• What areas had the highest/lowest turnout? (i.e. where is participation high/low)
• What areas had the highest raw number of votes? (“who elects the mayor”)

Maps addressing these two questions are below.  Note that they don’t include Waiheke, mainly because it’s not part of the “Coastlines” shapefile I used to crop the board boundaries and I decided the effort of separately mapping the board area to the “islands” geographic shapefile wasn’t worth the effort given I have a day job (i.e. I am lazy).  If you are wondering, turnout on Waiheke was very high (58.6%).

Percentage turnout

Number of votes

The purpose of this post is really to collate a bunch of stuff I have been throwing up on twitter so there is a record of it.  Also check out Aaron Schiff’s very cool analysis of the overlays in the Unitary Plan (heritage, volcanic view shafts etc…) and the Herald Insights visualization of the residential zones, which overlaps a lot with I have here.  (Update: The Spinoff have a some amazing maps here).

All of the maps that appear below can be accessed directly here.

How the single house zone changed

The first thing I looked at was how the Single House Zone changed between the 2013 PAUP and the 2016 RUP.  I initially created separate static maps, but at Aaron Schiff’s suggestion I turned it into an animated GIF

This demonstrates how much of the Single House has been removed, it’s astonishing really!  Though note it still has a stranglehold around the CBD.  Those areas with the best amenity the CBD, and thus which would be most valuable if intensified, are being frozen in time.

I also made an interactive map combing the two sets of data, with RUP in solid red and the PAUP set to be transparent.

[iframe width=”100%” height=”520″ frameborder=”0″ src=”https://willisnz.carto.com/viz/f79674fe-590d-11e6-a0c9-0ef24382571b/embed_map” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen] Direct link to map

High-rises everywhere?

The big fear around the unitary plan is that we are going to get high-rise apartments in the middle of leafy suburbs.  The sentiment is nicely capture by this tweet:

In @nzlistener, @rumpole3 is absolutely right. #UnitaryPlan pic.twitter.com/MVyEADGsFc

— Matthew Hooton (@MatthewHootonNZ) July 28, 2016

I’m not sure what the average person would consider “high-rise”.  The famous “Painted Ladies” in San Francisco look to be 3.5 storeys and I don’t think most people would consider them high-rise (see below).

With this in mind, I did a map of the areas allowing residential development greater than (>) 3 storeys.

[iframe width=”100%” height=”520″ frameborder=”0″ src=”https://willisnz.carto.com/viz/570c4d14-5d05-11e6-ad8e-0e8c56e2ffdb/embed_map” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreeniframe]
Direct link to map

As you can see this is concentrated around public transport (PT) trunk lines and employment centres. The burbs are relatively unscathed, except the parts within walking distance of PT or jobs.

Where is Auckland Staying flat?

The flip side of the previous question is where will Auckland “stay flat”.  I’ve looked at this two ways:

• “Flat” = up to three storeys (i.e. the reverse of the previous high-rise map) ;and
• “Real flat” = up to two storeys

Flat (up to 3 Storeys)

[iframe width=”100%” height=”520″ frameborder=”0″ src=”https://willisnz.carto.com/viz/ceb673e8-5cf2-11e6-bf32-0ef7f98ade21/embed_map” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]Direct link to map

Real flat (up to 2 Storeys)

[iframe width=”100%” height=”520″ frameborder=”0″ src=”https://willisnz.carto.com/viz/88b6bc08-5ce4-11e6-a59c-0ef24382571b/embed_map” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]Direct link to map

Conclusion

Either way you define it,  residential Auckland is actually staying pretty flat, at least based upon a very unscientific eyeballing of the maps.

One map to rule them all

And the last map I did is probably the first map I should have done.  This map contains all the zones allowing residential development and allows you to turn certain zones on or off under “Visible Layers”, allowing replication of any of the maps above.  Note that because I am using a free version of Carto, I had to lump city/town/metro/local center into one layer.

[iframe width=”100%” height=”520″ frameborder=”0″ src=”https://willisnz.carto.com/viz/ee6f1b9e-5e74-11e6-959c-0e3ebc282e83/embed_map” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]Direct link to map

To get a feel for how the SHZ effects Auckland, and therefore what reducing it might do, I’ve pulled together a map of the SHZ, as proposed by Auckland Council back in September 2013 (what is known as the “Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan” or PUAP).  I.e. the IHP is proposing to reduce what is shown in this map substantially. But the data that would allow me to draw that map hasn’t been released yet.  (You can view the maps with all the zones online here.)

Looking at this, it’s striking that the CBD is encircled by the SHZ.  So the land it is closest to where people work, and therefore would benefit the most from increased density, is precisely the land that can’t be unlocked for increased density.

Given all the discussion around NIMBYism that has surrounded the AUP process, I thought it would be interesting to look at where people actually own the homes they live in.  The first map below shows the proportion of households within a meshblock that either own/partially own the house or it is held in a family trust.  Including the latter category in my measure of home-ownership may cause some anomalies, such as with the leasehold land around Cornwall park.

It will be interesting to compare this the AUP when comes out and see whether the are any patterns in zoning in areas where there is a high % of owner-occupied dwellings vs those where people rent (i.e. investors own the homes).

The other map I pulled together uses household income data. For this map I looked at the proportion of households with an income over > $100,000. I.e. I was interested in “which areas had the highest concentration of wealthy households”.

Again, pretty much shows what you would expect, higher concentrations of wealthy households in the inner suburbs and waterfront eastern suburbs.   South and West Auckland on the other hand have lower concentrations of wealthy households.

So the economics of solar depend on whether your savings (avoided retail prices + electricity sold back into the grid) justify the cost of installing solar panels and a battery (typically well over 10k, but costs are falling).

But if you don’t have solar, home batteries could have another use: storing cheaper power generated during off-peak and using it during peak when prices are high.  This of course only works if you have variable electricity pricing, which isn’t super common in New Zealand.  But if you are have day/night rates, or are on Flick Electric like me, then you might be able to exploit the difference between peak and off-peak prices and save some money.   See, for example, the below graph of my electricity use and prices from last Tuesday.

I have drawn some lines indicating the “overnight price”, the “morning peak” and the “evening peak”.  Note that I didn’t use a lot of power that evening (we usually do so this is non-representative), but did use a fair amount in the morning, which is unavoidable.  I also ran my dishwasher on delay that night to take advantage of lower prices later in the evening. If I could store power at the “overnight rate” of 10 c/kwh, there are times when I could halve my variable cost of electricity (i.e. those times during peak when I can’t change my behavior).

Whether or not buying a battery to take advantage of variable pricing stacks up financially depends on:

• how much the battery costs
• how much it can store
• how much power you use that you can’t shift  to off-peak (i.e. by setting the dishwasher on delay); and
• what the price is at those times.

Hopefully someone does proper modelling of it, or maybe Flick will team up with Vector who have a “special” relationship with Tesla.  You could get some pretty complicated/cool software if you integrated this type of logic with Solar. I.e. buying power over night when the forecast is for rain the next day.

(Related: Visit here to find the most efficient home generator reviews)

My 5-year old just warned me that if I don't behave myself the consequence will be “No economics for a week.” I'm cleaning up my act.

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) March 3, 2015

The Greens talk poverty and social justice, but the poor aren’t listening – and they’re certainly not voting for them. Look at these telling statistics from the poorest electorates in the country:

In Manurewa, in the crucial party vote, just 868 people voted for the Greens; in Manukau, East it was just 744; in Mangere, it was just 865.

Now look at the two most wealthy suburbs in NZ:

In Epsom, the Greens got 3415 votes; in Wellington Central, they got 8627 party votes, more than Labour’s 7351; in Auckland Central the Greens got 4584 votes, compared to Labour’s 4758.

I would really want to see some more numbers around this, but if this is a general trend, then it would suggest either:

1. The Greens’ support is from the relatively well-off who care about the poor, rather than the poor themselves; or
2. People who care about the environment tend to be relatively well-off.

Now I’m sure the make up of the Green support base isn’t that stark. But in the context of our discussion (e.g here, & here) about a centrist Green party, if the Greens moved to the centre they would likely lose group 1 but keep group 2.

The interesting question therefore is what proportion of their support base falls into both camps (i.e. care about social justice and the environment) and what weighting they place on both issues. This then follows on to the question of what is the untapped support base of people who care about the environment but generally vote National?

A Bluegreen party would emphatically express New Zealanders’ preference for clever and clean as the way we want our dollars earned, while leaving National and Labour to fight over how social justice is best promoted – via National’s preference for capacity building through education and training, delivering more flexible employment and wage-setting practices; or via Labour’s penchant for widening and lifting of social assistance, greater progressivity of income tax, widening the tax base on income from capital, and greater protection of labour in the workplace.

Matt and I have been talking about this since 2008 when all the TVHE authors took a political compass test as a gimmick to provide content for the blog. Due to a combination of laziness, a lack of money and no desire to get involved in politics, we haven’t done anything about our great idea. That was 6 years ago and a lot has changed since, but we still think there is room for a centrist Green party and so are stoked to see Gareth using his profile to have a serious conversation about it.

Matt did a good post on this about a year ago (There is some pretty robust discussion in the comments section).  When discussing the failed Progressive Greens party at the 1996 (which David Farrar mentions in his post on Gareth’s post) he noted:

A lot of people who couldn’t vote in 1996 have pretty strong feelings about the environment, about the idea that environmental quality is a public good, and about the scientific consensus regarding global warming.  Furthermore, when it comes to urban design and the significant demographic and cost changes (think oil prices, and efficacy of differing transport options) in the last decade a lot of people want the government to at least acknowledge these things.

A economically centrist (or be it centre-left or centre-right) could work with National or Labour.  It would likely be competitive in electorates such as Auckland Central, Wellington Central, and Coromandel – put in a strong candidate and get support from a main party and one of these seats could turn.  And from National’s perspective, it would likely take away votes from Labour and the Greens – improving their odds at forming a government.  For many of the rest of us, having a Green party that could work with either of the major parties would mean environmental issues would get more play – which would make us more likely to vote for such a party. [emphasis added]

Matt was also called for a new Green party when analysing the NZ Power proposals, which he argued were about redistribution rather than efficencny:

The Greens seem to really just be a left wing party at heart – not a true Green party.  For me the essence of a “Green” focus must be on the environment and our scarce capital stock.  However, they are willing to sacrifice any focus on this capital stock in order to push through redistributionist or central planning style policies.

Seamus over at Offsetting also discussed the prospect of a Teal Coalition involving the current Green Party, though that proved to not be a popular idea with both National and the political left.

Most importantly, we recently had a discussion on twitter of potential names, I doubt Gareth will use these, but they are a good chuckle:

@aschiff @TVHE @WillTaylorNZ something like Act Green!

— Lennart Nout (@lennartnout) August 18, 2014

@seamus_hogan @TVHE @WillTaylorNZ Blue-Green (BeeGees?) would get my vote for sure.

— Aaron Schiff (@aschiff) September 4, 2014

Apparently, Seymour reconciles these things through appealing to an argument about “property rights”

What I’m arguing is that the people of Epsom have bought into certain property rights and the character of their community …

Now, most economists would agree that it is important to have a good system of property rights,so I was intrigued by this argument. I was going to examine this issue myself, but Eric Crampton has put this to bed quite succinctly in the tweet below. As Eric points out, unless there is a covenant in place, there is no “deal” that is being broken, which is what economists would be worried by.

@LouisMMayo @actparty @frankmcrae Only if you bought into a development with a restrictive covenant barring such devt. Otherwise, no.

— Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) August 24, 2014

Update: Eric has a much fuller discussion on his blog here