Waikato Business News July/August 2021

52 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS July/August 2021
Immigration - it’s just like
a box of chocolates!!
We all know that COVID has turned the
world upside down and everyone has
been impacted one way or another, but
the impact on immigration plans and
policies, and border movements, has been
monumental and life-changing for many
migrants, advisers, employers and New
Zealanders alike.
Last year the situation was
dynamic and ever-changing,
and demanded substantial
and ongoing regulatory
intervention to address a
myriad of immigration policy
settings. We all understood and
accepted that this intervention
was necessary. We are now
well over a year down the track
and, with border restrictions
remaining, you would think that
the situation for migrants and
their employers in New Zealand
would now be clearer and
everyone could plan ahead with
some degree of certainty. Alas,
this is not the case.
Three years ago the Government
outlined very significant
changes for work visas, and as
recently as 22 June confirmed
these changes, which required
that mandatory employer
accreditation would go ahead
and be implemented on 1
November. Just three weeks
later, on 16 July, the Government
announced these changes
would be deferred to sometime
mid-2022. The Government has
announced border exceptions
Level 2
586 Victoria Street
Hamilton 3204
for teachers, dairy farm managers,
vets, agriculture machine
operators – but these are “claytons”
exceptions as while these
people can be issued their visa
there are no MIQ spaces to
accommodate them, so you
will not see any of these muchneeded
skills any time soon.
Then we have the 10,000 or
so migrants already here, and
working in skilled employment
roles, who have submitted their
expressions of interest (EOI) for
residence, and who have been
waiting well over a year on the
Government to resume EOI
selections. This much-awaited
announcement was scheduled
for March 2021, but still no one
knows if, when, and on what
basis selections will resume.
Just this week we know of three
medical specialists who have
packed their bags and left the
country for good as they have
no certainty as to their future in
New Zealand, and without this
security they cannot plan ahead
or buy a family home.
There are many highly-skilled
migrants who will follow
them and be lost to NZ.
Level 3
50 Manners Street
Wellington 6011
07 834 9222
enquiries@pathwaysnz.com
pathwaysnz.com
Richard Howard
Every day employers are
telling us how desperate they
are for the additional skills
needed, just to manage the work
on-hand, and the growth opportunities
they will be foregoing
if they cannot find these skills.
They are also having to pay
much more to retain and attract
the skills they need and this
wage inflation is now impacting
throughout the economy. The
Government and Immigration
New Zealand are in the same
boat, with their own resource
limitations now influencing
their ability to determine and
implement the forward-looking
policies needed to provide
migrants and employers with
the certainty to plan ahead. As
a consequence we are getting
either short term “knee-jerk”
policies or no policy decisions
at all.
So, in the immortal words
of Forrest Gump “Life was like
a box of chocolates. You never
know what you’re gonna get.”
Immigration policy is starting to
look very much the same.
1 Trinity Street, Cambridge
A lifetime ago
A lifetime ago as a young architect I had
the fortune to work with a small practice
in Cambridge, UK.
Much of the practice’s
work was
for the colleges,
departments and institutes
associated with the University
of Cambridge. It was
a delightful time working
amongst - and with - some
great people and some
important architecture.
One of the most notable
characteristics of Cambridge
is the sense of an intimate
small-scale town, despite
Cambridge being a city of
some 150,000 people. Some
of this sense related to relatively
dense, but low-scale
buildings; most being no
more than three or four stories
high, some to the compact
nature of the town itself,
with the Market Square and
Corn Exchange as a focus,
and lastly an organic street
layout originally shaped by
the enclosing meandering
of the river Cam and primary
pathways to nearby
villages. Cambridge is certainly
a place more easily
walked or bicycled around,
than driven in.
Many footpaths were flagstones
with areas of cobbles,
the architecture was crafted
of carved stone, and the town
was peppered with green
spaces; great lawns within
the cloistered courtyards of
the colleges, small pocket
parks, and huge paddocks
and playing fields preserved
within the loop of the Cam,
or linking along the opposite
riverbank, on the ‘Backs’.
Within the town there was
the biking and pedestrian hum
of university students and
Cambridge residents going
about their day’s work, and
the curious and fascinated
tourists walking through
the town streets and lanes,
admiring the college architecture,
gardens and galleries,
enjoying the pubs and eateries,
and punting the Cam. A
mix of enjoying sights, and
enjoying activities.
I came away from that
Cambridge experience with
an appreciation and understanding
of a number of key
placemaking attributes. Perhaps
foremost was the sense
of responsibility that all those
who were making buildings
had in their task; to the town
and people whose legacy they
had inherited, and to the future
generations to whom they were
bestowing new architectural
interventions.
As for many towns and cities
around the world, consistencies
and commonalities in
the construction of the architecture
- such as the materials
(local stone, bricks, slate, copper
and lead), the architectural
form, purpose (education and
research) and motifs (badges,
details, craft, sculpture and
texture) - built up an overall
mosaic that comes together to
create Cambridge’s singular
identity.
At an urban level the importance
of 'containment', or
boundary and an edge - be it
river, a town belt, walled enclosure
or park edge - the idea of
an identifiable precinct or place
became even more apparent
in placemaking. A Waikato
example of this is how Cambridge's
town belt (until very
recently) clearly and simply
defined the urban township
from the surrounding farmlands
and rural activities. This
containment contrasts to ribbon
developments where towns
grow outwards along highways
and country streets, and the
town edge is dissipated.
And lastly, it is the personal
connection to nature; the variety
of parks, riverside walks
and trees, and sense of adventure
and discovery, that brings
delight, repose and places of
relaxation to provide a sense of
ownership and connection with
a place.
These placemaking principles
are of course common to
the many wonderful places we
love to visit; whether London,
New York, Prague, Vilnius, or
Stockholm. While much town
change or growth occurs organically
over time, on occasion
the development and design of
a town or city is precipitated by
an event (London's 1667 Great
Fire) or political decision (the
redesign of Paris, from 1850
under Napoleon III and to
Haussman's design).
So it is timely to celebrate
HCC’s recent decision
to incentivise more buildings
LANDMARKS
> BY ANTANAS PROCUTA
4 Cambridge St John’s Lane
2 Stockholm - Old City
of substance in the town centre
to enhance a cosmopolitan
lifestyle and the vibrancy of
the central city. But of course
this incentivisation involves an
understanding of the broader
urban context and a collaborative
placemaking programme.
Such an initiative takes a big
vision and intentional design,
and this is what will be transformative.
With many businesses
having vacated the central city
and moving to Te Rapa some
years ago, the land bereft of
buildings and occupation for
many years is at a cusp of growing
back to make a vital city for
the close future. The re-visioning
of Hamilton’s CBD is also
an important opportunity for the
development is to be sustainable
in both its implementation
and in the living it affords.
The buildings and places
we’re making, the things we
do now - the way we do them,
the intent we have behind them
- matters, and has a long-lasting,
almost irreversible, culture
and place-shaping influence
on the nature of Hamilton, the
Waikato and its towns. Ultimately
a building, a piece of
architecture, a public place, is
the expression of the values,
vision, and collaboration of a
culture and time, and the aspirations
we have for the future.
Antanas Procuta is Principal Architect at Hamilton-based PAUA,
Procuta Associates Urban + Architecture