FIT Wellington believes that the key to how the city allows for increases in its population will be decisions about Mass Rapid Transit (MRT): this will be the major determinant for the design of the Golden Mile and the final Spatial Plan for Wellington City and its suburbs.
LGWM should urgently confirm their proposed MRT route and the locations of the stations. This will give developers and the communities around them certainty.
We believe that light rail is the best and most proven method of solving Wellington’s transport problems. MRT along the quays will potentially get rid of ⅔ of the buses cluttering the Golden Mile — this will completely change the way that the Golden Mile can be designed i.e. for people, not for cars.
FIT suggests that WCC adopt a strategy of Density Done Well and embed this in the Spatial Plan.
Density Done Well requires 3 strands, all essential:
- Transport density
- Adopt the LGWM strategy for the Ngauranga-to-Airport corridor to “move more people with fewer vehicles” city-wide, enabling more people to “live local”. The transport equivalent of medium density housing is mass rapid transit. Key to the effectiveness of the route is allowing it to be ‘rapid’ avoiding highly pedestrianised areas such as Courtenay Place and instead going down Taranaki St through the heart of the Te Aro development area (also avoiding the Basin Reserve in the process).
- Housing density
- Promote medium density, medium height residential and commercial development in areas where there is higher transport density and in suburban town centres. To ensure that density done well, WCC needs to look at things such as Design Review Panels or selected lists of highly skilled design teams to ensure quality developments.
- Ecological density
- Promote development which reduces emissions and increases biodiversity eg. more green spaces, parks, native trees and shrubs, restored wetlands, on site handling of the three waters, urban food production and food waste composting, beehives etc. within the city.