If the Government wants three-storey houses on most city streets, it needs to build schools, water and transport infrastructure to support them
More than 1000 Auckland Grammar School pupils returned to school this week; the school considers them to be the fortunate ones. Because at the same time, headmaster Tim O'Connor was sending out 50 letters to out-of-zone students who won't be admitted next year – the school is at capacity, he says.
O'Connor has been pushing for years for a new school campus in crowded central Auckland; he even lodged a successful $15 million tender to buy a neighbouring property for a junior college, but says the Ministry of Education was too slow to take up the opportunity. Instead, a big evangelical church and leadership institute has been built on the block of land.
"When Nikki Kaye was Minister of Education, there was discussion about land right in the city," he says. "And then, things change for each change of government. And so I don't know what happened to that."
Now, with submissions closing this week on Resource Management Act changes that would allow more houses and taller houses in our biggest cities, he says it's time to move on shelved official plans for metro schools in the cities.
And it's not just education infrastructure. The environment select committee published more than 1000 public submissions yesterday, revealing concerns about a lack of adequate water, sewerage, power and transport infrastructure for denser suburban neighbourhoods.
O'Connor is first and foremost a school principal, but he's also an infrastructure provider. And he's one of many questioning how to meet the demands of more intensive residential development.
"There was also a proposal for the ministry to purchase and develop another school on the old Auckland University Education Campus. And I don't know what's happened to that.
"We said we would be happy to work with other schools in the area to provide joint governance for a school. It could be co-ed, it could be junior campuses, there are a variety of things that could be discussed – but it could cater for another 2000 students in central Auckland."
There is a legitimate question to be asked about why the school is pleading for more space, at the same time that its third form is accepting 350 out-of-zone students, mostly the children or siblings of old boys.
But certainly, it's true that with every passing year, there are more students enrolling from inside its affluent zone. And for city schools, that is only going to increase, with the draft law change allowing three-storey, perhaps even four-storey, houses to be built on most streets in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington, and Christchurch.
David Hattam, a planning and urban design specialist, published diagrams this week showing the scale of developments that would be allowed on a typical 15m x 50m city section, ranging from small in-fill development to a block of apartments.
"In some ways, it has been surprising how little comment such a radical change has actually caused," he writes.
A city section could be subdivided into four lots, with 12 units in total. Or a more intensive development might create seven sites, which could be used to build a total of 21 apartments. "Both of these scenarios would be a permitted activity, with no design standards."
Moreover, the height limit would be 11 metres, plus an extra one metre for a roof. A four-storey building would usually have an internal height of 10.5m, meaning the Bill as drafted might allow four storeys rather than three.
"The 21 apartments could be built to four storeys in a continuous block from front to rear of the site," he says. "This is a quite different proposition to a duplex in your back garden."
The Ministry of Education's National Education Growth Plan, updated this year, proposes new "metro schools" in Takapuna, central Auckland and Albany. It also says similar new schools will be needed in Wellington and Christchurch.
Sean Teddy, the leader of operations and integration at the Ministry of Education, said metro schools were being considered as an option to meet growth and demand in high-growth urban centres such as Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington.
"With parts of New Zealand, especially Auckland, becoming increasingly urbanised and intensified, we are thinking about the way we develop schooling infrastructure and deliver education in these areas," he said.
The National Education Growth Plan provides an option for a metro primary school to be build in central Auckland, but he said the ministry hadn't been able to find a suitable site.
In central Wellington, officials were assessing whether a new primary school was required and considering metro school options.
And in central Christchurch, Te Ao Tawhiti Unlimited Discovery was a special character school that reflected the key principles of a metro school, Teddy said, and this experience could help inform any future school build projects required in central city locations. "The growth pressures in Christchurch are now most pronounced in greenfield satellite areas such as Rolleston. “ The ministry says that as communities change, so too do the schooling needs of their children and young people, and officials work hard to ensure there is an effective and sustainable school network across the country.
They regularly monitor the capacity and projected growth of the school network and work closely with schools, councils and other agencies across the school network.
The National Education Growth Plan identifies areas where population growth will be highest and demand for additional space in schools will be greatest, as well as identifying measures that the Government might need to consider in order to manage, maintain and grow the schooling network across those areas through to 2030.
