Archive for the ‘Planning’ Category

Wanganui

Strictly speaking, Whanganui is the correct spelling, no one is doubting that. However, for a place name,  does the correct spelling really matter? I can name at least several places with incorrect names in other languages. For example, Britain in Chinese "英国", is only a transliteration of the word England, conversely, the name Macau does not reflect the area as whole as well. German people should be deeply offended - if my memory serves me right, Japanese and Chinese are the only two languages which have correctly transliterated Germany's real name, Deutschland.

Of course the name of Wanganui is originated from a Maori word, however, since it has entered general usage in English,  it should not be treated as a  term for an exclusive group.

The name of Wanganui has its value too. It is the reflection of the history of interactions between Europeans and Maori, and the evolution of local iwis. I remember my teacher once said that the pronunciation came from a tribe from South Island, but it's no longer there anymore. This is history too, and the name of Wanganui reflects this fact.

Name change requires a lot of money too, and this country has too many important things to spend money on rather than this. I think a good solution is to make Whanganui a offical Maori name but continue to use Wanganui in general usage. If people starting to like the way it is spelt with h, then change the name. At end of the day, language is the movement of people, not bureaucracies.

Is tertiary education really worth it?

Despite the general mood of anti-intellectualism, New Zealand has a relatively high rate of participation in tertiary education. However, for many, they attend university for reasons rather than enrich themselves or get a higher paid job. I once heard that a female university student said the sole incentive for her to attend university is the higher chance to find the "man" with "potential", financial potential that is.

So what kind of financial potential a university graduate may possess? In a recently published OECD report (PDF) on education, it is suggested in New Zealand, on average, a male university graduate would earn about NZ$ 170,000 more in his lifetime than those with only high school qualifications.

It may sounds like a lot but it's the earning increased in lifetime. Put that in context of a typical working life of a Kiwi (age 22 - 65), the average increase in wage works out like $80 a week, about 10% - 15% percent increase from the average wage in New Zealand.

Furthermore unless you are lucky enough to have rich parents,  you'll have to pay for your tertiary education nowadays. In my situation, I estimated that I need at least 12 years (4 years university and 8 years full time working) before I can reclaim the amount I invested in education. This estimation is actually too optimistic, as you are less experienced and earn less in first few years.

Inflation would make the repayment a bit faster, thanks to the interest-free student loan.  However, that does not help in the long run as your other costs would also increase.

The return rate for your investment in tertiary education varies, largely depends on how much financial support you get from your parents and the government, but 10% - 20% in the long run should be a pretty accurate estimate. It does not sounds too bad, but there are also risks. It depends the wider economic environment is tied up to your employment status, if you don't work, you no longer receive the return on your investment.

From a pure monetary sense, I would rather invest my money in real estate market than education. However according to MasterCard, there are things in life you just cannot put them in  monetary value. The report suggested three: people with tertiary qualification are generally more healthy, has more interpersonal trust, and are fairly interested in politics.

Open season for trees

The Resource Management Act (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill is currently in the house. I've spent a bit of time to watch the debate, with particular interest in section 52 of the Bill.

The bill is not finalised so I'm not going to put it here. You can view the most updated version here. In a nutshell, the bill prohibits a district plan that prohibits tree removing, unless the tree is expressively protected in the district plan.

There are at least several concerns for this.

Firstly central government should not intervene local government businesses at such level of detail. District Plans have to give effects or at least have regard to several national documents, is not that enough? Every part of the country has its unique environment and situation, why the central government thinks it knows better than locals?

Secondly, this bill removes an important mechanism to protect urban enviroment. Environment minister Nick Smith argued that 98% of tree related concents are granted, therefore it is just a waste of time. Now here is an example of incompetency, he seems to forgot that consents can be granted with conditions and modifications.

Thirdly, it is likely to add unnessary workload for local authorities. I do expect an increased number of surveying in order to put more trees in the schedule after the law is passed, but happens for an area of unprotected bush? Waitakere is a good example - scheduling each single tree would be a process that you would never want to do it again.

Key announces amended version of super city

The Government has backed an Auckland 'super city' council and says it should be in place in time for next year's local body elections. ... Rather than having six local councils, there will be between 20 and 30 community boards. These will not be able to raise revenue or appoint staff. (Via New Zealand Herald)

Local democracy was identified by many, including myself, as the major problem of the Royal Commission report. However, I don't see this is best the solution. I disliked community boards from start, waste of time, not many actually attends, and its power cannot change much for the community. I prefer the parliamentary electorate style, each community elects its own member to the Auckland Council, the member manage local issues and represent that at the higher level.

Anyway, the difference in government recommendation[pdf] is, community boards will gain extra power, such as :

• advocate for their local community and have input into the Auckland Council’s plans
• develop local operational policies for local issues, for example dog control, liquor licensing and graffiti control
• influence the Auckland Council by petitioning for extra services that their community wants. Services would be paid for through a targeted rate for the local area, a local rate rise or a change in priorities. The local boards will not have the power to set rates, so any rate rise would have to be agreed by the Auckland Council.

Can you imagine 30 sets of dog control and and operational policies? Anyone who still thinks the change will save their rate bill should check if the sky in their little world is still blue. Also I did not notice anything in that report mentioning the delivery of council services,  does that mean all people need to travel to Auckland CBD to get their resource consent done?

The grand council will increase overall efficiency but I don't see a way that could reduce overall costs in both Royal Commission and government report.

Also another thing worth noticing:

Nice try. So National.

Weird

Nobody likes to pay taxes, especially Aucklanders and the right. So what happens after government axes the Auckland regional fuel tax proposal? Well,railways have to be built, Auckland needs to move forward, we need to find that money somewhere, and here's how (via Beehive):

• replacing regional fuel taxes with smaller increases in national fuel excise and road user charges, which feed into the National Land Transport Fund
• confirming the government's commitment to Auckland rail electrification
• committing an additional $258 million of the government's capital allocation to land transport over the next two years
• amending the Government Policy Statement on Land Transport Funding to make more money available for state highway construction

I wonder how rural people, especially the nats would think of the first point. But it's a fair measure I have to admit, as the whole country can benefit from a well-funtioning Auckland.

So ... end of tree huggers?

Councils say they will not be able to stop people cutting down native bush and coastal pohutukawa in cities under planned changes to environment laws.

The Government wants to take away councils' power to stop trees over a certain size being chopped without permission. If the change goes ahead, landowners will be free to cut down any tree on their land unless it is listed in their council's district plan. (Via New Zealand Herald)

Oppositions to the councils' tree management claim that "it's their land so they should be able to do anything they like", but let's face it, it's no different than how a teenager feels like "I'm free and independent so I  can do what ever I want", we all get that kind of feeling during our adolescence time, most grow out of it, but sadly, some don't.

The basic principle of the Resource Management Act is the "effect based approach", as long as you can demonstrate that you can minimise the adverse effects on  environment, even a non-complying activity can get a go ahead.  I was a "tree hugger",which means that use trees as an excuse to stop development in quite a few cases,  in one case, a two storey new residential development is proposed on about two lots away from my friend's house, developer wants to chop down a 60m+ tree to provide an extra one or two parking spaces.

From my friend's  point of vew it's actually quite hard to see that tree, just the top part,  but I still criticized the development plan anyway because this is just too ridiculous. If development cannot get ahead without chopping down that tree I may just let it go, but such a tall tree for a mere parking space? Quite a lot of people still don't treat environment protection as part of citizens' responsibility, and think that as optional.

Property right was never absolute, before the current law system there were several common law principles existed, such as good neighbourliness, as long as you don't affect your neighbours' economic well-being then you should be fine. But we don't live in the beginning of the industrial age, we understand the value of our environment more than just a place to dump all our wastes for free.

Not a good one from National, I say, central government should minimise its influence on local government.