Building a world-class city

“Like fruit and vegetables, aggregate is cheaper if bought locally”, wise words from the Aggregate and Quarries Association Chairperson. He also highlighted the contradiction of people wanting a world-class city ‘the sexy stuff’ but having little regard for the dirty industries essential in building basic infrastructure ‘the unsexy stuff’.

High building costs are in part the result of flaky Auckland Council planning. Auckland Council is so obsessed with building a world-class city, cost analysis is forgotten. The Auckland Unitary Plan was touted as enabling lower cost growth by unlocking land for more building, but it has also banished dirty but essential industries to the far-flung reaches of Auckland’s now enormous area and beyond. Short-sighted thinking like this, has robbed us of savings by adding costs somewhere else (in this case transportation). Crushed rock makes up 90% of all the concrete used in buildings roads and other infrastructure and this doesn’t include the subbase and hard fill that it sits on. Auckland presently consumes 13 million tons of aggregate a year, and this could reach 20 million tons by 2030.
Transporting aggregate 30 km doubles the price. When Waitakere Quarry was stopped supplying 220,000 tonnes of aggregate in West Auckland annually, it caused practically all West Auckland’s aggregate now used to be carted over 50km. And this is only half the story, because of landfills, the places we dispose of the soil and clay dug out to make room for the aggregate and concrete we build with, this is often trucked away even further.

Auckland Council’s lack of consideration to the ‘unsexy stuff’ is leading to ever increasing costs. We talk about the projected $10 billion funding shortfall facing Auckland Council over the next 10 years in a matter-of-fact way and Auckland Council dreams up new ways of collecting more money from residents and ratepayers, daily. I’ve heard no one ask the simple question ‘why is it costing so much’. It is time Auckland Council adds a new measure to its planning and policies ‘at what cost are our decisions’. Essential industries are just that, whether dirty or not and it is the men and women working in these industries that are building our city. Auckland politicians should heed their warnings.