. Transform it for the sake of the future (who will certainly be paying for it).
Nice to see the intersection of Critical Race Theory and Urban Planning.
Nek minnit there will be a Diploma, then a Degree, finally a Masters (Mistresses?) in the area.
Meanwhile, as Dale Smith wearily recites yet again, at 10x household income, housing is anything but Academic......
Yep, those facts can be wearisome. But it's a burden I'm willing to bear.
I'll keep swinging away. Sometimes the only difference between a pat on the head and a bat on the head is the degree of force.
But for some people, the best lesson learnt is the one hardest learnt.
A good subject for debate, but I find Ms Hill's contribution profoundly irritating at a number of levels. Yes, the odd "Manglish" term popped in here and there is to be expected from academics, but inaccurate and possibly insulting for our Maori readers. Tamaki Makau Rau (Tamaki of numerous lovers) refers to the isthmus which, with its rich volcanic soil, harbours, rivers & canoe portages was a highly strategic and contested area. It has little geographical relevance to modern (greater) Auckland extending from Warkworth to Pukekohe.
Secondly I suggest Hill does some more historical research before jumping to conclusions. In the 1930s "slum clearance" was a hot topic amongst Labour MP's at least. I doubt they would recognize the "terrible state" of Freemans Bay and adjacent hills & valleys of "decrepit" working men's cottages, now restored and highly valued 80 plus years later!
Their concern extended to the parlous state of housing at the Orakei Marae, mainly with reference to the health hazards for those living on what was basically, a swamp.
The same conundrum applied then as now,... how can the impoverished afford to live in improved accomodation, government or privately provided? Even three storied cardboard houses, or stand alone on postage stamp sized sections?
My third point is to ask Hill why we should trust "town planners" (surely an oxymoron?) architects, BRANZ, bureaucrats and developers, who recently gave us leaky buildings, to demolish the old Kauri villas and provide something better than the hundreds of ticky tacky eyesores being built currently?
No OB, the aim of new housing rules should not be focussed on looking after the rich. I did say that Hill raised an important debate. It was just that her comments didn't recognize the complexities.
I have no strong views about protecting the old (expensive) homes in pleasant leafy suburbs. I don't live in "Tamaki Makaurau" although I once lived in a nice old part of Papakura with a good mix of homeowners from solicitors to grader driver,...Maori, Pakeha & Islander. In other words, a community not yet mucked up by town planners and academic architects!
We all might have a chuckle at the thought of the rich & famous having the hoi polloi move in next door, but the real debate about housing the impoverished,...or the hordes of immigrants let in by government decree is more serious,...and complex.
It is telling that Auckland Council considers special character areas to be pretty much confined to pre1940s villas and bungalows in wealthy inner city suburbs. To be consistent they should be protecting the ‘special character’ of other types of housing across all of Auckland. For example the state housing areas in South Auckland. Or the cheap housing tracts built in the sixties and seventies on the North Shore - IMO these areas of housing have just as much ‘special character’ and are also far more liveable than the poorly laid out villas and bungalows.
Another aspect to this is the social cost of maintaining/retrofitting old houses that don't meet modern earthquake standards (very relevant in Wellington) and/or healthy homes standard requirements vs building entirely new ones. Retrofitting is often more expensive than building new, meaning higher rents. Construction industry has a way to go re reducing waste in deconstruction. However a a cultural value that is more recognized than it used to be is houses that are warm, safe and dry, not cold, moist, draughty and earthquake prone. This is a valid part of the debate
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