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The Spinoff
26-05-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Windbag: Khandallah Pool and the high price of inequality
The quiet suburban pool is a microcosm of everything wrong with New Zealand's broken rates system. Windbag is The Spinoff's Wellington issues column, written by Wellington editor Joel MacManus. Subscribe to the Windbag newsletter to receive columns early. On Thursday, as the nation's media were preoccupied with the government's budget, another budget was passed, less than a kilometre from parliament: Wellington City Council's Long Term Plan. One of the most controversial debates in the final weeks was about whether to spend $7.5m repairing Khandallah Pool. The 100-year-old unheated outdoor pool is not particularly well used. It gets about 10,000 users annually (down from 45,000 in its heyday), the lowest of any public pool in Wellington. By some estimates, ratepayers will subsidise swimmers to the tune of $60 to $80 per swim. Khandallah residents campaigned hard to save their pool and the council ultimately agreed to fund the repairs. The fact that the pool is heavily subsidised isn't inherently a problem; all council facilities are subsidised. The problem comes from the political processes that decide what the council spends money on. Councillors increasingly see community facilities as 'bread and circuses' politics. They'll spend money on whatever councillors think will make their constituents happy, which biases decision-making towards the loudest voices. That's a recipe for short-sighted decision-making and white elephant projects. Every council spending decision is an investment in city land. Land connected to serviced roads and mains water is more valuable than land without those things. That also applies to libraries, pools, parks, community centres and theatres. Land with nearby amenities is more valuable than land in the middle of nowhere. A 2019 meta-analysis of 33 studies by Texas A&M and Swansea University researchers found there was an 8%-10% premium in house prices when they were located near a public park. For a small public park, the increase in value is quite localised. Once you're more than 750 metres away, the price premium all but disappears. A destination park, like a botanical garden or a multi-sports field, will spread its benefits across a larger area. Major facilities, like a stadium or art gallery, will add some small value to every property in the city, but will have a greater impact on nearby commercial properties because they attract customers. Khandallah Pool is a value-add for nearby residents. They get the benefit of a pool without the cost of installing one on their property. To justify the investment, the council must hope that the pool will make Khandallah a more appealing place to live, encouraging higher property values and more development, which means more rates revenue for the council. The problem is that Khandallah residents don't seem to want that. The Onslow Residents' Community Association, which represents Khandallah, has consistently fought against new housing in its area. One of the reasons for the drop in Khandallah Pool users is that the number of school-aged children in the suburb is declining, down 19% since 2015. Young families are being priced out. Khandallah is increasingly a community of elderly people sitting on $2 million properties, watching their grandchildren grow up over Zoom. Recent zoning changes under the district plan should help to address this, but some suburbs are still highly motivated to fight back. In Mt Victoria, a group of residents led by Dame Gaylene Preston is organising sustained protest action to block a seven-storey apartment development. In financial terms, for the council, this apartment building contains 32 units, which would generate about $500,000 per year in rates. The single-storey building that stood there previously generated about $30,000 annually. Would Mt Victoria residents be willing to accept lower council spending in their community in exchange for cancelling the development? I doubt it. Wealthy and well-organised communities like Khandallah and Mt Victoria are very effective at demanding investment in their areas while simultaneously opposing the growth that pays for it. That means the younger, poorer, denser neighbourhoods are subsidising the lifestyles of the leafy suburbs. A Greater Wellington Regional Council study last year found councils were spending three to five times more per dwelling to provide infrastructure to the outer suburbs than in the inner city. So what's the answer? We could go down a convoluted rabbit hole of targeted rates and development levies earmarked for local projects, but that's probably more effort than it's worth. There's a far more elegant solution waiting in the wings: switch from property value rates to land value rates. Land value rates allow councils to directly recoup their investments. If your land value goes up because the council upgraded the road and built a new pool, it's fair enough that you should pay more rates. On the other hand, if you increase your property value by renovating your house, the council hasn't added anything. The major benefit of land value rates is that they are based on developable capacity, which encourages more efficient land use. People who own large, underdeveloped sections would pay higher rates, which would encourage them to sell up or develop the land into apartments or townhouses. That's what this is all about, really – allowing more people to enjoy the benefits of council facilities. Now that Wellington City Council has decided to repair Khandallah Pool, we should want more people to live near it and use it.
The Spinoff
22-05-2025
- Business
- The Spinoff
10 key reads on Buget 2025
Nobody has time to read everything that's been written on the budget, so Catherine McGregor has a round-up of some of the most interesting takes, in today's extract from The Bulletin. The true blue, bitsy, no BS, growth budget For Jenée Tibshraeny at the Herald, it was both the 'reality bites budget' and the 'true blue budget'. For Lloyd Burr at Stuff, the 'bitsy budget'. Nicola Willis called it a 'no BS budget', while the Greens said it was a 'growth (in poverty) budget. Officially, of course, it was the Growth Budget, and the tsunami of media analysis that followed its release focused largely on whether it delivered on that promise – and what will be sacrificed to boost the government's high-growth dream. To help you make sense of it all, I've picked out some interesting reads to give you a sense of the overall picture. If you're just interested in finding out where exactly the budget was spent and slashed, check out Joel MacManus and Lyric Waiwiri-Smith's missive from the budget-day lockup, Gabi Lardies' guide to the budget for people who hate the budget. We also have Frances Cook's reaction to the KiwiSaver shakeup (spoiler: she doesn't love it). Here are 10 more stories, from The Spinoff and elsewhere, that caught my eye. Media winners and losers If you just want to read sector experts on what the budget means for their field, look no further than our annual hot take roundtable. Among the contributors is The Spinoff's Duncan Greive, who says RNZ's loss of $4.6m a year in funding makes it the media sector's biggest loser. 'It's a chunky sum, equivalent to 7% of its budget, but on some level it might be relieved it wasn't considerably worse, given that it received a $26m annual boost in 2023,' says Greive. Meanwhile the screen production sector got a pre-announced $577m rebate boost. 'Some proportion of this will inevitably be taken up by streaming giants, who also will have been pleased to discover that the threat of a 3% digital services tax quietly vanished this week,' writes Greive. 'While understandable given the continued belligerence on trade from the White House, it does tend to make local businesses feel like chumps for playing the last game, where you pay tax and employ people.' Lockup scran, reviewed It wouldn't be Budget Day without a thorough taste test of the food on offer at the lockup, the phone-free zone where journalists and other interested parties get to read the budget before it's released. This year The Spinoff's parliamentary team, Joel MacManus and Lyric Waiwiri-Smith, did the honours, adding a fiscal-friendly twist to their food reviews: The lettuce in the egg salad sandwich was 'an unnecessary inclusion like counting ACC revenue in Obegal ', while the sausage roll was 'rich, like the people who are no longer eligible for government KiwiSaver contributions'. Bad news for the poorest among us Remember Jacinda Ardern's child poverty pledge? Max Rashbrooke does, and notes that while the Labour government's progress on the goal admittedly stalled, 'National's target is literally to do nothing: to maintain the current 12% of children living in poverty for ever and ever, amen.' His analysis, published in The Spinoff this morning, argues that this is a go-slow budget, unless you happen to be a business or high-income earner. 'Despite the growing calls on the state – to tackle poverty, to address the effects of climate change, and to care for an ageing population – Willis is determined to shrink government spending as a proportion of GDP from 33% to 31%. A diminishing share of our annual income will be spent on solving collective problems.' MPs on a sugar high Parliamentary sketch writer Joel MacManus is interested in much more than just food, I swear, but it was his passages describing MPs' snacking habits that stood out to me in today's Echo Chamber column on the House budget debate. 'Mark Mitchell had a packet of M&Ms on his desk and looked very pleased about it. He ate them methodically, one at a time, every three seconds, like a pendulum of candy-coated chocolate. He offered them to Todd McClay and Scott Simpson, each time with a cheeky grin as if to say 'haha, look at me, I'm eating M&Ms in parliament'. Andy Foster and Jamie Arbuckle shared some Mackintosh's Toffees (an on-brand lolly for New Zealand First). Winston Peters scrolled through a group chat that seemed to be entirely people sending context-free GIFs.' Another recession? It's not actually something to read, but the now-traditional Gone By Lunchtime x When the Facts Change budget special is always a great listen. Toby Manhire and Bernard Hickey discuss the main takeaways from the budget, including whether Willis has done enough to rev up the New Zealand economy – or as Hickey calls it (altogether now), 'a housing market with bits tacked on'. Hickey doesn't sound at all optimistic. 'This budget doesn't solve [the government's] problems, it isn't a growth budget, and risks driving the economy into a double dip recession.' OK then. Business gets an Investment Boost Over on BusinessDesk (paywalled), Patrick Smellie is a bit more positive about the economic impact of Investment Boost, 'the growth centrepiece of the Government's growth Budget'. The accelerated depreciation regime, which will allow businesses to deduct 20% of the cost of new capital equipment in the year of purchase, will boost GDP by 1% over the next two decades, with 0.4% of that impact forecast to occur in the next four years, according to Treasury forecasts. The policy 'has undoubtedly just made recession-weary, cautious business owners more likely to make a capital investment,' Smellie writes. 'Low capital-intensity and poor uptake of advanced technology are key reasons for New Zealand's abysmal productivity performance, so this initiative makes sense both as a short term mood-lifter and a medium term spur to better commercial and economic performance.' The science community responds As Newsroom's Fox Meyer explains, in the science sector, 'half of the savings found by cancelling research funds and institutes will be spent setting up an office to attract foreign science [business ventures] and an office to oversee a deregulated gene tech space.' The Science Media Centre has gathered responses to the budget announcement from academics across the country. A group of science educators from AUT, Auckland University and Massey sum up the predominant feeling of dismay: 'With this budget the government has gone further down the path that sees research, science and technology only in terms of contributing to economic growth. It is an outdated fantasy that scientists in their laboratories are intently working on new inventions that can be commercialised to reap enormous profits, yet this seems to be the thinking behind the Vote Business, Science and Innovation.' 'Grin and bear it' In Newsroom, Laura Walter also has food on the mind, writing that 'everyday Kiwis … have been thrown merely crumbs, while the Government clips their meal ticket in the hope of achieving long-term economic growth'. She goes on: 'NZ First leader Winston Peters has recently taken to quoting the song lyrics by Shane Newton: 'Hang on, help is on its way' – usually in reference to the Cook Strait ferries. Those hoping for some more help in the short term will be disappointed by this year's Budget. 'But Willis is steadfast in her belief in the long-term-growth approach. Any short-term relief that could be handed out already has been. Everyone else will have to grin and bear it, as the idea of 'survive to '25' disappears into the rearview mirror.' A re-election warning Writing in The Post (paywalled), Janet Wilson hits some similar themes, but with a lot more intensity. 'Willis' contention in the media lockup that this Budget would benefit working families is the kind of bald-faced poppycock that all politicians indulge in when trying to get their policies over the line. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.' And Wilson has a warning for the government: 'The books may have been balanced, but at a price for a coalition that will soon consider its electoral chances in 2026. Because Budget 2025 has created a determined voting bloc of anti-Right protesters, as the hundreds of protesters who gathered in front of Parliament during the Budget announcement attest.' Department store closure casts a pall Dita de Boni's piece in The Post (paywalled) on the closure of Smith & Caughey came out a few hours before the budget, but it speaks to many of the same issues that other commentators addressed. With their closure announcement on Wednesday night, the department store's owners 'underlined an undeniable diminution of the New Zealand economy in the past few years that will take only the most deft and innovative economic management to turn around. 'The loss of such an icon of Auckland City is one more sign that a lack of confidence is not misplaced, and furthermore, that many people are paid so poorly that after mortgage/rent and groceries, they don't have the dough for fripperies. And even if they do, they're looking for bargains. 'Business and consumer not just confidence, but also aspiration, will play an important part in returning economic health to New Zealand. Here's hoping Budget 2025 will supply some.'
The Spinoff
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Windbag: Why Wellington's vibe shift is coming in 2026
Things are about to change in the capital, and it has nothing to do with the mayoral race. Windbag is The Spinoff's Wellington issues column, written by Wellington editor Joel MacManus. Subscribe to the Windbag newsletter to receive columns early. Wellington spends an inordinate amount of time naval-gazing about vibes or the perceived lack thereof. Vibes are ill-defined, intangible, immeasurable but ever-present, and any effort to change them is more art than science. If there is one moment that triggered the capital's vibecession, it would be the 2013 Seddon earthquake. Then, the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, Covid-19, public sector layoffs and a general economic downturn. It's been a long, slow rolling maul of decline. When understanding the city's vibes, we shouldn't overthink it. Media and politicians can get too in-the-weeds, thinking too much about budgets and rates and consultations, but those things aren't what shape vibes. Vibes are just another way of describing word-of-mouth. When people have conversations about their city, either with their fellow residents or with tourists, what do they talk about? At a basic level, cities are experiential. They're a dense collection of stuff to do, places to go, things to see, and people to meet. Cities have good vibes when people are talking about this great new place they tried that you simply must check out (restaurants, gigs, new developments, tourist attractions, activities). They develop bad vibes when there is a dearth of exciting new stuff, and when the existing stuff is declining. That's what's happened in Wellington for the past decade. Many major buildings and activity centres have closed, and there have been few new developments to counterweight the loss. However, that's about to change. I'm predicting a significant vibe shift as early as next year (and no, it'll have nothing to do with the new mayor). Several major projects are due to be completed in 2026 (provided construction schedules don't change) that will give locals and visitors something to be excited about. Te Matapihi Central Library: due to open March 2026 Wellington's Central Library closed in March 2019 after an engineers' report raised concerns about earthquake safety. The council was not legally obliged to close the building, but then mayor Justin Lester said he felt 'morally obliged'. Following the closure, there was an extended fight over whether it was better to demolish the building and rebuild something new or to try to repair and upgrade the existing building. In the midst of the debate, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga listed it as a category 1 heritage building despite it being less than 30 years old. 'Save our library' successfully pushed for the council to retrofit the building with base isolators and other earthquake safety features for $189 million. Whether it was the right choice or not, there's no point relitigating the decisions. The money is spent, and the rebuild is nearly complete. When the library reopens in March next year, it'll be a moment of celebration. Losing the 'living room of the city' was a huge vibe killer, and getting a new, better version back will give people something worth talking about. Te Whare Whakarauika Wellington Town Hall: due to open in July 2026 Another long and complex collision of earthquake damage and heritage protections, the Town Hall closed in 2013 after the Seddon earthquake. Repairs were initially budgeted at $30 million but ballooned out as high as $330m due to a messy mixture of scope creep and sunk-cost fallacy. (It should be noted that part of the increased cost was to create custom spaces for the new National Music Centre.) However, like the library, what's done is done. The money has already been spent. The good news is that progress is ahead of schedule. The latest council update moved the expected opening forward by eight months to July 2026. The Town Hall is an important and impressive public building that can be a point of civic pride. Importantly, it will add another much-needed performance venue to the city, meaning Wellington can host events, providing more flow-on commerce for nearby businesses. Te Ngākau Civic Precinct: due to open in March 2026 The entire Civic Square plaza is currently closed for a makeover. The timing is ideal; the whole place is a dead zone due to the Central Library and Town Hall construction, and City Gallery has temporarily moved to the National Library. Civic Square will open in March 2026 alongside the library, with new paving and landscaping. It's a vital public space for gathering, hanging out or eating lunch, so having a new and refreshed area to experience will be something for people to talk about. Te Ara Tupua: due to open in April 2026 After flooding in 2013 and 2015, it became clear that Wellington needed a seawall to protect the railway line and highway between the city and the Hutt. The great bonus when you build a seawall is that you can put a shared cycling and walking path on top and add a great public amenity for minimal additional cost. However, NZTA Waka Kotahi got cheeky with the numbers and funded the entire $348.7 million project through its cycling budget, even though it was primarily intended to protect the road and rail. This left little money for other cycling projects nationwide. Despite the dodgy funding, the shared walking and cycling path will be truly remarkable. Named Te Ara Tupua and designed with mana whenua, the project will include five artificial gravel beaches providing access to the water for fishing and diving, and six new gathering spaces with planting, seating and bike stands. A rail overbridge is designed to honour Te Wharepouri, a significant rangatira who lived in the area. The western coast of Wellington Harbour offers stunning views, but until now, they've only been accessible out of the window of a moving vehicle. Te Ara Tupua opens that area to people. For commuters, especially on e-bikes, the safe and scenic route will be a vast improvement over the current option, a terrifying ride along the shoulder of a busy highway. For recreational bikers, it's even more exciting. Te Ara Tupua will link up the Great Harbour Way, meaning there will be a protected, paved, coastal cycleway from Miramar to Days Bay (and eventually from Pencarrow to Owhiro Bay, a distance of 70km). It will become a must-do activity and tourist attraction. East by West ferries are already planning for a surge in traffic from people crossing to Days Bay with their bikes and riding back to the city (or vice versa).
The Spinoff
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Windbag: The urbanist value of a rainbow crossing
Roadway art like Wellington's rainbow crossing can be a cheap way to improve inner-city vibrancy and pedestrian safety. Windbag is The Spinoff's Wellington issues column, written by Wellington editor Joel MacManus. Subscribe to the Windbag newsletter to receive columns early. Wellington's rainbow crossing at Cuba Street and Dixon Street opened with pomp and circumstance on October 10, 2018. The date marked the birthday of Carmen Rupe, the local celebrity drag queen whose silhouette appears on the green pedestrian lights along Cuba Street. The mayor at the time, Justin Lester, helped to paint the crossing. After the ceremonial cutting of the rainbow ribbon, drag performers strutted over the rainbow to cheers from an assembled crowd. Rainbow crossings became a global trend after the first one was installed in West Hollywood during Pride Month in 2012. LGBTQ+ communities embraced them as a symbol that said we are here. Cities – and specifically, liberal politicians within those cities – introduced them as a way to say we welcome you. That's exactly what Lester said in his speech: 'Everyone's welcome in Wellington.' Of course, painting a rainbow on the road costs money, and every use of public funds is open to criticism. Wellington's rainbow crossing cost $26,844 to install and $5,314 to repaint in 2022. That's about 20% more than a standard zebra crossing. But there are other examples where they've become boondoggles – such as a recently abandoned rainbow intersection in Dunedin, which blew out to an estimated $276,000. Comparing the cost of the rainbow crossing to a zebra crossing is slightly misleading, because a rainbow crossing is not an official pedestrian crossing. In a legal sense, it's just paint on the road. Still, paint on the road makes a difference. Compared to multi-year, multi-million-dollar transformations like the Golden Mile upgrade, a lick of paint is a cheap and quick way to add a bit of flair and personality to an otherwise dreary bit of concrete. It also helps to add a sense of pedestrian priority by acting as a colourful reminder to drivers to look out for people crossing. From the moment rainbow crossings arrived in cities, anti-LGBTQ+ groups opposed them. Often, they couched their opposition in costs or safety concerns, but the underlying message was clear: we don't welcome you. That's why Destiny Church members painted over the Karangahape Road rainbow crossing in Auckland. And it's why a group of individuals affiliated with Destiny Church launched a judicial review against Wellington's crossing on Cuba Street earlier this year. The challenge was on narrow legal grounds. They argued that the rainbow crossing breached the NZTA guidelines for road markings because it could be confused with a standard pedestrian crossing. There was some basis for this; emails from 2017 and 2018 showed that NZTA Waka Kotahi officials told Wellington City Council that a rainbow crossing would not comply with traffic control rules. The rules were changed in 2020 under transport minister Phil Twyford to introduce the concept of 'roadway art', which is allowed as long as it is in a 'lower-risk environment' and doesn't resemble a standard road marking. NZTA Waka Kotahi's Handbook for Tactical Urbanism in Aotearoa says road art may be used to create a sense of place, highlight pedestrian crossings, encourage slower vehicle speeds, show support for a community, or enhance the streetscape by contributing to liveability and vibrancy. Justice Jason McHerran found that Dixon Street was a 'lower risk environment' based on the 85th percentile vehicle speed of 24km/h. On the matter of whether people inaccurately believed the rainbow crossing to be a legal pedestrian crossing, a Stantec report showed that the vast majority of pedestrians crossed during the green light, showing they understood it did not function as a zebra crossing. McHerran ruled that the rainbow crossing was allowed under the 2020 rules and also would have been acceptable under the previous rules. It was a win for the council and the LGBTQ+ activists who requested it in the first place. It also helps to set a precedent that should give councils far more confidence to do creative stuff with their streets. The rainbow crossing case was only marginal because of its horizontal stripes. Any roadway art with vertical stripes, geometric shapes, patterns or pictures can be safely assumed to be legal, as long as it is in an appropriate location. Riddiford Street in Newtown could use a spruce-up. Some roadway art at the pedestrian lights on the corner of Constable Street wouldn't hurt. The same goes for Bay Road in Kilbirnie, Aro Street in Aro Valley, or countless other streets in suburbs and towns across New Zealand that might want a splash of colour in their community.
The Spinoff
28-04-2025
- Automotive
- The Spinoff
Windbag: The rise and fall of character areas
After the high court backed Wellington City Council's decision to reduce the city's character areas, Joel MacManus looks back at the five decades that shaped the restrictive housing policy. The motorway came and tore the community in two. A great big gash of concrete. Eight lanes of destruction and separation. Thorndon is New Zealand's oldest residential neighbourhood; the place where the British occupation of Wellington city began. Then, Wellington Urban Motorway cut right through its heart. The foothills motorway, as it was originally known, was first laid out in 1963 by an American consulting firm. By 1978, it was complete. Hundreds of homes were demolished, and thousands of bodies were dug up from Bolton Street cemetery and dumped in a mass grave. Whether or not you believe the motorway was necessary – and many today would say it was – Thorndon was never the same. Arguably, Thorndon no longer exists as one cohesive area. The chunk on the city side of the motorway could more accurately be called Pipitea, and the other side is centred around Tinakori Village. It wasn't the first time this had happened, and it wouldn't be the last. In the 1890s, entire blocks of Wellington were demolished in 'slum clearance' because council authorities decided they had become so unsanitary that destruction was the only option. In the 2000s, the Inner City Bypass tore through the 'bohemian' areas at the back of Te Aro, demolishing dozens more homes and changing the fabric of the community. In the 1960s, the motorway construction faced years of protest from locals who correctly foresaw the damage it would do to their community. It was a time when change was in the air. The postwar boom had made cars financially accessible to the masses, and suburban living was the hot new thing. Cities around the world, trying to respond to the influx of traffic clogging their streets, embraced urban motorways as the future. The hot new thing in city planning was modernism, which emphasised large-scale infrastructure, car-centric development, and top-down control to impose order and efficiency on chaotic urban environments. The movement was exemplified by New York's powerful planning commissioner Robert Moses. His most famous and controversial project was the Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have demolished 416 buildings and the entire neighbourhood of Greenwich Village. What happened next has become part of the gospel of urban design. Jane Jacobs, a journalist and activist with no formal qualifications in urban planning, started a campaign against the expressway. Her writing, most notably The Death and Life of Great American Cities, pushed back against Moses' unsympathetic approach, advocating instead for human-scale design, vibrant streets, public spaces and the organic complexity of neighbourhood life. She viewed cities from the ground, while Moses saw them from a 30,000-foot view. The modernists liked high-rise housing projects, separated from one another by wide roads and green spaces. Jacobs encouraged a great appreciation for older buildings and medium-density blocks, where everything was connected. Today, Jacobs is known as 'the mother of urban design'. Hundreds of cities around the world celebrate her birthday on May 4 by holding Jane's Walks, volunteer-led walking tours that highlight interesting and overlooked parts of the city. Living Streets Aotearoa is hosting one in Wellington this weekend. In response to the motorway construction and inspired by Jacobs' ideas, Thorndon residents created the Thorndon Society to 'protect and preserve' what remained of Thorndon. They organised walking tours in their area, installed information signs and plaques highlighting notable homes, and encouraged a renewed interest in neighbourhood character. In 1974, Thorndon residents successfully lobbied Wellington City Council to create New Zealand's first special character area: Residential E Zone, a five-hectare area centred around Sydney Street West. It was the remnant of an old residential gully that had been mostly wiped out by the motorway, filled with an interesting combination of grand wooden villas and small workers' cottages. It did not mean that every building within the zone was subject to heritage restriction, though some individual buildings are heritage-listed, including the Rita Angus Cottage. The intent of the Residential E Zone was purely stylistic; any alterations or new buildings had to be approved by the council to ensure they fitted within the existing architectural style. The Thorndon Society's newsletters from the time, which are archived online, made it clear that 'the zone was not intended as a museum zone and elements of change are inevitable'. Gradually, though, the Thorndon Society's ambitions grew. It opposed a new apartment building on Murphy Street, a new church on Hill Street, two townhouse developments on Grant Street, a doctor's surgery on Tinakori Road, and several new offices. Perhaps most egregiously, the society took Wellington City Council to the planning tribunal to stop a restaurant at 328 Tinakori Road (the site of the recently closed Daisy's) from expanding to add 20 additional seats. In today's eyes, this seems absurdly anti-business. But at the time, the society was operating from a position of fear. In the words of one newsletter writer: 'Contemplate the amount of traffic that can be generated by the addition of 20 extra seats to an existing cafe, a takeaway food outlet, a childcare centre or a supermarket… increased traffic congestion lends argument for road widening and subsequent destruction of historic buildings.' By 1989, the Thorndon Society was pushing to expand Residential E Zone to cover broader swathes of Thorndon. In the 1990s, a new generation of activists fought against the Inner City Bypass (including current city councillors Iona Pannett and Laurie Foon). The protesters took inspiration from the Thorndonites and the Jacobites, leading to a renewed interest in neighbourhood protection. In the 2000 District Plan, Wellington City Council added character areas in Aro Valley, Berhampore, Mt Victoria, Mt Cook, Newtown, and more of Thorndon. Further additions were made in 2008 and 2011. These new character areas weren't like Residential Zone E. They weren't just focused on small, architecturally cohesive areas. They covered entire suburbs. And the legal restrictions were much stronger. No house built before 1930, regardless of condition or style, could be demolished without a resource consent, which meant neighbours had immense power to block new developments. It seems no one realised just how vast the character areas had become until, in 2019, the NZ Herald's Georgina Campbell reported that they covered 87.9% of land parcels in Wellington's inner residential areas. Laurie Foon – now the deputy mayor – said she 'felt really sick and stunned' when she saw the numbers. The pushback against character areas was led by A City for People, a group of young activists closely tied to Generation Zero. They were part of the rising yimby movement (yes in my backyard). They believed rules preventing new housing developments (such as character areas) had played a key role in the housing crisis. A City for People started a campaign to eliminate, or at least seriously reduce, the character areas. For them, it wasn't just about housing supply, but urban form – they wanted higher-density housing close to the city centre and train lines so people could live low-carbon lifestyles. In the submissions on the council's Spatial Plan in 2020 and District Plan in 2022, the yimbys were vastly outnumbered. But they convinced a majority at the council table to support their position. Marko Garlick's submissions for Generation Zero and A City for People became the key piece of evidence the council used to reduce the areas covered by character restrictions from 306 hectares to 85 hectares. Housing minister Chris Bishop signed off the change last year, and the new District Plan became official. Live Wellington, a group that supports character restrictions, launched a judicial review challenging the decision. On April 17, the high court backed the council and the minister's decision. (Emma Ricketts wrote an excellent explainer of the case for Stuff.) Bishop has signalled that his upcoming reforms to the Resource Management Act may make it more difficult for councils to create character areas – or even force councils to compensate homeowners if they impose rules preventing them from developing their property. The yimbys won the battle and, with the political winds blowing in their direction, it seems likely that they'll win the war. But I'm not sure they've ever truly understood their opponents. Supporters of character areas have been accused of creating a supply shortage to boost their property values. But that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If someone only cared about their property value, they would want their land to be more developable, not less. They've been accused of wanting to keep poor people out of their area, but that ignores the fact that character areas have some of the highest rates of renters. Others have suggested fans of character areas are simply old-fashioned conservatives who don't want anything to change. But the people who fought the bypass and the motorway weren't conservatives. They were progressives. The Thorndon Society had to defend itself against claims that it was an extension of the Labour Party. Character areas were a well-intended policy, but they were a victim of their own success. The Jacobites successfully created a new appreciation for neighbourhood character and historic architectural styles. In the 1980s, cheap government-backed loans encouraged people to renovate old villas, and they did so en masse. The idea of 'slum clearance' for new motorways fell out of fashion. Robert Moses is reviled, Jane Jacobs is beloved. The policy problem that character areas were created to solve mostly no longer exists. But all solutions eventually beget new problems. In the case of character areas, they contributed to an inner-city housing shortage, high rents, urban sprawl and a generation of young people locked out of the property ladder. We can, and should, recognise that people have powerful emotional connections to character areas and the wooden villas within them. But we should also recognise that cities must evolve, and that confronting the housing crisis necessarily requires change.
