Hawkes Bay Urban Design Panel a
Regional Opportunity to Lift the Bar ?
Originally published Bay Buzz Issue # 15 July 3rd 2013
Design Panel review is a
tried and tested method of promoting good design and is a cost-effective and
efficient way to improve quality outcomes in the built environment. Urban
Designer and Architect Anthony Vile argues it is a relevant, timely
and needed process in
Hawke’s Bay.
Urban Design Panels currently operate
in at least ten districts, both metro and provincial centers, throughout New
Zealand. They have been credited with much success for getting Urban Design on
the agenda nationally and locally, as well as being cost effective mechanisms
for providing independent recommendations to developers and to councils on the
appropriateness of projects with significant urban design implications. They
have accordingly become part of the urban development process.
The need for design panels has
been driven by a culture that has historically placed ‘design’ and heritage
issues on the backburner, and the free market and developer margins on the
front.
Inspired by their success
overseas, professional bodies, academics, enlightened councils and the Ministry
for the Environment have lobbied for there inclusion in development processes
for over a decade. A turning point in their establishment was the ratification
of the NZ Urban Design Protocol in 2000.
As
provided in the New Zealand Urban Design Protocol:
“Urban
design is concerned with the design of the buildings, places, spaces and
networks that make up our towns and cities, and the ways people use them. It
ranges in scale from a metropolitan region, city or town down to a street,
public space or even a single building. Urban design is concerned not just with
appearances and built form but with the environmental, economic, social and
cultural consequences of design. It is an approach that draws together many
different sectors and professions, and it includes both the process of
decision-making as well as the outcomes of design.”
The general lack of specific
design controls in district plans, combined with the subjective nature of
defining what ‘quality’ in the built environment means, has historically left
consent planners awash in a sea of uncertainty regarding assessment of design.
This is compounded by a lack of specific training in design or its critical
assessment. Consent applications can only be measured against the criteria
established in the district plan and ultimately the Resource Management Act. If
there are no criteria included for assessment of design quality then obviously
there is no means for local authorities to establish a base measurement.
Without clear definition in district
plans, nor the appropriately trained urban design staff ‘quality’ at the end of
the day is whatever the relationship between a developer and a statutory
authority decides it is. This can and has led to piecemeal and variable
outcomes. Some developers care; some don’t. Some councils understand; some
don’t. It’s as simple as that.
Of course design quality is less
of a concern when a project is tucked away on a lifestyle block and is an
individual’s prerogative. However, when a project intersects with public space,
public good and quality becomes an issue. This then is the activation
opportunity for urban design panels, to be party to the process of design
assessment and provision of assistance to developers in achieving higher
amenity outcomes.
Design Panels in the Bay
In Hawke’s Bay, local councils
have been on and off the design panel wagon for some time now. HDC commendably
is a signatory of the Urban Design Protocol and in principle understands the
value of good design practice. But where the rubber meets the road, the process
seems easily derailed by personalities, politics and lack of rigor.
Various policies and mandates
established over the last fifteen years have raised awareness in the
development community, but not enough. The protocols and terms of reference for
an “aesthetic design panel” that have been established conveniently contain an
“as and when deemed appropriate” clause, providing an easy out and leaving the
district with no certainty of process or outcome.
The HDC Aesthetic Design Panel (ADP)
currently appears to be in a dormant phase. It seems to have fallen out of
favor based on providing views contrary to the council’s own regarding projects
such as Hastings Opera House, Regional Sports Park, Hastings Farmers store, and
the large format retail on the former Nelson park site.
"We
believe the council is about to make a grave mistake," a spokesman for the
Panel, said when interviewed by Hawke’s Bay Today regarding the Nelson Park project in November 2007. In
an article in 2010 the same paper reporting on the development of Farmers on
Heretaunaga Street noted: “The ADP spokesperson, who did not want to be named,
said’ Our report was already a compromise and while they've made a few changes
to the plans it's only half measures’." ‘The council is quite determined
to have Farmers on Heretaunga St, even though it's a completely inappropriate
building for the main street’."
Two
issues are at play here. One is there is no rigor in process behind the ADP.
Its very name is misguided in terms of what its role should be. It’s not about ‘aesthetics’;
its about raising the bar on provincial urban design (see definition above) via
an independent and transparent process. The other issue is having a limited
pool of design professionals to draw on whose critical advice could be
misconstrued as negative as well as the potential for conflict of interest in a
small community. As such, there is currently a climate of fear regarding being
outspoken on design issues in the design community, symptomatic of the need for
systemic change.
Napier has no clear policy
regards the use of an Urban Design Panel, but through the district plan and
active heritage advocates, such as the Art Deco Trust, the council has exercised
much more control over heritage in the Napier CBD than Hastings has in its own.
The design panel idea seems to be reserved for use on an ‘as and when needed’
basis. A specific ‘design group’ was established for developments in Ahuriri,
but has seemed to be deemed irrelevant elsewhere.
At the regional council, pending
Plan Change 4 – Managing the Built Environment – is in essence an urban design
policy for the region promoting “more compact well designed and strongly
connected urban areas.” The regional policy statement on urban development
seeks to promote ideas of urban amenity as a regional issue. It might in fact
represent an opportunity to establish a regional design panel that could
provide consistency in design assessment and quality on a regional basis,
simultaneously providing the scale necessary to provide a cost effective means
of doing so.
Does a voluntary approach work?
The question arises whether a
voluntary, non-regulatory method of achieving enhanced amenity outcomes works.
I would argue it doesn’t. Either design and amenity need to be embedded in the district
plans or an independent design panel needs to be established.
Such an instrument would need to
be removed from the personal interests and politics of local development.
Appointment would be based on qualification to provide professional advice to
both the private and public sector as and when certain triggers are activated.
It would act in an advisory capacity with the panel’s report given similar
weight as other technical assessments such as engineering reports.
Meanwhile, as the region’s focus tends towards more urban
incongruent with HDC’s some what puzzling statement “requirements
for urban design are becoming more responsive to the activities of the
development community” (HDC Annual Report, 2011/12) which for all purposes
sounds like Auckland in the eighties. If we want greater amenity we should all
be concerned that there is no best practice process to ensure just that. Recent
Plan changes in reference to both Havelock North and Flaxmere CBD have picked
up on the need for specific urban design related criteria to be utilized as
well as the use of a design review process, but fail to provide the detail in
how that might work.
What is quality and why should it
be considered different in a provincial setting?
The closest the RMA comes to
defining the importance of good design is contained in the definition of
amenity value as below:
“Amenity
values are those natural or physical qualities and characteristics of an area
that contribute to people’s appreciation of its pleasantness, aesthetic
coherence, and cultural and recreational attributes.”
It is a definition that closely
ties the meaning to people and place. It is an important concept in the world
of development, district plans and of course the Environment Court. The search tool
(within Adobe Acrobat) counts ‘amenity’ 1079 times in the current Draft HDC
District Plan; the word ‘architecture’ is mentioned a mere six, ‘urban design’
128, ‘culture’ eight, and ‘community’ 595. So what does that mean and what are
the results we can expect?
The district plan is the primary
tool for delivering amenity value to the built environment. In Hawke’s Bay, HDC
is in the midst of its legally required ten yearly review process. It has
already been released as a Draft document and been through a preliminary round
of consultation and submissions. NCC is simultaneously reviewing some aspects
of their District Plan the point of which is to align more strategically with
Hastings. Some keys changes are afoot that relate to so-called intensification
and the ‘compact city’ idea – enabling ‘up and not out’ higher intensity land
use in the residential sector.
There has been very little debate
or public dialogue around any of the issues contained in the District Plan
review. It will be interesting to see as the review progresses if the same
degree of NIMBYism occurs as has in Auckland (where 29,240 formal submissions were
filed on the Draft Unitary plan). This will be dependent on the manner in which
constituents are consulted, what and how proposals and issues are communicated,
and what level of interest in the democratic process the average punter has
outside of the usual demands of living in the Bay.
As part of this District Plan
review perhaps than we should be taking the opportunity to borrow some of the
experience from other regions and instigate at a regional level some kind of
design review panel process that can add significant value to the region. It
not about adding cost or bureaucracy to the development process as some
opponents will suggest. Rather, it is about using experts in their fields to
add value and help the region lift its game in a globally competitive market
where the perception of amenity in the built environment attracts dollars.
Bottom line.
Back in the 80s and 90s when
Auckland was running amuck with prada wearing developers and their shiny
beamers, generating the bad rap and JAFFA moniker that has stuck, the then
Auckland councils were not yet up to speed on urban design. Any development was
good development. A passionate group of academics and professionals alongside a
sympathetic Ministry for the Environment put pressure on to establish NZ’s
first Urban design panel. It has been in existence now for 10 years. The
quality of public projects and building we see across that region now is
largely the result of the work of the panel in changing attitudes both with in
the council and development communities. The same can be said for Queenstown.
Auckland’s
experience suggests that some form of independent review process raises the
bar, and that most developers and their design consultants are more than
willing to respond to the challenge.
It’s
perhaps time for Hawke’s Bay to embrace this as a process and a strategic
challenge.
- Independence – conducted by people separate from the scheme.
- Accountable – records and explains advice and is transparent about potential conflicts of interest.
- Expert – is conducted by suitably trained people who are experienced in design and know how to criticize constructively.
- Advisory – it does not make decisions but acts as a source of impartial advice.
- Accessible – its findings are clearly expressed and communicated.
- Proportionate – it is used on projects whose significance warrants public investment.
- Timely – it takes place as early as possible in the life of a design.
- Objective – it appraises schemes according to objective criteria.
- Focused – on outcomes for people ... it asks how this project can better meet the needs of the people.
- Focused – on improving quality … it constructively seeks to improve the quality of architecture, urban design, landscape infrastructure and town planning.
Current Hawke’s Bay projects
where an Urban Design Panel review system would provide benefit:
Flaxmere town
centre any and all projects
Flaxmere
Community Centre redevelopment
Any and all multi-unit
housing proposals or subdivision across the region
Napier
Hospital Hill redevelopment
Hastings Civic
square redevelopment
Hastings CBD –
any and all projects
Napier CBD – any
and all projects
Napier- Marine
Parade
Havelock North
CBD – any and all projects
Whakatu
Arterial
Cycling
Walking infrastructure.
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