Eden Park would look significantly different, including the installation of a roof, if upgrading it becomes the preferred option for a national stadium in Auckland. (Mock-up image) Photo: Supplied / Eden Park
The government's fast-track list of 149 projects has been described as a virtual-signalling wish list, without the cash to fund most of them.
A roof for Eden Park; a second bridge for disaster-hit Ashburton; a new dry dock for the navy. And thousands and thousands of houses.
The government's list of 149 projects picked for fast tracking is a fascinating window on where the country could be going.
But is it a 'to do' list, or a wish list?
The Detail looks at what's on it, and what the obstacles might be when it comes to these projects actually being completed.
The Fast Track Approvals Bill was introduced in March, and since then there's been a clamour to know what projects were in the first tranche.
The Ombudsman was due to make a decision on an Official Information Act request for the list "imminently".
Infrastructure minister Chris Bishop's announcement snuck in first, just 12 days before the Environment Select Committee's final report on the bill was due.
Some items were well-telegraphed, including Trans-Tasman Resources' plan to extract up to 50 million tonnes of seabed material a year off Taranaki.
It's one of several so-called "zombie projects", plans that were supposedly killed off by failure to get them across the line during the resource consents or appeals process, only to come back from the dead.
The fast-track scheme route means they no longer have to deal with hazards such as the Environment Court.
A Ruataniwha dam plan in Hawkes Bay has likewise been resurrected, along with an off-shore salmon farm near Bluff.
Some of the 149 projects are ventures that traditionally face multiple hurdles and appeals over environmental issues during consent processes, like a giant waste incinerator in the tiny settlement of Waimate in South Canterbury that will burn 1000 tonnes of rubbish a day; dredging by the Port of Tauranga; and sand mining at Bream Bay in Northland.
There are 11 mining operations, seven aquaculture or farming plans and eight quarries.
There's lots of housing - 58 projects taking in more than 50,000 new homes - and 22 renewable energy projects too. Plus some random projects that not many people saw coming.
Herald senior writer Simon Wilson says the proposal to roof Eden Park is "really puzzling".
It comes after a long process by the Auckland Council to work out the best option for a better stadium for Auckland.
"Just this year they looked at four different proposals, went through a long process with independent advisors and everything, got it down to two … one of them is to expand Eden Park, the other one is to build a new complex down at Quay Park on the waterfront. Only one of those is on this fast approval list. Which means presumably, the Eden Park people got themselves on this list, and the consortium behind the other project didn't.
"Whether they were rejected or whether they didn't apply we don't know yet, because that's all confidential.
"But it's very odd to see Eden Park there on its own, because it implies some decisions have been made about which one to prefer, and those decisions haven't been made at council… there's still a lot of water to flow under the bridge.
"So Eden Park is probably a very good example of something that might happen - and if it does it will be fast-tracked - but at this stage it doesn't mean it's going to happen, at all."
Wilson says Auckland has a very good Unitary Plan which was developed after very extensive consultation, and one of its core elements is that most new housing developments should be within the city, with greenfield developments on the edge of the city restricted to about one third of new housing.
"This list of projects has eight greenfields developments and they're really really big … many many hundreds and sometimes thousands of homes … and only one brownfields development."
Two of them are massive - one in Drury and an entire new township south of Warkworth.
But Wilson points out the council is responsible for putting in the infrastructure for them, including roads, new transport routes and pipes, and it doesn't have the money to do that.
"It's not a plan. It's a wish list," he says. "Almost none of these projects are funded."
Wilson says it's almost virtue-signalling, with something on the list for everyone, be it houses or public transport or roads.
Newsroom's South Island-based correspondent David Williams has reservations about some of the greenfields housing projects around Christchurch.
"The two that stand out for me are two developments proposed just north of Christchurch in Ōhoka and just south of Christchurch at Rolleston, both by the Carter Group. So that's Philip Carter, the rich-lister who incidentally last year donated $60,000 to the National Party.
The group was originally refused rural land re-zoning permission for its developments. The Rolleston plan would have increased the population there by 50 percent and commissioners said there wasn't the infrastructure to support that.
"So it comes back to that argument, of who decides what is appropriate and what is needed?
"There's a big public cost of putting housing in place. That's not to take away from the fact we need more houses, of course we do. But do we need them in those places and do we need them now?
"Look at the rise of Rolleston, the southern motorway goes there now, but you're training people to live in a different place from where they work, and then they have to get there. So you build lots of infrastructure… the sprawl is part of the problem. Putting houses a long way away from where people live, work, go to the shop, is a real problem, it's an increasing problem, and it needs to be thought about very seriously."
Another journalist scratching his head over the plans is Newsroom's Wellington-based political reporter Fox Meyer.
For example, the "Wellington long tunnel" is on the list, but the details are vague.
"I have no idea if that's going to happen," he says.
"It sounds like they're just throwing the options at the wall with this project."
Meyer says in terms of feasibility of the initiatives, things are unclear.
"There are so many projects on here. And also let's note that this is just the first wave of this. You're going to be able to apply for consents under this in the future. Even if some of these are maybe unrealistic or just too difficult to complete, this isn't the complete selection."
As for Bishop's complaint that it's "just nuts" that it takes six or seven years sometimes to consent a wind farm, Meyer points out that there are about 30 renewable energy projects in the country that have been consented and haven't been built, because of either finances or some other issue.
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