A Vision for Auckland from John Palino

8/17/2019 A Vision for Auckland from John Palino

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I have lived in Auckland for over 20 years, owning and

managing a number of businesses in the hospitality industry. I

currently own the “Friend of the Farmer” café & farmers

market in Kings Plant Barn in Takanini.

Originally from New Jersey, I have had a career in my family's

industry, hospitality. I started work in my father's restaurant in

my early teens, working my way up to managing large

hospitality businesses by the time I was twenty.

Tired of the frantic pace of New York I moved to Auckland, a

beautiful city with endless potential. In the time I have been in

Auckland I have become increasingly concerned by the poor

decisions being made at local government level, especially

council overspending and overregulation.

I am running for office on a platform that will fix these

problems and address the pressing issues of excessive rates

rises and increasingly unaffordable house prices.

Copyright John Palino, Auckland, 2016

ISBN Number 978-0-473-35732-0

This book and its component parts may be reproduced.

To contact John or to contribute to his campaignplease email [email protected] orvisit www.palinoformayor.co.nz

A Vision for Auckland John Palino


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A VISION FOR AUCKLAND

1

A Vision for Auckland outlines my approach to fixing the

problems our city faces.

Introduction

1. What Auckland Needs from its Mayor and Council

2. Auckland in the Future

3. The Issues that Matter

4. A Ten Percent Rates Reduction

5. Auckland Rate Payers Bill of Rights

6. Spending Transparency

7. Council Responsibility

8. Economic Growth

9. Housing Affordability

10. Regulation

11. Transport

12. Unitary Plan

13. Asset Sales

14. Maori Representation & Issues

15. Unlocking Auckland's Potential

16. My Regional Vision for Auckland

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Auckland has an amazing opportunity that many cities aroundthe world could only dream of. While some may be opposed to

growth, the alternative is far worse. So let's take advantage of

our challenge and make Auckland the best city in the world.

In 15 years the population of Auckland is predicted to increase

by around 400,000 people. This growth brings massiveplanning issues but also brings additional revenue into the area

of some 12 billion dollars in house hold income alone.

The purpose of this book is to lay out a very clear choice

between the current council's strategy, which I am convinced is

not working and will not work, and an alternative strategy Iwill put before you. I appreciate your reading this book and

allowing me to paint a picture for you of my vision for

Auckland.

Auckland's Challenge

The introduction of the Super City in 2010 was supposed to

make a positive difference for Aucklanders. Aucklanders have

not received the “Super City Dividend” promised when the

seven councils and Auckland Regional Council were merged.

Rather than producing savings and encouraging Auckland to

flourish, we have seen the exact opposite. An out of control

Introduction


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approach to regulation and spending has led to an overbearing

and unwieldy council passing costs onto Auckland ratepayers.

Auckland council staffing numbers are now far higher than the

sum of the pre amalgamation parts, congestion is worsening,

house prices are unsustainable and costs have exploded.

Over the last six years we have had a dysfunctional mayor and

council, who have drastically increased rates, massively

increased debt, and imposed restrictive and expensiveregulations and processes on all Aucklanders. On top of that

we are now learning of massive budgetary blowouts related to

IT projects and council buildings. These are only going to

compound an already problematic financial position.

The first six years of the Super City have been a lostopportunity. Our mayor and council have failed to do the

things we expected them to do. Despite our mayor's promise of

a maximum 2.5% rates rises we have had rates rises far higher

than the rate of inflation.

In 2016 Aucklanders have a chance to replace our highspending, regulation-heavy, mayor and council with sensible,

pragmatic leadership. Aucklanders have a chance to elect a

mayor and council who will adopt meaningful and effective,

strategies aimed at resolving Auckland's problems but-

operating within a budget that reflects what ratepayers can

afford while also delivering better core services.


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Aucklanders have a chance to elect a council that changes the

direction of our city for the better, and delivers on the promised

benefits of the Super City.

I believe the best cities in the world are those where the people

who live in those cities made their own decisions. I want the

next generation of Aucklanders to be able to choose where and

how they live. I want them to be able to determine what they

do, where they do it and how they get there. The best way toachieve this, is with a focused council which keeps costs and

regulation down.

In critiquing the policies and management of the current mayor

and council, I want to acknowledge those current councillors

and staff who have not supported many of the actions taken bythe current mayor and council as a whole. It must have been

extremely frustrating for them to be in a minority when the

majority of council was making poor decisions.

My campaign for mayor is based on having sensible and

achievable policies for the real problems facing Auckland andAucklanders. Auckland needs a Mayor who is prepared to

genuinely tackle these problems, not an incrementalist Mayor

who will tinker around the edges, or as Phil Goff says “slow

things down”. That would be like King Canute trying to hold

back the tide.


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This book will provide Aucklanders with an outline of my

approach to solving the problems Auckland and Aucklanders

face. I do not pretend to have all the answers and I do notpretend to have all the skills or expertise to be able to do it by

myself, but I have the skill to share a vision with others with

the skills to achieve this vision. I have talked to many

experienced and competent people who are as frustrated as I

am about where the city is going and want to assist in getting

the City back onto a pragmatic pathway that will succeed.

What I hope this book will also show you is that the current

Mayor and Council's policies and processes have demonstrably

not worked and have no prospect of working.

What is required is a plan for the city that is pragmatic and

based on real numbers rather than driven by ideologues who

ignore the facts and it must be driven by the silent majority, not

determined by noisy minority pressure groups with their own

agendas.


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My key strategy planks are:

To implement a comprehensive and transparent budget

that reduces rates by 10% over my first term

To introduce an Auckland Ratepayers Bill of Rights that

will hold Council responsible for meeting and managing

within budgets

To make Council spending transparent to Ratepayers sothey can judge whether or not their money is being spent

sensibly

To ensure Council priorities are focused on core services

and resolving the key problems facing Auckland

To provide a planning and regulatory framework that

allows and encourages the private sector to genuinely

provide affordable new housing in the numbers required

To promote economic growth by ensuring business

friendly policies and a pragmatic regulatory environment

and associated processes

To provide a long term city plan that reduces traffic

congestion by creating an environment that encourages

and allows businesses to develop in locations and

provide employment opportunities near where people

want to live


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To abandon the current council ideology that increasing

housing density in existing suburbs will solve traffic

congestion problems and provide affordable housing

To provide an Iwi consultation process for resource

consents that is limited to genuine cultural issues, that is

speedy and cost certain

To hold council officers to account for poor or tardy

decisions by establishing a Citizens Decision Review

Panel, including relevant external experts, that

ratepayers can appeal to

I welcome your feedback to these policies and strategies. Please

contact me at [email protected]

John Palino April 2016


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Anyone following the Auckland Council since it was first

formed would assume that the only part of Auckland that

mattered is the CBD, and that the Mayor, Councillors, and

Council staff are convinced they know what is best for

Auckland and are not really interested in listening to other

points of view.

Yet Auckland is not just the CBD. It is a part of a large region

with many distinct and diverse communities. Within this region

is the city centre.

On a global scale Auckland is a small city, and it will never be

any more than a small city by international standards. People

do not live in Auckland because they want to live in tiny

apartments in a huge city, they live in Auckland because it is a

fantastic place to live and their kids and grandkids can grow up

with a place to play outside and a decent lifestyle.

Auckland needs to be a place where people can still buy houses

and raise their families on properties with outside spaces. We

also need a council that is fiscally responsible, not out of control

in terms of spending and massive rate increases.

We need an Auckland that grows sensibly with its population,

rather than an Auckland that is driven by town planning and

1. What Auckland needs from itsMayor and Council


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regulations set by ideologues. These ideologues believe the

future is to fit more and more people into existing suburbs by

building multi-story intensive housing because they do not

measure the value you get when you play with your kids in

your backyard, sunbathe or grow a veggie garden. There is a

place for dense urban living in Auckland, but it is not in our

suburbs.

We need an Auckland where existing property rights are

protected, rather than having council mandated high density

apartments blocking existing homes' views and sunlight and

causing further congestion on suburban roads.

We need an Auckland that grows efficiently, and a Council that

understands retrofitting infrastructure to existing suburbs is

often more expensive than building new infrastructure. It is

also impossible to expand suburban roads to cope with the

higher traffic numbers associated with higher density housing.

We need a mayor and a council that understands that the

biggest driver of inequality in Auckland is the prohibitively

high cost of new housing for our young families, and that

council planning policy, regulations and processes are the

primary driver of this inequality.

We need a mayor and a council that stops trying to shoehorn

people and businesses into a tiny area when we have plenty of

space for expansion.


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We need a mayor and a council that is not ideologically driven

but genuinely listens to what the majority of Aucklanders want.

We need to speed up Council decision making in most areas

where they interact with the public. We must again let

Aucklanders make decisions about their lives, homes and

businesses within a council “can do” environment rather than a

“can't do” bureaucratic mess.

We need a mayor and a council that introduces a sensible City

Plan that allows for Auckland to expand without losing its

character, and without losing all the reasons people want to live

here. We need a mayor that understands cause and effect not

only in the immediate time frame but also over the next ten

years.

We need a council that plans for expansion by freeing up land

supply and introduces sensible density regulations that allow

and encourage the development of new, satellite CBDs which

are located close to major linking transport routes.

We need a mayor and a council that is willing to come to some

sort of sensible compromise on obligations to Maori, rather than

imposing expensive and time-consuming Iwi consultation

requirements on Auckland.


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Most importantly we need a Mayor who is capable and

prepared to take the necessary decisions to make this happen.

We need a Mayor who will challenge the ideologues whosefailed policies have caused Auckland's housing to be

unaffordable and rates to increase to unnecessarily high levels.

The vision outlined in this book is one I hope and believe

Aucklanders can and will embrace as being sensible and

meeting their needs and aspirations.

Our city has gone backwards after two terms of an incompetent

Mayor and an ideologically driven council.

The issues facing Auckland can be overcome. We just need

change at the top and pragmatists with a sound vision running

our city.


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2. Auckland in the Future

http://goo.gl/q3RhA51

Auckland is an expanding city. It is going to continue to expandwhile people want to move to Auckland from within New

Zealand and from overseas.

Auckland Council has a population that generally perceives the

council as out of touch, out of control and which uses

ratepayers like an unlimited ATM machine. This needs to befixed, and fixed quickly. It will only be achieved by a mayor

and a council that are willing to make pragmatic decisions that

allow Auckland to live within its means and within a planning

framework that clearly accommodates the expected population

growth.

Controlling rates, controlling council expansion, and

controlling expensive, time consuming regulation and

processes will all be necessary if the council wants Aucklanders

to trust them again. We have to stop the massive spend up, we

have to live within our means, and we have to make pragmatic

decisions about how Auckland grows.

Auckland is going to expand. Statistics New Zealand projects

the population of Auckland to reach two million people by12033 . We cannot expect our current city to simply add nearly

500,000 new people within the current or slightly expanded


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boundaries as the

vast majority of them work in the CDB or live in existing

suburbs.

Future population increases present Auckland with a series of

challenges. For Auckland to function properly, at the same time

as continuing to be a place Aucklanders want to live, we need

sensible and transparent policy settings. Policy needs to be

driven by pragmatism, not ideology, by understanding what

has gone wrong in the past, and fixing it. A future mayor and

council will have the collective wisdom to learn from other

cities' good and bad experiences rather than the current

ideologically driven approach.

The ideologically driven “Smart Growth” policies of the current

council have held Auckland back. They have contributed to2making Auckland the fourth least affordable city in the world.

Smart Growth ideologues are attempting to impose high

density on some of our beautiful, leafy suburbs. This will

totally change the character of Auckland and it will also be

exceptionally expensive for Aucklanders. Retrofitting and

upgrading existing infrastructure is more expensive and

disruptive than building new areas for Aucklanders to live and

work in.

current Unitary Plan proposes. Nor will the

th 12 Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 20162


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Roads are already full, yet council wants more people to live in

existing suburbs without any cost effective and efficient way of

improving transport in these areas.

Auckland lacks the necessary infrastructure for this kind of

very weak and mismanaged intensification and by increasing

the intensification we infringe on the property rights of existing

owners. A family with a nice villa with a view of the sea does

not want to have their view and sunlight blocked out by a 4story apartment block, any more than they want to sit in traffic

on a bottle neck suburban road.

Yet our mayor and his Smart Growth approach has chosen to

prioritise restricting land supply and to turn Auckland into

something it does not want to be. In a country where we havebuilt on less than one percent of available land, and have

twenty thousand square kilometres more land than Britain with

about one fifteenth of the population, we do not have a land

supply problem. We have a lack of common sense.

For Auckland to realise its full future potential we need to stopthe ideological drive that demands more homes in existing

suburbs. We need a council that realises the costs imposed on

Aucklanders of this approach is the biggest challenge facing

Auckland, and no amount of tinkering around the edges will fix

it. Intensification is for city centres and master planned growth

areas, not for established suburbs. Once council realises that,


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we will begin to grow Auckland without the turmoil we are

seeing today.

A future Auckland must be able to develop new housing

within a cost structure that young Aucklanders can afford. This

CAN be achieved if the right policy and regulatory framework

is adopted.

The Mayor and Council of Auckland needs to make new

housing affordability a high priority issue. Reducing runawaynew housing costs will provide massive benefit to Aucklanders

and Auckland. Building more houses and letting our region

and cities grow will help stimulate economic growth, as well as

reduce the inequality caused by unaffordable housing.

Auckland also needs a sensible approach to creating new areas

for our expanding population to work in. It makes no sense to

focus resources and money on the one CBD when the vast

majority of people will not work there either now or in the

future.

To reduce Aucklanders commuting costs and lost productivity

we need to encourage new commercial development in discrete

zones close to where new housing can be economically

developed. Auckland has space to allow new commercial

development within a strategically planned approach that takes

into account where people want to live and work at the same

time reducing existing roading congestion. It is around new

satellite CBDs that commercial intensification is required not in

existing suburbs.


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3. The Issues that Matter

Aucklanders were promised a new start with the Super City.We were to get regional wide planning, sensible decisions

about Auckland's future, and cost efficiencies from the

amalgamation of our councils.

Yet few Aucklanders believe they have benefited from the

Super City. The major problems facing Auckland have not beendealt with, and in many cases have got considerably worse.

Rates rises are out of control, due to council spending growth

being out of control.

Our council has imposed expensive regulations and processes

on us, pushing up the cost of housing, and the cost of living.These costs are impacting negatively one way or another on

most Aucklanders. At the same time the increased costs have

not resulted in fixing the serious problems facing the city.

Not only are rate rises out of control, they are matched by a lack

of transparency. The lack of transparency allows council to hideinefficiencies, incompetency, and spend heavily in areas that

are not the responsibility of the council.

Auckland Council should be providing superb services in its

core areas of responsibility, rather than duplicating other

governmental organisations services.


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makes no sense

work there and increasing numbers will not even visit it on a

regular basis.

These are the issues that matter. They are big issues and they

need real solutions. They also need a mayor and a council who

believes that to make Auckland function properly requires a

factual and properly thought through approach rather than one

driven by ideology where the facts are either quietly ignored or

manipulated.

When choosing who to vote for in this election please considers

who is best placed to deal with these issues. Who will protect a

failed status quo and offer only incremental solutions to the

problems Auckland faces? Who has actual solutions that will

work and who is prepared to challenge the local bureaucrats

and minority pressure groups that are getting in the way of

Auckland thriving?

when huge numbers of Aucklanders will never


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Ratepayers in Auckland have faced massive rates increasesforced on them by a wasteful council that believes it knows

how to spend ratepayers' money better than ratepayers know

how to spend it themselves. Since the formation of the

Auckland Council rates have risen from an initial increase of

2.9% pa to last year's unprecedented 9.9% pa. Many ratepayers

have had increases far in excess of these levels.

Even these huge rates increases have been insufficient to fund

council's reckless spending. In the last five years Council

debt/liabilities have increased by approximately $5 billion

dollars. This means that the Auckland Council in five years has

accumulated more debt/liabilities than the combinedaccumulated debt of all of its predecessors over the previous

100 years.

Rates and Debt increases have been matched by a massive

increase in spending. Council has simply increased rates and

borrowings rather than curbing spending or seeking

efficiencies. This huge increase has largely been the result of

poor quality and unnecessary spending on non-core activities,

personal pet projects and huge cost blowouts.

As it stands, Auckland Council's budget is significantly outside

the norms of New Zealand local government. For example, staff

4. A Ten Percent Rates Reduction


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JOHN PALINO

salary spending (including consultants) is approximately 27%

of all expenditures while the historical average had been closer

to 20%.

Auckland Council's discretionary spending on non-core areas is

currently running at 26% of total spending. Many other

Councils' spending on non-core areas is often less than half this

percentage.

Debt levels have soared to approximately $20,000 per ratepayer.

Council staff numbers rose by over 2000 from a 2011 total of

9,300 to stand at around 11,380 in 2015. This total excludes

many contracted and consulting staff.

I want to make it clear I have had some very positive

experiences with very helpful council staff. These people have

helped me and my businesses comply with consenting

conditions and have been a pleasure to work with. My concern

is not with staff in essential areas, it is the cost of staff in non-

essential roles that are undertaking tasks that are not Auckland

Council's responsibility.

The waste and inefficiencies of present Council operations

mean that the Council, following the 2016 election will have a

wide scope to reduce rates. Finding savings to allow a 10% rates

reduction across three years is very achievable.


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Savings leading to rate reductions will come from a

combination of savings including:

If elected I will institute a full review of council spending with

cost savings passed on to ratepayers and redirected to essential

“core” spending. This policy is so important that I will be

dedicating 25% of the Mayor's office budget to seeking cost

savings and efficiency gains. I will also make this a KeyPerformance Indicator for the Council CEO, to ensure that all

council staff understand that rates reductions is a key platform

of my administration.

Efficiencies promised from the amalgamation

Proper bidding processes and intelligent controls

over contractor spending

Reduction of non-core and wasteful spending

Reduced spending on discretionary activities

Payroll costs down from 27% of operating

expenditures to a level closer to the historic

average of New Zealand councils.


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JOHN PALINO

Introduce a budget that will reduce rates by 10% over the firstterm of a Palino Mayoralty. This assumes the IT cost blowout

we are now just learning about and other potential blowouts are

contained within existing budgets. We will only get to know the

real position once the accounts and budgets are open to public

scrutiny.

Immediate review of all council spending, with cost savings to

be passed on to ratepayers by way of a rate reduction or by way

of debt reduction if savings higher than 10% can be achieved.

Spend 25% of the Mayor's Office budget on reducing spending

on a permanent basis.

Issue a quarterly report to ratepayers showing how much my

administration has been able to save them.

John Palino's Pledge on Rates Reduction

1.

2.

3.

4.


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5. The Auckland Ratepayers Bill of Rights

(ARBOR)

For many Aucklanders rates have risen by approximately 60%

since the Super City was formed. Yet Aucklanders feel they are

missing services their old council used to provide. Key services

have been cut, but rates have increased.

Our mayor came to power promising rates rises would be kept

to 2.5%. They were not. They increased dramatically as the

mayor and his fellow councillors expanded the council's staff

numbers and expanded the role of council into non-core areas.

They used the excuse that Auckland had historically

underinvested in infrastructure. This excuse allowed politicians

to weasel out of election promises, and allowed bureaucrats to

present budgets that massively increased rates. Pledges from

campaigns were swiftly forgotten as council demanded more

and more money from ratepayers to fund their pet projects.

Many of these projects duplicated work that was the

responsibility of central Government or the District Health

Boards. When a council has a policy on Education, there are

obviously massive amounts of waste that can be cut. Council

has no responsibility for education, and no business wasting

ratepayer's money on areas they have no responsibility for.


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This election gives ratepayers the chance to enforce fiscal

discipline on council. They can vote out the councillors who

increased rates. They can vote for candidates who promise to

get council spending under control and return council to its

core business.

Yet too many politicians make promises at election time that

they conveniently explain away when in office. This is why

Auckland needs a real documented solution to hold the Mayorand Councillors to sensible spending limits.

Locking In Rates Controls – The ARBOR

As Mayor, an early priority will be to establish an Auckland

Ratepayers Bill of Rights. This will help protect ratepayers andall Aucklanders from future councils who choose to break

campaign pledges and increase spending way above the rate of

inflation.

Ideally a Ratepayers Bill of Rights should be encompassed in

government legislation and I would encourage CentralGovernment to act accordingly. However in the absence of

Central Government legislation, Auckland Council can adopt

its own Ratepayers Bill of Rights by way of Council Resolution.

Any subsequent Council wanting to repeal it could only do so

by way of a further Council Resolution, which would of course

be open to public scrutiny.


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The ARBOR concept has been successfully demonstrated

elsewhere. For example voters in Colorado were upset at

politicians continually breaking election promises on spending,so forced the adoption of a Taxpayers Bill of Rights. This forced

the Colorado State Government to act as a business, controlling

spending, prioritising what is important, cutting what is not

important and not just passing on the cost of additional state

spending to taxpayers.

The Auckland Ratepayers Bill of Rights

The Auckland Ratepayers Bill of Rights will do the following:

1. Keep the total rate take to no more than the rate of

inflation (but taking into account the increase in the

rating base associated with population growth).

2. Return any surplus of rates collected to ratepayers by

way of rate reduction or pay down debt rather than

spend on fringe “pet projects”.

3. Require any proposed Rates Rises above the ARBOR

Inflation Limit to be approved by ratepayers in a

referendum held at the same time as local government

elections.


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4. Make any major project with combined spending of

over one billion subject to a referendum held at the

same time as local government elections.

5. Require all council charges other than rates to be used

on the services they are providing, rather than being

used for general spending. (See the “Regulation”

section for further discussion on this subject).

6. Introduce a Citizens Decision Review Panel that will

allow Aucklanders to appeal against stupid decisions

made by Council staff.

For Auckland's politicians to be credible we need to be sure that

they will keep their campaign pledges. The ARBOR forces them

to keep their pledge on spending, or run for office on a platform

of increasing rates by including a rates rise referendum

question on the same ballot paper their name appears on.

The ARBOR is about returning trust to Auckland politics. Since

the Super City's formation we have had a mayor and a council

who have believed they can promise one thing at election time

and deliver another. The ARBOR will prevent this from

happening, as politicians will not be able to lie during an

election campaign, and find weasel words to escape their

election promises.


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The ARBOR is necessary because our politicians have proved

they cannot be trusted. The rogue spending of the mayor and

his council has damaged Auckland. Council has assumed that it

operates with an unlimited budget of other people's money,

spending at will and passing the costs on to ratepayers.

John Palino's Pledges on the Auckland Ratepayers Bill of

Rights

1. Introduce an Auckland Ratepayers Bill of Rights that

includes restricting rates rises to no more than the rate of

inflation but taking into account the increase in the rating

base associated with population growth.

2. Present a budget that cuts rates by 10% in my first term as

Mayor.

3. Spend one quarter of the mayor's office budget on constant

reviews of all council spending, challenging council staff to

control costs and drive down rates.


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6. Spending Transparency

All politicians say they are for transparency. Yet few will ever

make real pledges that will result in transparency. Campaign

promises are easily forgotten as council staff explain why more

transparency is a bad idea.

As Mayor I will immediately move to put all council spending

online, so citizen auditors can review council spending.

There will be howls of outrage from those who want to cover

up council spending that looks ill judged, wasted or

unnecessary. Yet council has proven it needs scrutiny because it

has dramatically increased rates over the last five years. The

ratepayers of Auckland deserve to be able to see how their

money is being spent. They deserve the chance to evaluate

whether they agree with where their money is being spent, or

whether they think council is wasting their money.

Transparency on spending has very real benefits. It will keep

council honest, knowing that citizen auditors will be able topick through their spending and highlight spending that is

questionable, and especially spending that is outright stupid.

As a businessman who has run high foot traffic businesses

around our city I pick up many, many stories about wasteful

council spending. This wasteful or incompetent spending is


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simply hidden

publish its spending in the detail necessary to make it truly

transparent.

I talk to hundreds of Aucklanders every week. A good number

of them tell me stories about the council that are almost beyond

comprehension.

One local Community Board member tells me they are notallowed to use their local plumber and have to use council

approved plumbers that have to travel from one end of

Auckland to the other to do a minor job. The travel time greatly

inflates the cost, and the contractors appear to be able to charge

whatever they like. A minor job fixing a public toilet expected

to cost about $1500 ended up costing closer to $15000.

A park ranger talks about a gate at a public park that required

fixing. The gate itself was worth no more than $500, yet the

council received a bill for $18,000 for repairs.

Back in 1999 when I created the Big Christmas Tree forAuckland City I was allocated a budget of $40,000. In that

budget I needed to find the tree that would look right, cut it

down, strap it, crane it and truck it to Aotea Square. I had to

purchase all the lights, erect the tree with engineering plans, rig

the lights, the stage and create the event for the lighting

ceremony.

away from public view as council does not


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Managers across the council have budgets they are granted

each year and if they don't spend it people ask what they were

doing and whether they will need that same amount again next

year. So in May and June the spending on consultants

skyrockets. There is no incentive to underspend if spending is

not required. The more you spend the better the chances are to

get a large budget next year.

There are enough stories that I have heard to suggest we need athorough investigation of Council purchasing and the

implementation of a robust and auditable purchasing policy.

Ratepayers need to know that they are getting a fair price when

council is buying on their behalf, and council staff involved in

purchasing need to respect ratepayers money as they would

respect their own.

An absolutist approach to transparency is necessary to ensure

there are no loopholes that council can hide dubious spending.

If council wants to spend ratepayer's money, that spending

should bear scrutiny, rather than being something that council

would prefer to hide from the ratepayers. Obviously detailsrelated to an individual's right to privacy such as personal

remuneration would not be published although aggregate

expenditure in such a category would be.

Spending transparency needs to be at a sufficient level of detail

that Aucklanders can see exactly what their money is being


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7. Council Responsibility

One of the most troubling and economically damaging law

changes in recent times was the Local Government Act of 2002.

This Act changed what Councils were responsible for by

changing their statutory responsibilities.

Prior to the Local Government Act of 2002 council's role was

tightly prescribed. Councils had their statutory obligations

defined in the statute, and there was very little wriggle room

for them to spend money on other areas.

The Local Government Act of 2002 completely changed the way

council's statutory responsibilities were defined. Prescription

was out and permission was in. There was no longer a tightly

defined role for councils, so councils had the ability to spend in

almost any areas that they saw fit to spend in. This was all

under the guise of what was termed the “four well-beings”.

Councils were given permission to take on responsibility for the

social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of theirarea.

Different councils in NZ adopted different policies. Some

continued to operate largely within a “core services only”

strategy while others went overboard in the new areas they

were given permission to operate in.


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The Auckland Super City has seen a significant expansion in

Auckland Council spending as the mayor and council moved

into new areas of spending and to some extent cut services in

their traditional and prescribed areas of responsibility. As a

consequence rates have risen dramatically, and often without

Council maintaining good core services first and foremost.

The ability to increase rates to whatever level they want means

that Auckland Council has been able to use ratepayers moneyto fund councils pet projects.

Auckland Council has been one of the worst offenders

compared to other NZ councils. They have rapidly increased

spending, both on staff and on areas that would not have been

possible under the previous Act. The Local Government Act of2002 and the “four well-beings” have been used by our mayor

and his council to justify spending on their pet projects.

As Mayor I will present budgets that cut rates by 10% in my

first term. This is possible by making efficiency gains with

associated costs savings and focusing on core activities.

Councils should provide exceptional services in the areas they

are responsible for providing services. They should not be

attempting to duplicate Central Government or DHB services,

and should not be using ratepayers to fund empire building by

Council departments.


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John Palino's Pledge on Council Responsibilities

1. I will present budgets that return Auckland Council to its

core responsibilities and fixes the key problems of traffic

congestion and unaffordable housing.

2. I will present budgets that reduces spending on non-core

council responsibilities.


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8. Economic Growth

Councils in New Zealand waste vast amounts of ratepayers'money on “Economic Development”. They fund pet projects of

bureaucrats and often small but vocal lobby groups. The results

are rarely, if ever, measured, and it is clear that economic

growth programs are NOT based on the following:

1. The understanding that council regulation andprocesses can be a greater drag on economic growth

than council spending can increase economic growth.

2. Proven methods to support economic growth.

3. Peer reviewed research to ensure economic growthpolicies are working.

4. Metrics that accurately measure the results of council

spending.

Most councils concentrate on outside factors, rather than

internal factors. They would far rather run an economic

development agency that promotes business and picks winners,

than review and remove council created barriers to Economic

Growth.


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Just about all councillors have a view on how to create

economic growth and it usually involves spending ratepayers'

money rather than creating a regulatory environment that

facilitates economic growth.

While some expenditure may be necessary for city promotion

purposes, it is well less than the current expenditure. Instead of

ratepayers money being spent on things such as an

“ambassador” located in London a Palino administrationwould concentrate on removing council imposed barriers to

economic growth and introducing incentives that encourage

businesses to operate in business “hubs” that are easily

accessible to where people live and do not require massive

daily commutes that clog the cities motorways and roads. As

Mayor I want to lead a city where it is easy for business to dobusiness, and allow business people to get on with creating jobs

and economic growth.

I have lived in Auckland for over 20 years and during that time

have set up and run a number of businesses. I have a lot of

experience in dealing with Council. This experience has alwaysmade me wonder why Council spends so much time and

money on attracting business from outside of Auckland while

at the same time, existing Auckland businesses often find it

hard to operate efficiently in Auckland due to Council policy

and regulations. Business is tough enough without the Council

getting in the way.


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I speak from a position of knowledge and frustration. All too

often dealing with the Council is time consuming, difficult and

annoying. Silly bureaucratic rules get in the way of business

doing business. Incomprehensible and inefficient rules are a

burden to business people, a burden that slows business

growth and slows job creation.

The impression I get is that the Council front line staff that the

public deals with are terrified of making decisions. They are

under pressure to always refer back to various “management”

teams whose prime objective seems to be to demand more and

more reports, or suddenly introduce a new set of requirements

that have never previously been discussed. They seem

incapable of making objective decisions quickly. They also seem

to be constantly looking for ways to take more money by

charging unreasonable fees to the poor ratepayer or

businessman.

I had a friend who owned a single building, four apartment

complex near where I live. This person owns three of the four

apartments and wanted to extend the back of the two left

apartments an additional two metres. This would allow for a bit

more deck to be built for the other apartments.

The forth apartment owner was in full agreement with the

proposal.


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What should have been a relatively simple process for an

activity that was permitted, ended up taking two years. The

owner had to obtain four building permits, even though theyowned three of the four apartments and the other owner was

supportive of the extension.

Not only did the extensions take two years to get the required

permits, each of the apartments had to receive separate

building inspection. So for a minor home improvement therewas the additional cost of four building permits and four

inspections, all for the same building.

Another friend of mine told me a story of a leaky home that

needed re-cladding. This was not a pleasant experience, but it

became even more unpleasant after the council inspected there-cladding. The building regulations had changed between

when the building was originally built and when it was re-clad.

The deck, which had been resurfaced in the re-cladding

process, was at the original height. The change in regulations

meant it no longer complied and had to be 2cm lower, so

council insisted that the deck be torn down and replaced.

This kind of illogical regulation and blind enforcement of

regulation is not only expensive and frustrating for

Aucklanders, it affects the credibility of the council, and means

people have a great deal of trouble trusting council. It impedes

Auckland's economic growth by costing far more than it should


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to undertake relatively minor changes. It also prevents people

from being willing to undertake small modifications to their

homes because dealing with the council is such a painful andexpensive experience.

For Auckland to thrive we need sustained economic growth.

We need a council that understands that it is holding Auckland

back, and changes its culture to help Aucklanders comply,

rather than passing more and more often confusing or inflexibleregulations.

We also need a council that understands that slowing down

projects to prove a point to Central Government is

unacceptable. This is a story I hear often from developers who

are attempting to help increase the number of houses availablefor Aucklanders. Seemingly senseless delays are also being

aggravated by a council desire to force Central Government to

fund infrastructure on the council's wish list.

A Practical Approach to Economic Growth

The following is a list of policy initiatives I would introduce to

promote Auckland's economic growth:

1. Provide an environment that makes it easy to grow

businesses by controlling spending and cutting

unnecessary regulation and processes.


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2. Change the approach of the regulatory functions within

council so staff are responsible for helping businesses and

citizens with sensible compliance issues rather than

holding up a business from “getting on with its business”

or a citizen from “adding a new toilet.”

3. Focus Council's Auckland economic development budget

on speeding up compliance and introducing a cultural

change within council compliance functions.

4. Make regulation and processes clear and easy to

understand and easy to comply with. Provide adequate

infrastructure to allow growth, understanding that

infrastructure must be focused on providing essential

services as first priority.

5. Keep rate rises low, to allow businesses and citizens to

spend their own money, rather than having council spend

it on non-core activities and “pet projects”.

6. Promote Auckland on the basis that it is “Open for

Business”, and that the council will make it easy and costeffective to do business in Auckland.

Councils should not be picking winners. They should be

providing an environment that it is easy for business to operate

in, and let business owners get on with running business.

Councillors who want to pick winners should do so with their


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own money, not ratepayers' money. Bureaucrats who want to

pick winners should similarly leave the security of a

guaranteed council income and set up and run their own

business.

John Palino's Pledges on Economic Growth

1. Concentrate council Economic Growth spending on internal

council compliance, aiming to make Auckland Council the easiest

council to deal with in New Zealand.

2. Aim to have all consenting functions meeting half the statutory

time limit for a decision by the end of my first term.

3. No unlimited holds put on consents by council.

4. Reduce rates, and reduce wasteful council spending, making

Auckland a cost effective place to do business.


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th12 Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 20163

9. Housing Affordability

Housing affordability in Auckland is a very important issue. It

effects both economic growth and social outcomes. Auckland

house prices for new homes are some of the highest in the

world, when compared to household income. Demographiathrank Auckland as 4 most unaffordable city to purchase a

3

house in, with a median multiple income to house price of 9.7 .

Unaffordable new housing puts huge pressure on Aucklanders,

particularly young families. Spending too much on housing

means Auckland families have to make sacrifices in other areas.

Money spent on repaying huge mortgages means it is not spent

in other areas and is therefore lost to the economy. From asocial perspective families either simply cannot afford a home

or are burdened with mortgage costs that impact on their

ability to pay for basic living costs.

Council town planning and regulations (including regulatory

processes) are the biggest driver of increased new housingcosts. The Metropolitan Urban Limit continues to drive land

prices up to ever more unaffordable levels. This has been

driven by an ideological desire to force Aucklanders to live in

high density dwellings and use public transport.


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This ideological approach to housing has caused new house

prices to increase rapidly as demand outstrips supply. The

attempt to create an ideologically driven compact city has failed

for several reasons.

Practically, a compact city will not work as zoning existing

suburbs to higher density housing has not to date created the

kind of increase in supply required to lower housing prices.

Neither will it do so in the future, as buying existing dwellings,

demolishing them, and rebuilding denser housing, does notprovide the kind of returns developers need to undertake this

type of development and be able to sell their development

homes at “affordable” prices. Also adding another house

behind a house does not add much other than a home for an

average of three people yet putting two or three more cars on

the road in that area.

A “compact” suburb also means increasing pressure on already

strained infrastructure, particularly roads. There is minimal

room for necessary new schools and other amenities to serve

the increased population. The schools are over flowing while

emergency services are getting over loaded. Building this way

is unplanned and unmanageable. Without being able to grow

our population properly, council is unable to plan the future

and provide the services needed. Filling in existing suburbs

does nothing more than over load the streets and does little for

growth in education, emergency services and the amenities

needed for the future 500,000 new people predicted to move to

the city.


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4

5

Increasing density also means existing property owners face

having their views and sunlight blocked by new multilevel

dwellings. Council's insistence on increased density in existingnon CBD areas affects the property rights of residents, without

any recompense for the loss of their views and sunlight.

Most of Auckland's problems with house prices has come from

poor town planning by council. According to the Productivity4

Commission , referencing a McKinsey Global Institute study:

Remarkably, in the world's least affordable cities (including

Auckland), unlocking land supply could help to reduce the cost of5housing by between 31% and 47% .

Auckland is a relatively small city on a relatively sparsely

populated land. New Zealand has a landmass approximately

20,000 square kilometres bigger than Britain, with

approximately a fifteenth of the population, so we do not have

a land supply problem. We have a planning and regulation

problem.

The Metropolitan Urban Limit (MUL) has restricted land

supply around Auckland, pushing up land prices for new

dwellings. There is no clear, practical path to making housing

affordable while the MUL remains. It simply will not happen.

Productivity Commission Using Land for Housing: 2015

Productivity Commission Using Land for Housing: 2015


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Similarly the regulations and requirements around developing

and building on raw land are too difficult and inflexible.

We should be asking the many experienced builders and

developers for their views on what can be done to significantly

increase the build rate for new and affordable housing. There

are a lot of good ideas out there that will not see the light of day

due to restrictive council planning and regulatory

requirements.

We need to start looking at real world housing issues for young

Aucklanders and working with builders and developers to

resolve these issues. This will require thinking “outside the

square” and allowing far more flexibility in how we regulate

for new housing.

For example it should be feasible to provide for modular

housing where one person or a couple can start off with a basic

housing module on a site containing one bedroom, a kitchen

and a small living area. Subsequent modules could be added

within a pre-planned and approved model as the family

expands. There would be no need for new resource consents

and building consents provided an architect or engineer signed

off the modular extensions as being within the original consent

requirements. The modules could also be prefabricated and

simply “bolted on” to the existing basic module.


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We need to consider designs and construction methods that

may be outside the council's existing building code if those

designs and methods can meet the requirements of weather

tightness and longevity and can be produced more cheaply.

I do not have all the answers but I have spoken to many highly

qualified people who are absolutely convinced we can do a lot

better in terms of housing costs and number of new builds if

more flexibility were introduced and common sense rather than

the current rigid and “one size fits all” regulatory environment

is applied.

For too long we have listened to the ideological warriors

promoting a compact city while apparently having no

understanding that the cost of new housing under this model is

a massive drag on Auckland's growth and will not produce the

number of new houses required.

Auckland needs to expand, and it needs to quickly free up

much more land for housing. We need to seriously consider the

views of Urban Design lecturers Dushko Bogunovich &6Matthew Bradbury of Unitec , who suggest viewing Auckland

as part of a bigger region. Creating land supply along the spine

of existing infrastructure means making the most of that

infrastructure at the same time as allowing greenfield

development along this spine in conjunction with satellite

CBDs.

6 http://goo.gl/whho3j


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The International Management consultants, McKinsey and

Company, reviewed some 2400 cities worldwide and identified

the two biggest factors in affordable housing availability as

unlocking land supply and an industrial scale approach to

housing development.

The Auckland Council has failed in both these key areas. In the

first two years of the Auckland Plan for housing only 1500 new

dwellings were consented on average per annum. Note that

“consented” does not mean “built”. So actual “built” new

homes will be lower than the “consented figures”. These

numbers are well less than the over 10,000 new homes that we

ought to be building each year to keep pace with the numbers

of new arrivals into the Auckland area.

Proponents of the Compact City will always oppose more

greenfield development to make housing affordable. They hide

behind slogans like “Sprawl Subsidy”, without ever stopping to

think that the compact city has made new housing so

unaffordable that most Aucklanders would accept more so

called “sprawl” if it made housing significantly cheaper. I

believe “sprawl” has been turned into a “dirty word” by theintensification ideologues. Expansion of the Municipal Urban

Limits is not a dirty word if planned carefully within a long

term, pragmatic and transparent strategy. By going out beyond

the existing MUL we are actually planning and controlling an

intensified type of build in those satellite CBD areas where it is

appropriate.


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On the opposite side of the so called “sprawl subsidy” is the

actual “retrofitting subsidy”. It is generally cheaper to build

infrastructure in new greenfield sites than it is to retrofit

infrastructure in existing suburbs particularly when it comes to

roading congestion on suburban roads that high density will

inevitably result in. For further discussion on this issue see

chapter 11, “Transport”.

Opponents of the city expansion strategy need to come up with

an answer to the big question, “If a compact city (region) was

going to work shouldn't it have worked by now?”

The Compact City concept has been a driver of Auckland

planning for several decades. Aucklanders have seen how this

has worked, and suffered through it not working. This is due to

council's lack of understanding of where intensification is

actually required.

While Auckland's population continues to grow at current and

predicted levels the Compact City concept will not work. The

supporters of the Compact City should be able to factually

explain in detail how this policy will result in more affordablenew housing and reduce traffic congestion. I believe they will

not be able to.

We also need to ask the question as to whether historic

infrastructure requirements are even necessary given modern

technological developments.


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10. Regulation

Auckland Council has tied our city in knots with expensive,

obtuse and downright stupid regulation. This imposes huge

costs on our people and our city.

Regulation is the most regressive form of taxation, imposing

the highest costs on those who can least afford it. It is morally

wrong to force the low income families in Auckland to pay the

massive cost of regulation.

All too often politicians forget the cost of regulation, and forget

that this cost has a moral component. As Mayor, and as

someone who has struggled with regulation, I will always

remember the moral component of regulation, and how

regulation places an unfair burden on those who can least

afford it.

The Regulatory Process

Councils are empowered to make regulations pursuant to

various Acts of Parliament. For example the Resource

Management Act and the Local Government Act allow councils

to pass regulations that govern land use and the environment

together with various other functions within their jurisdiction.


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These regulations must fit within the framework set out in the

particular Act of Parliament.

In terms of both the Resource Management Act and the Local

Government Act, a Council has very wide discretion as to what

regulations it passes and what those regulations cover.

Over the last twenty years we have seen a massive increase in

council regulations that have been promulgated under the

various Acts of Parliament that councils can regulate under.

The Auckland Super City and its predecessors have been some

of the worst offenders when it comes to increasing the

regulatory burden on its citizens and businesses.

This unfortunately is the nature of bureaucracies and the bigger

the bureaucracy the more regulations will be passed. The more

regulations that are passed, the more people are required to

monitor and enforce compliance and of course the higher the

cost and the more time delays creep in.

This regulatory framework can and indeed has become a

massive cost to the Auckland community. It needs to be

reversed and it will be under a Palino administration.

Examples of Flawed Regulation and Processes

Three yearly checks of swimming pool fences that are

already permitted and signed off.


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Speeding Up Council Processes

Regulation is necessary. Not all regulation is bad, and it plays

an important role in allowing Auckland to thrive. There are

many, many regulations that no sensible person would want to

completely remove, but we need to consider whether all the

regulations are necessary and whether they are well or poorly

drafted and/or implemented. We need to take into account the

time and cost it takes to comply with regulations and their

associated processes versus the “benefit” they are supposed to

achieve.

Slow and complicated council processes delay compliance.

Delayed compliance adds additional costs to home owners and

businesses, and these costs are proportionally higher for those

who can least afford them.

There needs to be a complete review of the Auckland Council

regulatory environment, which includes experts in applicable

areas from the private sector. I will make this a priority.

Council Fees

S150 (1) of the Local Government Act allows Councils to charge

fees for various services such as resource consents, inspections

etc.


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Subsection 4 states:

“The fees prescribed under subsection (1) must not provide for

the local authority to recover more than the reasonable costs

incurred by the local authority for the matter for which the fee

is charged.”

The current Auckland Council fee structure commonly and

demonstrably breaches this legislation in terms of both cost and

“reasonableness.”

As Mayor I will adopt policies and processes that:

Council fee charges do not exceed the reasonable cost of

providing the service

Council staff will meet the statutory time limits on

regulatory determinations such as Resource Consents.

I will also institute a range of financial penalties on council in

the event it fails to meet its statutory obligations. These

penalties will go some way to reducing the cost of expensivedelays to those seeking to comply with council regulation.

Better still, delays that cost council will be transparent and will

clearly sharpen the minds of council staff, forcing them to seek

efficiencies and speeding up compliance.


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Best Practice Regulation & Compliance

For Auckland to thrive we need to be sensible about

compliance and regulation. Auckland is not unique. There are

large numbers of cities around the world that deal with

compliance issues, and some of them appear to deal with them

far more effectively than Auckland does.

Auckland Council, with me as Mayor, will look carefully at

which cities have compliance & regulation models we can learnfrom so that a “best practise” model can be adopted.

Making Regulation Reduction Real

All politicians claim they will reduce regulation, but as with

transparency few ever offer a real plan for reducing regulation.

As Mayor I will work with councillors, council staff, third partyexperts and the staff of the Mayor's Office to reduce expensive

regulation.

Reducing regulation is so important to allowing Auckland to

thrive. I will be dedicating 25% of the Mayor's Office budget to

reducing the regulatory burden and speeding up regulatory

processes. I will be asking the council Chief Executive to report

monthly on regulation reduction and make regulation

reduction a KPI for all senior council staff.

I will be instructing my office to prepare a plan for measuring

regulation reduction, and to publicly report on regulation

reduction six monthly.


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A Citizens Decision Review Panel

A complaint that I frequently hear is that some council front

line staff are totally inflexible and dogmatic and indeed often

do not understand the regulations they are policing or

interpreting. Their interpretations often change or are

completely contrary to what another staff member has stated.

The only redress a citizen has for a bad or wrong regulation

related decision/interpretation is court action which in the vast

majority of cases is not practical from either a cost or time

perspective.

Consequently I will establish a “Citizens Decision Review

Panel” comprising an experienced council officer and an

outside expert that will review unreasonable or wrong staff

decisions that are referred to it by affected citizens.

Initially I suspect this Panel could be rather busy but over time

I would expect that this process would impact positively on the

way council staff deal with citizens they are interfacing with

and the workload of the Panel would reduce.


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John Palino's Pledges on Regulation

1. Use 25% of the Mayor's Office's annual budget to remove

expensive and unnecessary regulation.

2. Instruct the Council CEO to change the culture of council to

become an enabler of compliance, rather than compliance police.

3. Report to Aucklanders six monthly on regulation reduction.

4. Establish a Citizens Decision Review Panel.


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11. Transport

Auckland Council has essentially tied itself in ideological knotsover transport. Cars are considered evil, and everyone should

be using public transport or riding bikes, no matter how

expensive or inconvenient it is to use public transport or ride to

work.

This ideological drive to get people out of cars and into publictransport means that the only really major transport project that

Auckland Council has considered since inception is the Central

Rail Loop. This is despite the CRL having a very poor business

case, as the assumptions and policies underlying the Unitary

Plan and the “Compact City” are flawed, which means that the

assumptions the CRL is based on are also flawed.

The premise that the CRL is based upon, that more and more

people will be going to the CBD for work, is flawed. It is

prohibitively expensive to force all Aucklanders into the CBD,

especially when there is little chance of rapidly increasing the

amount of housing available close to the CBD.

The process by which transport planning decisions are being

made by council is also flawed.

Essentially little if any weight is given to the “private” cost of

traffic congestion or to the cost of new housing and yet these

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are two of the most important issues for Aucklanders.

The recently completed Auckland Transport Alignment Project

identified that the current council Unitary Plan was NOT going

to solve traffic congestion in Auckland and in fact would make

it far, far worse.

If Auckland as a region expands along its existing transport

infrastructure, as it needs to in order to provide affordable new

housing and reduce traffic congestion, spending vast amounts

of money on the CRL will not be cost effective. Current

proposed council expenditure over the next 30 years will be

allocated 50% to public transport yet public transport will only

ever meet 10 per cent of travel needs. At the same time, money

that could have been spent cost effectively on infrastructure to

reduce congestion and provide more land for affordable

housing has been used up.

Forcing business into the CBD, and people to use public

transport to get there is prohibitively expensive and not cost

effective compared to alternatives. This is before taking into

account the technological changes that will alter work andtransport patterns in the not too distant future.

Rather than asking the question “How do we move more

people to the CBD on public transport” the Auckland Council

needs to answer the question “Do we want to move more

people to the CBD?” The answer to this question will alter the


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direction Auckland takes as a city, and means that current

transport spending needs to be re-examined.

It needs to be examined on a factual rather than ideological

basis and the planning assumptions need to give far more

weighting to the issues of the private costs of traffic congestion

and affordable housing.

Essentially the Council's strategy is based on two premises:

That more people want or have to come and

work/play in the CBD.

That building the CRL will solve Auckland's traffic

congestion problem by taking cars off the road aspeople switch to rail transport.

Both these premises are demonstrably wrong.

Less than 12% of the working population currently work in the

CBD. The vast majority of workers are commuting to and fromwork outside the CBD, often from one side of the city to the

other. The CRL will not change this and it will certainly not

take one single truck or commercial vehicle off the roads.

Instead, the Unitary Plan will significantly increase traffic

congestion particularly on suburban and feeder roads. People


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do not want to spend two to four hours a day commuting into

the CBD or travelling from one side of the city to the other.

They want to work as close as reasonably possible to where

they live. The time and cost savings are obvious.

The Council have conducted meaningless surveys in which

they ask self evident questions such as; “Does Auckland's traffic

congestion need fixing?”

You don't need to undertake a survey to know that the

overwhelming response will be a big “YES”. But that answer is

then dishonestly interpreted as overwhelming support for the

CRL.

Surely an honest approach to the traffic congestion is first to

determine what is causing it.

An honest survey would ask questions such as:

“Where do you live and where do you work?”

“What times of day do you commute and is this from home to

work and back?”

“If you could find suitable work close to where you live would

you prefer this to your existing employment location?”


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Lest anyone think I am against public transport I can assure

you I am not against it.

I just don't believe that the current Council strategies are

spending your money in the right place or pursuant to a

sensible long term strategic plan and I don't believe you have

ever been given the opportunity to consider or vote on

alternatives.

The ideologues have shut down debate and pursued a non-

evidence based strategy, which demonstrably will not work.

This debate needs to be had before it is too late and I will

urgently facilitate such debate.

Even within the existing strategy council are mismanaging

public transport.

Take the North Shore bus lane. This was an expensive but

justifiable facility because it can be part of a “transport

backbone” for the city. But it is significantly underutilised

because at every single stop point along the route there is

totally inadequate car parking.

The Council's apparent solution is for people to walk or bike to

the bus stop. This is simply not practical or convenient for the

vast majority of people.


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A sensible Auckland Council will fix basic issues such as this

and encourage development in other areas of Auckland where

transport infrastructure is already in place, or can be built

cheaply.

Actively encouraging and allowing intensification of satellite

CBDs close to the existing transport infrastructure is a sensible

long term strategy. It will support the establishment of new

work places that require infrastructure around them, which inturn will provide more work opportunities close to where

people live. This will only occur if the CRL is not considered the

holy grail of Auckland Transport.

The Future of the Central Rail Loop

Spending vast sums of money on the Central Rail Loop will

come at a huge expense to ratepayers. They will not only pay

for the CRL, but they will also see other more important

infrastructure projects neglected for lack of funds.

There has been no substantive debate on alternative strategies,with Auckland Council bulldozing ahead with the CRL even

when the Auditor General has questioned the financial

implications of this.

As Mayor I want Aucklanders to be engaged in such a massive

project. I want Aucklanders to have input into the viability of


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this huge project by asking them essential questions about their

commuting requirements and their preferences about where

they would like to live and work.

We need to understand what is really causing Auckland's

traffic congestion and what long term strategies could be put in

place to minimise the problem based on real facts rather than

ideology.

The current Mayor and his council have not asked thesequestions and established the real facts before committing

substantial funding to the CRL. It may be too late to stop the

CRL project due to contractual commitments already entered

into but if this is the case you can be assured I will be looking at

every opportunity to minimise costs.

As Mayor I will undertake a detailed review of the CRL. The

sort of questions I would want to see debated and answered

include:

What is the real cost likely to be?

How many vehicles will it take off the road and when?

For how many people will it reduce their work commute

time and by how much?

What will be the implications to business and the public

during the construction of this project through the heart of

the CBD?


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If the cost of the CRL was allocated to other

infrastructure projects what other projects could be

undertaken?

Would construction of those projects reduce peoples

work commute time more or less than the CRL and

what numbers of people would be benefitted as

opposed to the CRL option?

To what extent is justification of the CRL based on

Council's intensification policy of Auckland's suburbs

under the proposed Unitary Plan?

Do Aucklanders support intensification of their suburbs

under the proposed Unitary Plan?

What are the other planning options available to the

current Unitary Plan to support Auckland's forecast

growth and what are the costs/benefits of these

compared to the costs/benefits of the proposed Unitary

Plan?

How is the CRL proposed to be funded (real answers

required) and how much will this typically add to

individual's rates?


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Congestion Charges

Phil Goff has stated he will attempt to impose congestion

charges on cars using existing infrastructure to fund public

transport. This is despite Council not having the ability to

implement congestion charges, and the Government saying it

will not permit them to be introduced.

As Mayor I will not support congestion charges on existing

roads. These roads have already been paid for by ratepayers

and taxpayers, and I cannot justify making people pay for them

again.

It is a new tax by any other name.

Toll Roads

Toll roads/tunnels/bridges have a place in our Transport

network. New transport infrastructure may be able to be built

quicker using a toll-based model, providing benefits to those

who will be paying to use them. Unlike congestion charges,

tolling new roads or tunnels is not charging road users for

something they have already paid for and clearly can work.

The northern motorway extension is but one example. People

do not have to use it but most choose to because in their mind

there is a cost/benefit in doing so.


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Cycleways

As a small business owner I am acutely aware of how much

removing parking for cycleways can cost businesses and annoy

citizens. This is without even considering the very substantial

cost of building them. Cycleway proponents demand more and

more cycleways, without considering either the initial capital

cost or the on-going economic cost of removing parking and

slowing down vehicle traffic.

We need to be pragmatic about cycleways. They have a place,

but the rights of cyclists must be fairly balanced with the rights

of those who do not use cycles. We need to build cycle ways

right when we do build them. As mayor I will institute a review

of cycleways, and have an open mind, rather than an

ideological approach, to cycleways.

Adequate Parking for Park & Ride

One of the biggest flaws of Auckland's transport policy in the

last decade has been the failure to build adequate parking at

park and ride stations. Far more people would be willing to use

our cost effective bus services if only adequate parking was

provided at park & ride stations.


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John Palino's Pledge on Transport

1. Free Auckland of a CBD focus and stop attempting to only

move people to and from the CBD.

2. No congestion charges on existing roads.

3. Toll Roads to be built where there is a sound business case

for building them.

4. Review expenditure on cycleways.

5. Review parking at Park & Ride stations within the first

three months of being elected, and provide a plan for

increasing parking within twelve months.

6. Move forward on roading projects with good cost benefit

ratios and need to begin, such as the East West link and the

second harbour crossing.

7. Integrate Transport in a growth plan that eliminates future

congestion by allowing the development of new intensive

suburbs along the transport spine, providing Aucklanders

the opportunity to live close to where they work, or have

affordable housing close to existing transport infrastructure.


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The current council's Unitary Plan has promoted an ideologicalposition that will do nothing to resolve Auckland's problems.

In general it will make them worse. It also tramples on

Aucklanders' property rights, and creates building density in

areas where retrofitting infrastructure will be expensive and

disruptive or indeed impossible.

“Smart Growth” proponents want to turn Auckland into a

compact city, growing it both up and reducing open spaces

between houses. This means fundamentally changing many of

Auckland's leafy and open suburbs to incorporate a big

increase in apartment blocks and infill housing, at the same

time taking away existing residents views and sunlight. One of

the great delights of living in Auckland is the “openness” of it.

We have seen what has happened to other communities that

have gone down the “intensification” route. They are not

attractive places to live, work and play.

It is not as if we have a land availability problem. We have

plenty of usable land in this country.

Auckland is forecast to grow by around 35,000 people per

annum for the next 10 years. That is 350,000 new people in 10

years. Do we want them all living in intense housing “ghettos”

in the existing suburbs and even if they did, where would they

work? Certainly not in the CBD for around 88% of them.

12. The Unitary Plan


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So housing intensification is only going to increase traffic

congestion in suburbs and will not solve it. If we follow Los

Angeles' example and intensify we will have Los Angeles' three

hours of congestion in morning and afternoon rush hours.

Los Angeles is a huge area of single and multi level homes and

apartments. The issue here is that people have to work every

where like Auckland. There is no major work hub, down town

LA does not employee many people so because of this

transport can not take people where they need to go.

Contrast this to New York, where Manhattan is a very small

island. It has 2.75 million people living there, and 2.5 million

people going to work there every day.

Greenwich is a perfect example of this. There is a train line and

a highway from Manhattan to Greenwich, wit

A Vision for Auckland from John Palino

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