Dr. Eric Chuah Running For Auckland Mayor
Dr. Eric Chuah joined the National Party in March 2024 after standing down from running for Tauranga Mayor so as not to take away votes for the centrist and right Tauranga Mayoral candidates. Dr. Eric Chuah will also be running for Northcote Local Board and North Shore Local Ward for Auckland Councilor Position.
Dr. Eric Chuah's academic teaching and policy making experience while working as lecturer in Monash University and later University New South Wales in Australia seconded to Australian Defense Intelligence combined with his business and investment consulting experience on the ground level in New Zealand as a cafe owner, property developer, insurance broker, assistant manager for telemarketing, Telstra Territorial Manager for Karori Wellington and Asia Pacific Manager for Fire Denyers International a NZ owned fire alarm system company that won the Housing NZ award will provide and enhance the necessary strategic vision and also capacity to create Action Plans to have better delivery of local council services, minimise increase in rates unnecessarily and ensure health safety for local residents and businesses liaising with NZ Police for better policing.
When you serve the local council and local government it is for all NZders, notwithstanding their political preferences be it left right or center. This is to ensure efficient facilitation and Action Plans to better public transport, better traffic flow, better waste water management services.
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The Spinoff
43 minutes ago
- The Spinoff
Fear and zoning at Auckland Council
It looks like we might finally be letting people build houses in Kingsland, Mt Eden and Mt Albert, and some of our councillors are absolutely ropeable. A fug of grumpiness hung heavy in the air from the first minutes of Auckland Council's planning committee meeting on Thursday. Its chair, North Shore councillor Richard Hills, was trying to kick off an introductory presentation from staff on a set of new housing rules proposed for the city, and questions from the floor were already piling up. Albany's John Watson had dug up a speech from housing minister Chris Bishop where he'd promised communities would decide on the future of their suburbs. 'What did he mean by that?' he asked, pointedly. 'We can't speak for the minister,' replied Hills. Waitematā's Mike Lee was, if anything, more disgruntled. He wore an expression similar to that of the crotchety hobbit from the first Lord of the Rings film as he listed similar concerns about consultation. 'We'll just go now to John for the presentation,' said Hills. It was just the start. Lee and his compatriots had come to the committee to kick up a fuss. The plan they were there to discuss would, at long last, allow people to build apartments and townhouses near the majority of Auckland's train stations and rapid busways. The city's current Unitary Plan allows for 900,000 houses, but enshrines 41% of the land within 5km of the city centre under special character rules which essentially forbid development. This new one would enable two million homes, including 10-storey apartments near public transit in previously off-limits 'leafy suburbs' like Mt Eden, Kingsland and Mt Albert. It's been foisted on the council by the government, which has grown frustrated with local authorities building bilge pumps, aqueducts and municipal pipe systems purely to transport the piss when it comes to housing. But some councillors weren't going to let those elaborate systems be demolished without a fight. Lee led the charge. He railed against Bishop over the changes, enigmatically arguing that extending what people can do by right on their property will destroy their property rights. 'We have a minister who talks about property rights. What he seems to be talking about is property developer rights,' he thundered. 'Not the property rights of ordinary citizens who he seems to be issuing directives to change their neighbourhoods and the value and amenity of their homes.' The criticisms kept coming. Albany councillor Wayne Walker delivered a series of speeches, which he cleverly disguised as questions to council staff. In one of them, he appeared to argue that because upzoning can increase the value of people's properties, everyday home buyers will be priced out of the market. 'It will be attractive to a developer but not to an ordinary person buying a house,' he said, while curiously omitting what developers build and who they sell it to. He got support from his Albany compatriot, with Watson noting that in his ward, developers often buy a house for $1.4 or $1.5 million, then build several houses that sell for $1.2 or $1.3 million. 'There's no effective advancement,' he said. If he was troubled by the fact affordability improved even in his example of how upzoning doesn't improve affordability, he didn't let on. At some point in all this, Houkura member Tau Henare appeared to lose the will to live. 'Should I ask my next question?' asked Walker, after one of Hills' attempts to cut him off. 'Oh, if you must,' muttered Henare under his breath. Several councillors would later inform The Spinoff the interjection was relatively tame by his standards, and others have included more swear words. Most of all, these naysayers argued about infrastructure. 'Ultimately you can't do all this upzoning without making the commitment to provide the infrastructure that will support it,' Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa ward councillor Christine Fletcher, in comments echoed by several of her anti-upzoning compatriots. Council staff seemed confused. The entire point of this plan was to make sure housing was near infrastructure. It zones for apartments right by bus stations and train stations. That's kind of the whole point. They tried saying as much, in terms as dry and bureaucratic as possible, but the message never seemed to get through. They didn't have a hope. Walker, Lee, Fletcher and Watson would all rather stick with the Unitary Plan, and no one could talk them into anything else. But when the Unitary Plan was being debated, they didn't much like that either. They don't want apartments in central areas. But when the council considers sprawl, they say no to that as well. The only viable conclusion is they want to house Auckland's expanding population in a nonmaterial shadow realm accessible only through quantum. Either that, or they just don't want more people at all. At least Mike Lee was honest about that. In his closing speech, he said the plan was all about enabling a 'so-called population of probably 7.5 million'. For him, the real solution appeared to be to simply not allow that 'population' to come here. 'One has to ask where will this population come from? Because it's not coming from natural reproduction here. So what is the big plan here and who asked permission to radically change our country so much? Who gave Mr Bishop permission to do this? Certainly not the people of Auckland, to my knowledge,' he said. Fletcher got close to the truth as well. She said allowing two million houses was simply too much, calling it a 'dead rat' the council had to swallow. But housing isn't a dead rat. It's a place people live, and we've had too little of it for too long thanks to us having the same dead-end arguments decade after decade. In his closing speech on the new plan, Waitākere councillor Shane Henderson decried 'decades of shameful planning decisions' that 'left us in a huge hole'. 'The Unitary Plan was our first step out of that hole,' he said. 'And here is another step.' Though some loudly spent the day imploring us to go back to the hole, where it's safe and dark, most of his colleagues were willing to take that step toward the light. They agreed to put the plan out for consultation with local boards and iwi, with only Watson and Lee voting against the move. But the battle is far from over. As councillors filed out, they said this was just a warm-up. The next meeting on the plan is scheduled for September 24, when council will decide whether or not to actually endorse its broad and ambitious agenda. That's when the real complaining will begin.
RNZ News
13 hours ago
- RNZ News
Auckland Council to consult iwi, government ministries and local boards on intensification plan
Photo: RNZ / Kate Newton Auckland Council will go to iwi authorities, government ministries, and local boards for consultation on a draft plan to increase intensification and strengthen hazard rules for new buildings. Council's Policy and Planning Committee have been meeting in the town hall today to discuss changes to the Auckland Unitary Plan that would replace Plan Change 78, while keeping its focus on housing. The draft changes would allow for more apartments and terrace homes in walking distance of train and bus stations, more restrictive consenting requirements to increase resilience, and an increase in mixed housing suburban zones. Council has voted to take the draft changes out for consultation, with two councillors opposing. It will have to decide in September if it will withdraw from Plan Change 78, and proceed with the replacement plan. Mayor Wayne Brown supported the plan, saying he wanted the city to stop sprawling out wide. "Basically, this is we do this ourselves, or we get it done to us, so think about that," he said. "We've finally got some good government relationships, but they're quite happy to do us if we don't follow this through." Mayor Wayne Brown supported the plan. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi The changes were a response to the widespread flooding in the region in 2023. Committee Chair Richard Hills said they had some big wins through negotiation. "We came here eight days, I think, after the Auckland Anniversary floods, eight days, and asked for urgent work to be done on the current qualifying matters, and to write to government to help us do that," he said. "And it was made clear to us we cannot legally downzone, we cannot legally act on hazards, so we had to continually negotiate with government to get there, we tried with the last government and we got there, finally, with this government to allow us to do that." Hills said it had been a tough process. "If we make no decision to move forward, we keep Plan Change 78, and you'll have to deal with all the issues that are locked in there. "There is not going to be a plan that ever makes all of us happy, all the local boards happy, all the public happy, it's impossible, but as we heard from our staff the new plan change was more in line with our transport infrastructure, it's more in line with enabling people to live close to these type of infrastructure, the City Rail Link, amenities, jobs... "That's what we've been trying to do this whole term." The plan was endorsed to go to consultation, with councillors John Watson and Mike Lee voting against. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- RNZ News
Auckland mayoral candidate Kerrin Leoni unveils transport policy plan
Auckland mayoral candidate Kerrin Leoni has unveiled her transport policy plan. Photo: RNZ / Jessica Hopkins An Auckland mayoral candidate is putting her weight behind a campaign to get train services to Kumeū-Huapai in Auckland's North-West. Challenger to incumbent mayor Wayne Brown Auckland Councillor Kerrin Leoni unveiled her transport policy plan at Waitematā Station on Thursday morning. Speaking to the media, she said Wayne Brown did not have a clear vision to improve the city's public transport. "Every morning, thousands of Aucklanders sit in traffic, wondering if anyone will ever actually fix our transport problems. "Wayne Brown promised to fix it. Three years later, we've had endless weekend rail shutdowns, cancelled bus routes, and AT spending $147,000 on social media influencers while your train doesn't show up. "Where's the strategy to cut journey times? Where's the connection to our growing communities? Perth built their airport rail in three years - we can't even get a plan. "While Sydney guarantees travel times, Brown's big ideas are complaining about Wellington, counting traffic cones, and tinkering with traffic lights." The $50 public transport fare cap, introduced by Auckland Transport in 2024, had not been properly promoted, she said. Leoni said she might consider lowering the fare cap. "We've had a lot of feedback from students that the $50 cap is not cheap enough. But I don't believe we would be able to achieve that right now based on our current budgets. But I'd look at that in the future. "The real issue we have now is that whilst I've been out campaigning, no one is aware we have a $50 cap. We need to get that messaging out to Aucklanders better." She also committed to negotiating with KiwiRail to stop rail network closures on weekends, but when probed conceded that disruption would become less frequent once the City Rail Link (CRL) had opened. "There have been a number of shutdowns with the building of the CRL. The plans to address that are definitely there. "But I believe it's not acceptable, the number of shutdowns we have had. Some of them have been necessary, but we need to get the message out to Aucklanders that there is a clear plan, that there will be fewer shutdowns in the future." Kerrin Leoni with Paul Miller from the Public Transport Users Association. Photo: RNZ / Jessica Hopkins Councillor Leoni was joined by Paul Miller from the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA), who stepped in to answer some media questions about Leoni's policies. He said the PTUA had long advocated for restoring Kumeū-Huapai's passenger rail connection, and it was great to have a mayoral candidate on board. The city's Western Line stops at Swanson, and a planned busway to ease commuter congestion is 10 years away. Since a trial ended in 2010, only trains transporting goods used the rail line through to Huapai. Miller said they had a private funder willing to help fund regular train services, every 20 minutes during peak hours, and every hour off-peak. "A substantial development group that has holdings in West Auckland has said that they would commit to helping to fund a rail service to connect to the end of the existing rail line. "There's huge community support for it. It's a one-lane road in each direction, and you can't add buses to avoid that. "We need something in the short-term, and that's what Kerrin's policy is." The Mayor has been approached for comment. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
