Designing the peri-urban zone for people and production: A case study from Waitaha | Canterbury

Abstract

Aotearoa New Zealand is experiencing unprecedented competition in land use priorities within the peri-urban zone – land fragmentation, the loss of productive soil, disconnected communities and local food supply chains, unsustainable greenfield sprawl and reverse sensitivity. New Zealanders, now an urban majority with 85% of us living in urbanised settlements, have become spatially disconnected from the landscapes that sustain us, particularly with regard to the agricultural and food landscapes that we all rely on. This research argues that the peri-urban zone, in its spatial proximity and function, holds a critical place in the long-term sustainability of our cities and urban communities. Its regulating ecosystem services ‘invisibly’ supporting their form and function through the local provisioning of food, stormwater management and watershed protection, environmental cooling, biodiversity refuge and habitat, as well as recreational and aesthetic opportunities. Governments, Councils, Planners and Urban Designers have long recognised the need to limit city expansion, predominately from an ‘urban’ perspective where successful cities are seen to have high levels of accessibility, connectivity, density, and diversity, achieved primarily through compact urban form. This report primarily responds to issues of peri-urban land use pressure in relation to food production and housing – two key functions of the peri-urban zone in Aotearoa New Zealand, and asks the question ‘how can landscapes for both people and production prosper within peri-urban Aotearoa’? This research emphasises the core role that accessible, local food production has on holistic urban resilience, as well as the protection and enhancement of that peri-urban land to provide essential ecosystem services to the receiving urban environment further enhancing urban sustainability. Based on issues and aspirations reported by peri-urban residents, growers and farmers, five land use design concepts are developed, providing for both housing and food production, and opportunities for the reconnection of New Zealanders with whenua and food are explored. Re-designing peri-urban land use patterns to integrate housing with productive land uses has the potential to re-connect New Zealanders with the whenua while mitigating reverse-sensitivity issues associated with the current rural – urban dichotomy approach to planning.