History of Auckland City

Chapter 7: Writ large - the 'new' city council from 1990

1989 - a phoenix rising

With the chronicle still unfolding, many issues still highly political and no written history to signpost the landmarks, the first decade of the `new' City Council permits but a cautious and impressionistic overview. And in many respects it was a Clayton's transformation, for although population virtually doubled, the term `takeover' was strictly forbidden and after the inaugural elections ex-suburban politicians appeared at the Council table, the mayor was unchanged (until Dame Catherine Tizard's resignation in 1990 on being appointed Governor-General and replacement by the present incumbent Les Mills), the Citizens & Ratepayers Association stayed comfortably in the box seat, and the majority of senior executives, including Bruce Anderson, the CEO, were ex-'old' ACC officers. Overall, the massive process of merging nine administrations was accomplished with remarkably little angst.

The unstoppable merry-go-round of planning

In the reformed regime the Council was pitched into the demanding process of annual -- and from 1993 strategic -- planning. This included a substantial component of consultation with both the interested public and the eleven constituent community boards which came in the 1989 reorganisation package. Another such outcome --- a network of area offices giving a community presence -- perished in recentralisation initiatives in 1997. In 1990, the opening of the Aotea Centre was auspiciously highlighted, perhaps partially to distract from a controversial Audit Office report on its financing and the filing of a damages case by the main contractor dismissed in 1988. In relatively short order the Council's portfolio of functions contracted: the Western Springs Stadium and Chamberlain Park golf course were leased to private management (1991) and, more significantly, in 1993 the abattoir business was quite after nearly 120 years' unbroken involvement. A minor offsetting item was entry into kerbside recycling in conjunction with the staggered introduction of the green `wheelie-bins' from 1991, the same year that a less-welcomed change -- the phased city-wide introduction of water meters -- also commenced.

Growing stakes in the CBD

As the mid 1990s approached, central area issues grabbed a growing share of news headlines. It started with the 1992 land-swap with Brierley Investments where the Symonds St tower (and potential casino) site was exchanged for the intended Western bus terminal block. It continued with the remarkable expansion of high-rise apartment blocks, approval for a $40,000,000 refurbishment of the Town Hall (completed 1997) and a queue of interrelated proposals for developing the harbour edge. The stakes in the latter soared with the vacation and sale of the sprawling railway yards (1994) and the prospect of the America's Cup won in 1995 being defended in Auckland at century's end. Practical property expression of this broad commitment would include acquisition of crucial blocks of commercial property from the Auckland Regional Services Trust, redevelopment of the historic Civic Theatre which reverted to Council ownership in 1996, and purchase of the disused Central Post Office (1995), another of Auckland's few architectural gems. This was matched by a transport dimension, chiefly the Central Isthmus Corridor Study, the contested evolution of an Eastern (motorway) corridor, and, in 1995, the radical recasting of a surface combined-rail terminal at Britomart into a massive underground facility topped by a mixture of restored heritage buildings and futuristic commercial and residential towers.

Presiding over progress is never easy

In some of the recent controversies affecting it the Council has been a direct participant, but in others it has been caught in political and consumer crossfire. Examples of the former have been the sale of pensioner and rental housing stock and the creation and performance of its LATE, Watercare Ltd (1997). In both the great Auckland water shortage (1994) and CBD power crisis (1998), even as a semi-bystander it was questionably targeted by criticism. However, for its major roading project of the decade, the South-Eastern Arterial Highway (opened 1998) it was on the receiving end of only approval.

When a living institution is surveyed, wherever the line is drawn there will be unfinished items on the agenda. For the Auckland City Council in late 1998, these include the final shape of the harbour edge, preparations for both the APEC summit conference and the America's Cup, the outcome of the Britomart scheme, implementation of the central area plan and the adoption of a modern rapid transit system for Auckland. Irrespective of which do come to fruition, one momentous event that cannot be avoided is the millennium: a future historian should be able to record that the City Council planned and managed its celebration in fitting fashion.

G.W.A. Bush 5.8.98