2012. Bridging the Divide- A Story of Integrating Transport, Stormwater & Amenity in Aucklands New Super City. AUSI Stormwater Conference, Australia.

Authors

Damian Young- Director Morphum Environmental Ltd

Rowan Carter - Auckland Council

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation, which forms part of a planning assessment, resulting in an integrative restorative water urban design solution for the Omega Pond. This public asset forms part of the quantity and now quality management asset for urban discharges into the Alexandra Stream, Auckland, New Zealand. The overall project is known as the Te Ara Alexandra project and encompasses the integration of a major public cycleway project with stream restoration, wetland enhancement and stormwater infrastructure improvements. It has set a standard by which a new model that amenity, parks and water sensitive urban design managers can draw upon. The project and subsequent construction, has been driven by an Integrated Stormwater Catchment Management Planning process that is considered best practice for the new Auckland Council Super City.

The objective and rational of this project was to:

● Define and develop a design to establish a treatment efficiency function for the pond as it previously only performed a stormwater detention function.

● Investigate how the ponds water quality function might be formalised and/or enhanced;

● To incorporate the development of amenity features and improvements where possible in any proposed design; ● To include and support the objectives of the cycleway strategy;

● The use of low impact design and other on-site mitigation methods for new development or re-development to reduce contaminant discharge at source, manage stream erosion and protect stream health.

This project is a shining example of how stormwater and transport practitioners can bridge often divergent philosophical approaches. . The fundamental scheme design for AUSI Stormwater Conference 2012 the cycleway project had not included a linkage through the area of the existing pond and because of input from the stormwater team, additional access was achieved, which opened up the cycleway to a much wider community catchment base. The outcome being improved performance of a public asset, enhanced public amenity of the open space area and an optimised cycleway design. The result of this investigation, assessment and design has been the construction of a $350,000 transport, amenity and water sensitive urban design asset.