Voices of the next generation – An interview with Harrison Burnard
Harrison Burnard
Who are you, and how did you get into IA?
My name is Harrison Burnard. I am 21, and in my last year of studying a Bachelor of Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University, Palmerston North. My course is basically a town planning degree where we study how decisions end up having an impact. We have looked at a whole range of environmental issues as part of planning and development such as dairy farming, climate change, water shortages, natural hazards, social, housing, urban form, design and transport. My particular areas of interest are urban planning, urban design and transport, which is where I want to end up working.
I have always liked the concept of trains and motorways and urban design, but never really thought about the impact that the quality of the design of the urban environment has on the way people see and live in a city. My thesis research is looking at transport-orientated development, and it is really about using the space in our cities much more efficiently using the interactions between public transport, housing and commercial development and promoting high density within our public transport hubs to improve people’s accessibility and mobility.
Although my degree is environmentally focused, transport cuts a pathway between the social and environmental – using land more efficiently and reducing carbon emissions, but also creating a vibrant urban space that people are happier to live. There’s also an economic focus on it too, but definitely you are really trying to balance these spheres of social, economic and environment as a planner and get the best outcomes across each.
What are the challenges faced by IA that you see as important?
I think one of the biggest challenges is creating a balance between social, economic and environment. I also think a big challenge is battling government and the tensions that exist between central and local government when it comes to planning laws. The ongoing changes to the RMA, and getting the RMA right will be ongoing.
I think on a more personal level there is a big challenge between trying to be ambitious and trying to be realistic. As a 21 year old student, I can be prone to idealism. What we learn at university is all about achieving best practice, and having all these amazing outcomes using IA can actually be quite difficult. Coming out of university and adjusting to the real world will definitely be a big challenge for me. Change is quite slow in the real world there just isn’t the desire, as I have been taught is necessary, to challenge the status quo at the moment and look for better options than our roads and a token gesture of active transport and public transport on the side. It just feels really frustrating as congestion is not really getting much better.
Also, I think at the moment we, and our government, are poor at assessing the impact of transport infrastructure. There is this focus on assessing impacts on an economic scale, rather than digging deeper and providing a balanced look at what are the impacts on the environment and on societal progress and wellbeing. Social and environmental impacts are very much tokenistic. They just love their cost-benefit analysis.
What is the role of the NZAIA to address these challenges?
Well within the NZAIA we have a community of very specialised experts in our field. Collectively we could be doing more to give our voice. If we are asked for our feedback and we don’t give it, we are doing ourselves a disservice, but we could be more widely engaging.
Between the people that have a social focus, environmental and the economic there is a strong voice of experience and collectively we can give some good guidance. I think it’s always going to be a challenge being listened to. We make plenty of the opportunities we do get, and it’s good we are writing submissions and providing feedback, but we have to get our message across in a way that the normal person understands as well. So I think we could try more to engage the public.
In the freshwater arena, recently, there was a very strong grassroots campaign led supported by a few people with science degrees who are passionate, not necessarily an authority on the issue. They were able to engage and capture the public mood and sentiment quite strongly. I think that was an example where the NZAIA could have sent members along to the tours in their local area, could have reached out to them, put NZAIA’s name forward and said ‘hey, we support your game plan, it’s something we believe in’. It’s that sort of opportunity I think that NZAIA could keep an eye out for – something that is relevant and important that we should support and proactively put our name and our expertise forward to support.
I hadn’t personally heard of the NZAIA before I came involved through my degree. I think the NZAIA could probably do more to engage with people, such as planners who do play a big role in impact assessment by shaping decision making, that are in the impact assessment community but not necessarily engaging with us as a broad collective. I think we should definitely try to find new voices and try and get feedback from the people who might have the experience, but who are not members.
How could the NZAIA be more of a resource to you, and other members?
I very much see the NZAIA role – being a community of expert practitioners – to be the voice of reason. I would get a lot out of seeing what other people are doing – what work they have done, what they are achieving, what has been learnt – finding ways that can make it easier to share information between us. That would be a good starting point.
There have always been whispers about promoting an active training programme that would be useful to tack onto the conference. As a young planner I could put that sort of thing towards my NZPI membership and, not sure it would ever work, but possibly putting out some basic training guides on the NZAIA website, but everyone is really busy.
For example, a simple guide to what impact assessment is, how you can use it in your workplace would be helpful. I think providing people with clear guides, with clear language - because you are aiming at people who aren’t as accustomed to what impact assessment is. There are definitely some good resources out there that we could use. Even something as simple as making available some of the research that people in the IA community have done. It’s not just us, but the public don’t get to hear about or read the good research that has been done by our community, or more widely. The NZAIA could try and target practitioners, as well as the public, people with a passing interest in impact assessment, and make research more accessible to people like me who might benefit from knowing more.
I think if there was more of a social aspect to the Association, a less formal interaction to share ideas and have those stronger familiar bonds would be helpful.. You can learn a lot from people who have been through things you might also face. Personally, I find it really helpful engaging with people that are well respected in their field. There needs to be more opportunity for people to learn from each other because apart from the interaction between those who organise the conferences there is very little chance to interact with people, especially for the younger generation to learn from those with more experience. Also, it works the other way, for practitioners to influence what we are studying at university. There is a lot of information and knowledge that can be shared.
It would be good if there were more opportunities to interact with more people on the more social side, I think. It would be helpful, knowing I have this social network of people in the NZAIA that you can always talk to about relevant issues, go to for advice. I wouldn’t say mentoring, but knowing I have the connections. For that reason, I wouldn’t want to lose contact with the NZAIA.
My name is Harrison Burnard. I am 21, and in my last year of studying a Bachelor of Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University, Palmerston North. My course is basically a town planning degree where we study how decisions end up having an impact. We have looked at a whole range of environmental issues as part of planning and development such as dairy farming, climate change, water shortages, natural hazards, social, housing, urban form, design and transport. My particular areas of interest are urban planning, urban design and transport, which is where I want to end up working.
I have always liked the concept of trains and motorways and urban design, but never really thought about the impact that the quality of the design of the urban environment has on the way people see and live in a city. My thesis research is looking at transport-orientated development, and it is really about using the space in our cities much more efficiently using the interactions between public transport, housing and commercial development and promoting high density within our public transport hubs to improve people’s accessibility and mobility.
Although my degree is environmentally focused, transport cuts a pathway between the social and environmental – using land more efficiently and reducing carbon emissions, but also creating a vibrant urban space that people are happier to live. There’s also an economic focus on it too, but definitely you are really trying to balance these spheres of social, economic and environment as a planner and get the best outcomes across each.
What are the challenges faced by IA that you see as important?
I think one of the biggest challenges is creating a balance between social, economic and environment. I also think a big challenge is battling government and the tensions that exist between central and local government when it comes to planning laws. The ongoing changes to the RMA, and getting the RMA right will be ongoing.
I think on a more personal level there is a big challenge between trying to be ambitious and trying to be realistic. As a 21 year old student, I can be prone to idealism. What we learn at university is all about achieving best practice, and having all these amazing outcomes using IA can actually be quite difficult. Coming out of university and adjusting to the real world will definitely be a big challenge for me. Change is quite slow in the real world there just isn’t the desire, as I have been taught is necessary, to challenge the status quo at the moment and look for better options than our roads and a token gesture of active transport and public transport on the side. It just feels really frustrating as congestion is not really getting much better.
Also, I think at the moment we, and our government, are poor at assessing the impact of transport infrastructure. There is this focus on assessing impacts on an economic scale, rather than digging deeper and providing a balanced look at what are the impacts on the environment and on societal progress and wellbeing. Social and environmental impacts are very much tokenistic. They just love their cost-benefit analysis.
What is the role of the NZAIA to address these challenges?
Well within the NZAIA we have a community of very specialised experts in our field. Collectively we could be doing more to give our voice. If we are asked for our feedback and we don’t give it, we are doing ourselves a disservice, but we could be more widely engaging.
Between the people that have a social focus, environmental and the economic there is a strong voice of experience and collectively we can give some good guidance. I think it’s always going to be a challenge being listened to. We make plenty of the opportunities we do get, and it’s good we are writing submissions and providing feedback, but we have to get our message across in a way that the normal person understands as well. So I think we could try more to engage the public.
In the freshwater arena, recently, there was a very strong grassroots campaign led supported by a few people with science degrees who are passionate, not necessarily an authority on the issue. They were able to engage and capture the public mood and sentiment quite strongly. I think that was an example where the NZAIA could have sent members along to the tours in their local area, could have reached out to them, put NZAIA’s name forward and said ‘hey, we support your game plan, it’s something we believe in’. It’s that sort of opportunity I think that NZAIA could keep an eye out for – something that is relevant and important that we should support and proactively put our name and our expertise forward to support.
I hadn’t personally heard of the NZAIA before I came involved through my degree. I think the NZAIA could probably do more to engage with people, such as planners who do play a big role in impact assessment by shaping decision making, that are in the impact assessment community but not necessarily engaging with us as a broad collective. I think we should definitely try to find new voices and try and get feedback from the people who might have the experience, but who are not members.
How could the NZAIA be more of a resource to you, and other members?
I very much see the NZAIA role – being a community of expert practitioners – to be the voice of reason. I would get a lot out of seeing what other people are doing – what work they have done, what they are achieving, what has been learnt – finding ways that can make it easier to share information between us. That would be a good starting point.
There have always been whispers about promoting an active training programme that would be useful to tack onto the conference. As a young planner I could put that sort of thing towards my NZPI membership and, not sure it would ever work, but possibly putting out some basic training guides on the NZAIA website, but everyone is really busy.
For example, a simple guide to what impact assessment is, how you can use it in your workplace would be helpful. I think providing people with clear guides, with clear language - because you are aiming at people who aren’t as accustomed to what impact assessment is. There are definitely some good resources out there that we could use. Even something as simple as making available some of the research that people in the IA community have done. It’s not just us, but the public don’t get to hear about or read the good research that has been done by our community, or more widely. The NZAIA could try and target practitioners, as well as the public, people with a passing interest in impact assessment, and make research more accessible to people like me who might benefit from knowing more.
I think if there was more of a social aspect to the Association, a less formal interaction to share ideas and have those stronger familiar bonds would be helpful.. You can learn a lot from people who have been through things you might also face. Personally, I find it really helpful engaging with people that are well respected in their field. There needs to be more opportunity for people to learn from each other because apart from the interaction between those who organise the conferences there is very little chance to interact with people, especially for the younger generation to learn from those with more experience. Also, it works the other way, for practitioners to influence what we are studying at university. There is a lot of information and knowledge that can be shared.
It would be good if there were more opportunities to interact with more people on the more social side, I think. It would be helpful, knowing I have this social network of people in the NZAIA that you can always talk to about relevant issues, go to for advice. I wouldn’t say mentoring, but knowing I have the connections. For that reason, I wouldn’t want to lose contact with the NZAIA.