Waching daily Sep 27 2017

- Our first conference keynote this morning

will be presented by Jennifer Keesmaat,

chief planner for the city of Toronto.

This keynote is hosted in partnership

with Auckland Conversations and proudly sponsored

by Buffer Miscel,

New Zealand's leading consultants

on environmental planning and design.

The Auckland Conversations programme

is an orphan council initiative

that presents international and national experts

that can inspire and inform on how cities

can be transformed to become livable,

well designed, and connected places

where people want to live, work, and play.

So, I'd like to acknowledge

the Auckland Conversation sponsors

and give a warm welcome to the live stream audience

that's joining the station this morning

on the Auckland Conversations website:

conversations dot Auckland council dot govt dot inzed

and also on the live twitter feed,

hashtag Auckland conversations and hashtag livable.

It's now a pleasure to invite Rachel Deland

and partner Ed Buffer Miscel to the stage

to welcome Jennifer Keesmaat.

(applause)

- [Rachel Deland] We have to do

that height challenge thing.

Ludo and I will be about Libel pigging.

Sorry, I had to do it.

Kiora Tato and thank you Wallace,

my Sunday morning friend.

Buffer Miscel is really very pleased

to be part in bringing Jennifer Keesmaat

to Auckland and to the RMLA livable conference.

Jennifer's a planner and urban designer

and she's a perfect fit for the themes

of the conference and I think

that you're all in for a real treat

in terms of her presentation this morning.

Now Toronto, perhaps, isn't the city

that we have tended to follow closely

in this part of the world,

given that I think we are much more attracted

to those West Coast cities of America,

the Vancouvers,

San Francisco, L.A.

But when you look at the challenges

that we faced in Auckland and then Toronto's

particularly around livability, housing, affordability

and then the relationship of transport with housing

and land use integration,

but then also how you take communities

with you in cities of rapid growth and change,

then I think we have an incredible amount

to learn from Toronto

and Jennifer's perfectly placed

with her roles in relation to the chief planner

at Toronto, the city of Toronto,

and in her earlier initiatives and roles

to bring real lessons for us here in Auckland.

There are certainly a lot of parallels

and I think there are many insights

that Jennifer can bring from us, to us, from those roles.

And I think probably her struggles and challenges

as much as her many successes

in the various roles that she's had.

So, very shortly I will say welcome to the stage,

but before I do that, you might see me also depart

which I notice everybody to date has

which is a bit unfortunate.

I, through a trick of ill fate on my part

and the environment court,

I'm actually due there very shortly.

And as we know, that's a bit of a non negotiable.

So I'm going to be listening to the delayed feed

rather than the live presentation

and I'm going to look forward to catching up

with Jennifer later in the day.

So, without further ado, Jennifer welcome to the stage.

(applause)