Behind the headlines about housing intensification in the bigger cities, all-time low birth rates and immigration create a very different infrastructure problem for many regions.
There has been trepidation at the prospect of three-storey houses on most city streets; Auckland Grammar School headmaster Tim O'Connor warns the cross-party deal to allow medium density housing will impact on schools like his that are bulging at the seams.
But there's another side to this story. Even as the "golden triangle" of Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga grows, other parts of the country are declining. Areas like the central North Island and the West Coast of the South Island will need to build retirement homes and hospital beds, as classrooms sit empty.
The century-old Pukemiro School near Huntly closed in July. With the Waikato Expressway going through, the school's roll had dropped below sustainable levels. At the start of this year there were four pupils. By the time it closed, there was just one.
“It’s a shame whenever a school does close, but Pukemiro School has faced challenges for several years and no-one should be too surprised,” resident Lyndy Hassall told the Waikato Times.
At the same time, Ryman Healthcare is planning new retirement villages up the road in Karaka, and further south in Cambridge. They will accommodate 770 residents. “Our research shows South Auckland and the Waikato are both regions where demand for better retirement living and care are needed so we have been looking for possible sites for some time,’’ Ryman chief development officer Jeremy Moore says.
Summerset is also building a retirement village and dementia care unit there, with 260 two and three-bedroom villas and cottages.
Stats NZ figures this week shows immigration has pretty much ground to a halt and, less well recognised, the birth rate has dropped to unprecedented lows.
Emeritus Professor Paul Spoonley, who is to address the Building Nations infrastructure conference this week, says NZ will be designated a "low, low fertility" country like Japan and Germany.
"As we proceed through the 2020s, there will be significant parts of NZ where the school age population will either stagnate and decline – and we will go through another round of school closures in rural and regional NZ," he says.
"As the population ages, and fertility (and immigration) play a less significant role, then the provision of infrastructure needs to factor in this 'old-dominant' population structure that we will see emerge in New Zealand. Do we have enough longterm care beds? Are they, and dementia units, or hospital care, in the right places?"
Dr Ganesh Nana, the chair of the Productivity Commission, makes the point that declining fertility is not new for the developed world, and has to be considered alongside the drop in immigration.
"This reinforces the global competition for skills challenge and will only be heightened," he says.
"Immigration policy based on skills requirements is unlikely to be attractive (for potential migrants) unless accompanied by expansion in the absorptive capacity of the economy and accompanying community (the ability to settle and be productive).
"And do not forget there is an ethnicity dimension to this (and so also an equity perspective).
This week's new statistics show Māori birth rates have dropped to two per woman – now below the 2.1 figure that demographers consider to be a replacement rate. But it's still higher than the extremely low 1.66 children per woman, for the wider New Zealand population.
"Māori and Pasifika fertility rates remain high compared to developed world averages," Nana says. "Consequently, skills training and workforce development efforts (of domestic population) needs to be well-connected to the formulation of immigration policy.
"A solely immigration response to these challenges will, unsurprisingly, leave us short-changed. Just like infrastructure, if we don’t invest in people now, the short-term (or ad hoc) solutions to the challenges will prevail and perpetuate the lacklustre productivity and wellbeing record of the past."
It's a demographic change that is not well-recognised by central government, understandably focused on the housing crisis in the cities. Today at Building Nations, Three Waters officials will be quizzed on the impact of three storey apartment blocks on almost every city street. Planners and environmental lawyers will debate the resource management reforms. Construction and transport bosses will consider how best to finance social infrastructure.
Their temptation is always to think about building bigger, newer.
Geoff Cooper, the general manager of strategy at the infrastructure commission Te Waihanga, makes the point that greater urban intensification doesn't necessarily mean building more infrastructure at great cost – it may actually mean building less infrastructure, because there is less sprawl out into suburbia and the regions.
As Te Waihanga says in its new draft national infrastructure policy, New Zealand must think about how we adapt existing infrastructure to meet the needs of a changing population. In some areas the population is rising, but in others it will be dropping – so good planning is critical.
Ageing populations may come with their own infrastructure needs, while reducing the number of working-age people to help to pay for it. This places pressure on the way infrastructure is currently funded.
Moreover, uncertainty about whether the population in a region will grow or decline can create uncertainty about how to pay the ongoing operational and renewal costs and create the possibility of stranded assets – like Pukemiro School.
It makes solutions like digital connectivity more important, so some services can be provided online. There's a need for affordable and sometimes on-site solutions for smaller populations, like solar panels.
Te Waihanga's draft national strategy says decline will need to be managed, often by reducing or even decommissioning some infrastructure.
So, instead of building bigger, managing decline may sometimes mean building smaller.
