More than just a road? A case study exploring implementation challenges for sustainable city redevelopment

Abstract

Wellington City Council’s key strategy for urban development envisions a future of sustainable population growth focusing on the development of key centres along a public transport growth spine. To implement this strategy Council began to develop a series of place-based plans, including The Adelaide Road Framework. This Framework incorporated key ‘smart growth’ or transit-oriented development strategies including: improving the environment for active modes of travel; mixing of land-uses to enhance liveability; and encouraging increases in population density along the growth spine. Council’s prioritised implementation plan included: District Plan changes; a more active Council role in facilitating development; and enabling improvements for each travel mode through a significant widening of Adelaide Road, a key city arterial.

Early challenges to funding resulted in a scaling back of the road improvements, and a range of internal and external pressures ultimately resulted in a much more constrained set of improvements for the area, when compared to those aspired to in the Framework. Through a detailed case study, this research explores Council’s role in attempting to implement the Framework from 2008 to 2011 drawing on: interviews and meetings with Council staff; and, key implementation documents and plans. A literature review explores: social theories outlining why urban areas can be difficult to change; the challenges to implementing more sustainable development in New Zealand; and relevant policy and political shifts over the period.

Drawing on these theories, the thesis illustrates the difficulty of implementing more sustainable urban redevelopment. It highlights the importance of recognising and addressing the strong influence of entrenched professional viewpoints; overarching values and traditions; as well as the complex interrelationship of systems, if cities are to be made more sustainable. Failing to do so will reduce the extent to which our cities can capitalise on a range of significant co-benefits for health, wellbeing and the local environment that arise from the implementation of smarter growth approaches.