Last week, the Chief Executive informed councillors that he had exercised his delegation to approve modifications to Stage One of the Lakeview development. These included the loss of mass timber construction (a key sustainability elementof the Project), 2000 square metres of public and interactive space, and 117 (out of 148) parking spaces. This piece focuses on the loss of parking space – what we’ve lost, how we lost it, and what QLDC might do to prevent similar losses over the next 15 years of the development.
There will now be only 31 basement parking spaces to serve 79 co-living units and 336 apartments in Stage One of the development – with no requirement to make up for lost space in later stages. The basement parking space was not just about providing private car parking – EV charging, a car-share scheme, and bike parking are also part of the developer’s aspirations. Streets free of parked cars are important too.
The basement parking space was written into the development documents as a specific design response to QLDC’s Project Objectives. However, despite its stated importance, the loss of basement parking wasn’t even considered by the expert assessors advising QLDC. This was pointed out to the Chief Executive in a briefing on 23 June and again in a letter I sent on 25 June. In response, Mr Theelen stated in the workshop that QLDC couldn’t enforce the parking if it wanted to. He also informed councillors that the developer is not required to deliver parking, and that ‘the market’ will shape the provision of carparking at the site.
His response is concerning because parking spaces are required by the Masterplan and there are mechanisms in the Development Agreement that allow QLDC to at least attempt to enforce its provision. More generally, if we’re going to let ‘the market’ dictate what’s provided at Lakeview you’ve got to question why QLDC didn’t just sell the land outright and reduce the risk.
It was no surprise when councillors were informed on the 27 June that the changes had been approved, but it was frustrating. Approval wasn’t necessary – it was a choice. There is a clause in the Development Agreement that provides QLDC with leverage to negotiate with the developer over ‘material’ modifications – of which there were more than one in this round of changes. Therefore, QLDC may have been able to re-negotiate the Masterplan to include more parking space in this, or a later stage of, the development. And there were other matters that might have been negotiated but weren’t.
Through discussions and emails it has now become abundantly clear that staff don’t want to use the negotiation clause in case it’s seen as “heavy-handed” and in case it leads to a “conflict situation”. Instead, the approach to protecting the Project Outcomes, and the value QLDC receives from the sale of the Lots, is to rely on the organization having a good relationship with the developer. So far that seems to mean not saying ‘no’.
The Chief Executive has said it is appropriate that he bases his decisions on expert assessments and advice. However, given the closeness of the two ‘expert’ consultancies to this project over many years, I think it’s possible that the ‘good relationship’ approach might have coloured their assessments and the recommendations falling out of them. I say that because while the experts acknowledged the materiality of the changes and the negative impact on the Project Objectives, they made what I would call multiple unjustified assumptions to excuse them. And of course, they failed to even assess the change to the number of parking spaces.
Past decisions, hinting at the (now confirmed) reluctance of QLDC to push back , are the reason I filed two Notices of Motion last month – both with the aim of enabling councillors to debate and amend the Lakeview delegation before the latest decision was made.
The first Notice was refused by the Chief Executive after he was directed to do so by the Mayor. When asked about it, the Mayor commented to local news media (Crux) that he hadn’t wanted the delegation decision to be “relitigated”.
That comment left me in no doubt that the Mayor was letting his position on the proposed motion get in the way of allowing the debate to occur.
So, two weeks ago, I refiled the Notice of Motion after ‘fixing’ paragraphs that their lawyers found fault with. This second Notice was signed by 6 councillors – all 4 Whakatipu Ward councillors, along with Crs White and Tucker. These councillors supported the Notice primarily because they thought the full Council should be able to debate the delegation and decide where decision-making power should lie – not because they had a clear position on the delegation. They did so despite being put under some pressure not to sign and that’s something to celebrate.
However, despite the support for the Notice, the Mayor directed the Chief Executive to refuse it a second time, saying (again) that it did not meet the decision-making requirements of the LGA. That’s despite the Notice referring to, and attaching as an Appendix, a report on Lakeview Governance that assessed the option of returning these decisions to the full Council.
So, why does all this matter?
To start with the tangible implications, if the full Council had been allowed to debate the delegation, it might have reclaimed decision-making power and, in a formal meeting with minutes recorded, it might not have agreed to every one of the latest changes – including the loss of basement parking space. It might have negotiated. But we’ll never know because the debate was blocked.
From a democratic process perspective, a clear pathway to reclaiming delegated power should never be undermined and that pathway is the Notice of Motion. The full Council should always be able to reclaim delegated power in a timely way and (to that end) without first receiving a report from the Chief Executive. That’s something for the voting public to keep in mind at the next election. And councillors may want to consider removing the ability of the Chair to refuse Notices of Motion.
Finally, from an ‘organizational culture’ perspective, the relationship with 94 Feet needs to be put in its proper place. There are many relationships that need to be maintained; the relationship between councillors and the Chief Executive, and the relationship between the organization and the Community, are undeniably the most important. If these relationships, or good democratic process, are being undermined by QLDC’s approach to the Lakeview-Taumata Project then something needs to change.
Perhaps that change starts by recognising that good relationships, if they really are ‘good’, can survive a bit of ‘bad weather’. And logically, the point of having a good relationship with the Lakeview developer is to ensure QLDC can participate in strong commercial negotiations to deliver on the Project Objectives for the community. There is no sense in incrementally sacrificing the Project Objectives to protect the relationship with 94 Feet for its own sake – and yet, recent decisions have been frustratingly nonsensical.
In this councillor’s opinion, QLDC needs to take a completely different approach to executing the Lakeview Development Agreement – one that builds a respectful relationship with the developer but one that prioritises its obligations to, and its relationship with, the community by using the Development Agreement to protect the financial and non-financial value anticipated from each Stage of the development.
It may take an amendment to the delegation to acheive that or there may be another way to go about it, but however changes happens it can’t come soon enough.
Niki Gladding QLDC Councillor 