Kapiti suffers from significant traffic congestion at peak times.  We need sustainable solutions soon.

The NZ Transport Agency has decided to build an expressway, designed to motorway specifications, through our precious coastal community.  The decision process has been divisive, manipulative, and lacking information. Instead of consulting the community about possible solutions to the problems, we were only offered a choice between three equally unacceptable expressway routes.

The construction of a major expressway through the heart of the Kapiti district would drastically change the coastal suburban/rural character of our community.  It would have dramatic impacts, including community severance, noise, air pollution, and the destruction of waahi tapu and significant natural and cultural sites.

Such an expressway would not address local traffic issues and would not provide through-traffic solutions for several years. This is not a solution.

How you can help

• Sign the electronic petition
• Print a petition and gather signatures
• Check out the website www.thesustainableoption.co.nz for more information

Who are ASK?

The Alliance for Sustainable Kapiti (ASK) is an informal alliance of community organisations and individuals who have united to preserve the character of Kapiti and its local communities, by opposing any new expressway and lobby for a sustainable approach to transport and development.

We believe that our local communities should not be sacrificed for the Minister of Transport’s perceived national interest, and should be recognised as part of the overall environment and economy.

We support sustainable transport solutions which consider community interests and the Community Plan, as well as our obligations to lower our reliance on fossil fuels and to reduce greenhouse emissions at a local and national level.

These solutions include

1. Safety and flow improvement to State Highway 1 : Along the current alignment, including four lanes as and when necessary, median barriers, removal of traffic lights etc.;
2. Two-Lane Western Link Road (WLR) and Waikanae River bridge: Built NOW to provide significant relief to State Highway 1 with maximum local connectivity, fully integrated with the surrounding centres and environment;
3. Continue improvement to the Rail System: Support the efficiency of the road network through passenger and freight rail improvements including passenger services to Otaki and Palmerston North

NZTA’s decision

On 15 December 2009, the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) Board announced its decision for the “Sandhills” route as the preferred corridor for a new expressway.  NZTA provided very little information  to assess the actual path of the expressway and hence specific impacts on the community.  We have overlaid a map provided by NZTA on a Google Earth image of Kapiti.

Likely impacts:

Any decision to proceed with the Sandhills route would result in [1]:

• Continuing traffic delays until 2020, the likely completion date;
• A four-lane 100kph motorway with major overbridges on the scale of Mackay’s crossing through QE Park and through a residential region
• Loss of dune lands, wetlands, native bush and waahi tapu;
• Severance – a community further physically divided;
• Loss of local connectivity provided by a two-lane Western Link Road, which means little improvement in travel times for people making local trips;
• Poor connections for cyclists and walkers from the loss of major CWB route (Cycleways/walkways/bridleways)

How you can help

• Sign the electronic petition
• Print a petition and gather signatures
• Check out the website www.thesustainableoption.co.nz for more information

---

[1] Based on an article from KCDC in the Kapiti News on 16 September 2009.

Wellington, 16th-21st December 2009

Aotearoa’s first ever Climate Camp seeks to address the real causes of climate change and build a people’s movement that can and will stop disastrous climate change.

Get your diary out and organise some time off work or school for an incredible combination of…

• Sustainable Living: the camp is an example of a sustainable temporary eco village using a horizontal organising structure. Yes – that means you make all the decisions at climate camp.
• Education: heaps of free workshops
• Direct Action: focusing on False Solutions to Climate Change
• Movement Building: the beginings of a peoples Climate Justice Movement in Aotearoa

Watch the film: Why you should come to climate camp (UK-focussed but a great introduction to what climate camps are all about)

More information on the Camp for Climate Action Aotearoa website

This article is based on a presentation given in August 2009.

Download the presentation [1.4MB, PDF]

Collaborative communities

We face many challenges in the coming years; the limits of growth, climate change and peak everything, beginning with oil.

The media has been preoccupied with the financial collapse. The situation is much more complex than the collapse of the sub-prime market. Last year’s price of oil at $140 a barrel, was too high for non-producing countries, and lead to significant demand reduction. Demand is continuing to drop, even though the price is still less than half it was at its peak.

In its most recent report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that the oil supply shortfall that they had previously predicted for 2010 will only be delayed a little by the recession.

Dr Faith Birol, the chief economist at the IEA in Paris, says “there is now a real risk of a crunch in the oil supply after next year, whenever demand picks up because not enough is being done to build up new supplies of oil to compensate for the rapid decline in existing fields.” The IEA estimates that the decline in oil production in existing fields is now running at 6.7% a year compared to the 3.75 decline it had estimated in 2007, which it now acknowledges to be wrong.

Oil availability then, is the first major restraint on growth. Water supply is also constrained, with lowering water tables, melting glaciers, and increasing severity of drought in major grain producing areas, portends food shortages. Pumping underground water exceeds natural recharge in countries containing half the world’s people, leaving many without adequate water. If growth resumed, most basic commodities would reach peak production within a few decades.

Sustainability and natural resilience

While the economy has grown exponentially, the earth’s natural capacities have not. This includes its ability to supply fresh water, forest products, and seafood. Humanity’s collective demands first surpassed the earth’s regenerative capacity around 1980.

Today, global demands on natural systems exceed their sustainable yield capacity by nearly 30 percent. We are meeting current demands by consuming the earth’s natural assets, setting the stage for decline and collapse. We must learn to live within our carbon footprint.

Each of us depends on the products and services provided by the earth’s ecosystems, ranging from forest to wetlands, from coral reefs to grasslands. Among the services these ecosystems provide are water purification, pollination, carbon sequestration, flood control, and soil conservation. A four-year study of the world’s ecosystems by 1,360 scientists, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, reported that 15 of 24 primary ecosystem services are being degraded or pushed beyond their limits. For example, three quarters of oceanic fisheries, a major source of protein in the human diet, are being fished at or beyond their limits, and many are headed toward collapse.

- Adapted from Chapter 1, “Entering a New World,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

Consultation

Fellow Regional Councillors have remarked to me, “Paul, we have a different culture here. You need to take care!”

Our future is indeed determined by how we take care, what parameters we set, and how we collaborate. I have come to learn that Council officers write reports, and by and large Regional Councillors rubber stamp them. Consultation has involved a request for submissions, and then a perfunctory hearing.

However, the end game is a delightful, cradle to cradle, pollution free environment with clean water, air and soil… not business as usual.

I attended the first World Social Forum in Porte Alegre, Southern Brazil in 2001, as a Council for International Development representative.

At that time, Porte Alegre was the poster child for participatory democracy, and yes, they did increase participation, which lead to a significant surge in projects targeted to marginalised areas, and a reduction in poverty and increase in well being. The city council emphasised influence and deliberation as important for long lasting solutions. At the same time, Argentina, across the border to the south, suffered melt down, after years of military dictatorship, followed my IMF impositions. Unemployment was close to 50% with widespread poverty. This lead to a social revolution, with 5 changes of government. Worker’s co-operatives and community gardens now flourish, and Argentina has joined Hugo Chavez of Venezuelan’s Alba alliance, rather than following the dictates of the IMF and World Bank, and the neo-liberal free market mantras.

New Zealand is at a crossroads with the election of a National/Act Government. Do we move to a more collaborative system, or a centralised city state under control of the technocratics?

Pathways to Resilient Communities

Earlier this year, we held a Pathways to Resilient Community dialogue with about 150 Local government and community representatives, where we discussed the concept of resiliency and key vulnerabilities of the region.

Resilient communities workshops

These ideas have feed back into the Long term community plan.

Greater Wellington has undertaken to develop a Genuine Progress Index (GPI) to measure progress towards the four well beings (social, cultural, economic and environmental outcomes). A report by Aaron Packard explores the role for public participation in the assessment of the these indicators [Public Participation in the Community Outcomes Process and the Development of the Wellington Region Genuine Progress Indicators: Feb 09, unpublished].

“Any initiative must have influence to give a sense of meaning for participants…..One of the principal reasons offered for low levels of participant motivation was a perception that the public had little influence over agency decisions…. increasing influence helps to build trust, which in turn fosters participation”.

Deliberation creates an environment in which the exchange of perspectives arising from social difference constructively builds a common ground for community development. Deliberation fosters social learning, can be effective at dealing with conflict and can change people’s perspectives and preferences. Deliberation requires careful facilitation and planning”.

Effective deliberation needs good representation. Extra effort is required to ensure that frequently unheard groups are engaged, such as youth, indigenous peoples, disabled and migrant groups.

Inclusion or representativeness provides legitimacy to the outcomes of public participation. A study found that 60% of public participation processes were not-representative of the general public, leaving those that do not participate excluded from both the process and ownership.

New ways of hosting meetings and harvesting innovative ideas and concepts need to be found. A deliberative process, will bring clarity to where benefits and disadvantages lie, and where there needs to be some rebalancing.

Can we develop the grand vision that will take us into a post-carbon future?

Transport

GW plans and funds most public transport, and is now looking at when and how often services run, and how they connect with each other.

The system suffers from decades of neglect. Trolley bus and rail networks have been allowed to run down. There is a large amount of infra structure work that still has to be done, upgrading rail stations, the lines, signalling, stabling yards.

New trains have been purchased and will begin to come into service mid 2010.
Real time information displays will also be rolled out in 250 separate locations over the 12 months, and then when you next text for a departure time from your stop, it will be real time, not just a timetable. The next thing is integrated ticketing, and NZTA (Transport Agency) is investigating a system which will be operable over the whole country.

However, that is not the end of the matter. We need to design a network that will work for mums and dads, children and of course singles, through the weekend, during evenings, and on weekdays, and for the carriage of cycles. That means including destinations to sports fields, shopping centres, recreational spots such as Red Rocks…

And the active modes have to be supported. Gil Penalosa, the transport engineer who redesigned Bogota’s transport system, says that there are only 1 or 2% kamikaze cyclists who will mix it with car traffic. If you paint a white line on the road, that increases to 5%. Then if you construct a special cycle way, protected from the traffic by shrubs, then 30% will venture out.

There is space for this in Wellington, especially if we remove a few car parks, as is happening in some European countries. Options are presently being developed for a dedicated cycle/walk way between Petone and Nguaranga, and we hope this will be the foundation of a Great Harbour Way.

Question: What role should the private car play in a post carbon society?

Regional Water Strategy

There is a proposal before Greater Wellington to bring together the Three Waters, potable, storm water and sewage under a Committee containing both Iwi and GW Councillors.

The disruption of the small water cycle is accompanied by growing extremes in the weather, a gradual drop in groundwater reserves, more frequent flooding, longer periods of drought and an increase in the water shortage in the region.

Can a new Committee structure allow more collaborative conservation at the local level, rain water collection tanks, permeable surfaces, compost toilets, grey water recycling? Or do we further com-modify water, build dams.

GW will be assisting in financing elements of the New Green Deal, that allows you to repay loans through your rates, for clean heat and insulation upgrades, and this could be extended to rain water collection tanks.

Question: Are water meters an essential component of a conservation strategy?

New Urbanism

Now is the time to wake up to the power of solar, irresistible cities, community gardens, a great harbour way, energy efficient buildings, and make our region the best post-carbon place to be.

For more information

Contact Regional Councillor Paul Bruce
paul.bruce@greens.org.nz
phone: 04 9728699 cellphone:021 02719370

Community gardens are public spaces where people are free to plant vegetable and ornamental plants. There’s a great growth of community gardens in Wellington – and the beginnings of some community orchards.

New gardens

I’ve been a supporter of Innermost Gardens for a long time in their quest to find space. A small site in Newtown is happening now and a more substantial Council site is on the cards.

Some groups like Common Ground are working on other spaces such as the grounds of the Home of Compassion.  The Brooklyn Transition Towns movement has matched up willing gardeners with people who have gardens but not time or energy to garden.

The Sustainability Trust supported an online network to be created, the  Wellington Community Gardens Network on Wellington Community Net. Such connections abound in Wellington!

Operation Green Thumb has been successful for several years with public plots,  as have City Housing tenant groups.

Benefits of community gardens

Community gardens help people

• build communities
• save money on food
• get outdoors to soothe mind and body
• become more independent from the global food chain

Community hui

On May 25th 2009, Wellington City Council hosted a great hui of community garden groups – existing gardeners and wanna-bees. There was support from social agencies and Parks & Gardens staff too. If you missed the event or have a piece of Council land in mind, contact Celia to be kept in touch.

Not every spot is suitable – soil, existing ecology, neighbours, hazardous trees etc. all have to be considered.

We are committed to making the process easier and ending up with MORE food grown by the community, for the community!

For more information

Contact Celia Wade-Brown

Email: celia.wadebrown@greens.org.nz
phone: 04-938 6691
cellphone: 027 483 6691
Celia’s Councillor profile on the Wellington City Council website

Water is the single most important substance we need. It is vital for our health and well being and the region’s natural ecosystems depend on water resources.

Who manages water locally?

Greater Wellington Regional Council is responsible for sustainably managing the region’s water resources. The Regional Freshwater Plan sets out the rules for water allocation and managing water quality.

Greater Wellington makes bulk water supply available to Wellington City Council and the Hutt Valley through the Council trading organisation capacity.

Water storage

Last year there was a period when no rain fell for 4 weeks, and a relatively dry period lasted for over 3 months. GW recommended mandatory water restrictions on use. Luckily a major front moved in and broke the drought.

Wellington has relatively little storage and relies heavily on the run of flow of Hutt River. Hutt river levels went below the lower limit with stored water at Te Marua used for supply.

Population has been increasing at the rate of 3% per year and has led Council officers to make plans for new supply and water meters.

New supplies, or more efficient use

We need to question the call for new water supplies, in spite of shortfall last year. How will additional take off affect the ecology of our rivers? What green house emissions will result from new dams?

We can already do more, and better, with water already available.

Planners can look at better ways to harvest natural water sources, and utilise technologies and practices that promote efficient use and collection of rain water.

At the same time we must restore wetlands, natural water courses and floodplains.

Collection tanks

Wellington’s annual rainfall is around 1200mm/year – 4mm per day.
Water collection tanks can harvest this rain for our own use.

When we harvest rain water, we can reduce the water bill, demands placed on mains water supply, on wastewater and storm water systems, while still maintaining the option of using treated water for kitchen use.

With dual water systems, we can have the best of both options. Remember that we drink only 5 per cent of our highly refined drinking water, yet pay for the other 95 per cent to be treated to the highest drinking standards … We flush treated water down the toilet, we wash with it and do the laundry.

With rainwater collection tanks we are more resilient.

A major earthquake will disrupt water supplies for the whole region, and it will take months or years to restore water. Without your own supply, you will most likely need to leave the region while lengthy repairs are made to the supply system.

An average roof area will capture enough water for daily needs, and a 3500 litre tank will store enough for up to several weeks supply. A tank that size can be bought for $1200 to $3000, and those tanks can be made of recycled plastic! As well as extra security to you, there are considerable operating cost savings to Council, as well as savings of electricity and chemicals.

Water tanks will reduce the amount of storm water and overload in heavy downpours. Present operating costs are $28m/year, with the cost of electricity to pump water and chemicals to treat amount to about $4m.

Demonstrated benefits of rain water collection tanks

• reduced initial storm water surges
• improved water security with increased storage on site
• resilience following major earthquake with continued storage and ability to collect water
• long term cost benefits
• Awareness of water usage and in control of own supply
• Reduced chemical usage (bulk supply)
• Reduced electricity and GHE (bulk supply)

What other councils are doing

Kapiti District Council has made dual and waste water systems mandatory on new houses. Waitakere City Council subsidies rain water tanks up to $500 per unit (see also Massey University research on rain water collection).

What you can do

Greater Wellington is developing a regional water strategy at the moment, with water highlighted as one of the key issues in its proposed ten year plan (2009-19).

A new issue coming out of local government reform is how a Regional Water administrative structure could be developed with regional representation in partnership with local iwi.

Contact Fran Wilde or Paul Bruce for more information.

For more information

Contact Regional Councillor Paul Bruce
paul.bruce@greens.org.nz
phone: 04 9728699
cellphone:021 02719370