Shortlist Engagement Results

Mackenzie District Council has received a strong response to the community survey about the Mackenzie Spatial Plans. The survey was launched on 18 September and ran through to 30 October, with over 300 people taking part. The purpose was to understand what the community thinks about how future growth might be accommodated for the towns of Twizel, Fairlie, and Tekapo (Takapō), and included concept plans for the smaller rural settlements of Albury, Kimbell and Burkes Pass.

The responses have been analysed and loaded into an online interactive platform that allows the results to be investigated by a range of demographic markers. These results are now publicly available at https://bit.ly/3pa3K2w.

On top of the online material, a large number of written responses were either emailed or mailed to Council. A summary of these responses is available in the document repository for this project.

The results are being used by the project team to help identify preferred options for each town, which will be shared with the community for another round of community engagement. This will inform any final changes or improvements to the plans, which will then be presented to Council for approval. The preferred options identified through the survey are below:

Fairlie – Option C: Constrained Growth (45.5%)

Takapō – Combination of Option A: Corridor Growth (35.5%) and Option C: Contained Growth (34.6%)

Twizel – Combination of Option A: Corridor Growth (37.9%) and Option B: Clustered Growth (36.4%)

Mayor Graham Smith says the results show high level of passion from each community. “We’ve had great levels of feedback from across the district, through the online survey, written responses and drop-in sessions. What comes as no surprise is that there are significant differences in each community and we’ll need to keep that in consideration as we work through the next stages of the project. I encourage you to take part in the next part of the process - the more responses we receive, the better we can align the final daft to the wants and needs of the community.”

The Spatial Plans will outline a 30-year vision for the district and will be used to inform the District Plan review process, which will be underway later in the year. They will also be used to inform Council investment and strategic planning.