Your Town, Your Future - The Mackenzie Spatial Plans

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.

The Mackenzie District Council is praising the communities of the District's townships and settlements after two rounds of community meetings to set the direction for the Mackenzie Spatial Plans.

The Mackenzie Spatial Plans will create a 30-year vision of what the future could look like in Fairlie, Tekapo (Takapō) and Twizel. The project will ensure our main townships are maintained as places for people, ensuring growth can occur in a way that benefits the local community and improves where we live. They will also offer a concept plan for the smaller settlements of Burkes Pass, Kimbell and Albury.

Over the past month, two rounds of community workshops have been held with community members and council officers to help outline and understand the problems and opportunities facing each township, as well as plan for what the future might look like given current growth projections and capacity constraints.

An initial round of workshops were held in early July to develop Investment Logic Maps (ILMs) for the main townships of Fairlie, Tekapo (Takapō) and Twizel. An ILM is a NZ Treasury supported investment tool that aims to communicate the complete investment story on a single page using language and concepts that are understandable to anyone.

Following these workshops, a second round of workshops were held with the smaller townships of Burkes Pass, Kimbell and Albury as well as more detailed optioneering and planning workshops in the main townships.

Mackenzie District Council CEO, Suzette van Aswegen, has been delighted with the passion and interest shown by the community members involved so far. "These have been pretty intensive workshops, and the discussions have been honest and not always easy - but that's the benefit of them. We very much appreciate the time and effort put in by all participants and staff.

"The project team have come away with a wealth of information about the communities' concerns, hopes and aspirations for their towns, and a much better idea of what the future could look like."

The next steps for the project will see the team use the information developed during the workshops to help shape a shortlist of options for each of the main townships. These will outline what the future could look like for each town across a range of scenarios reflecting different planning and zoning considerations.

At the same time, initial plans will be drawn up for the town centres of each main town and the smaller settlements that seek to outline a future vision for each area, and improvements that could be made to improve their layout and function. These options are expected to be shared with the community for feedback in late August / early September.

"We really want to get these options in front of as much of the community as we can to ensure the feedback we receive reflects the desires of our district's people. The information will be fed into our analysis and directly inform the direction the project takes and the preferred options for each area." said van Aswegen.

ILMs from each workshop and supporting data are available in the documents section of this page.

Mackenzie District Council is embarking on an ambitious project to chart the future of the district's main townships and understand how they will manage growth over the next 30 years.

Councillors have approved an Establishment Report, which outlines the development of three Spatial Plans for Fairlie, Tekapo and Twizel, as well as concept plans for the smaller rural settlements of Kimbell, Albury and Burkes Pass.

The Establishment Report was developed following the successful Mackenzie Community Survey, undertaken earlier this year. It details the Spatial Planning process, governance structure, scope, components, and timeline for completion.

The Spatial Planning project will offer up a shared picture of what the future can look like, offering investment certainty to both the private and public sector. Ultimately, it will inform the Mackenzie District Plan Review, providing a filter with which MDC can evaluate development proposals. It will also guide infrastructure investment and allow for MDC to plan for future growth and get ahead of the curve.

The project aims to ensure our main townships are places for people, ensuring growth can occur in a way that benefits the local community and improves where they live. Each plan will be a visual blueprint for the future, indicating what should go where and how each element should interact with the others.

Each local community will be engaged throughout the process, with several opportunities for people to have their say. The results of community engagement will be used as key pieces of evidence to support the final options, with the process aiming to be as transparent as possible.

Mayor Graham Smith is excited to see Council getting on the front foot and looking to get ahead of growth. "While there's no getting around the fact that COVID19 has slowed things down across the district, it's pretty inevitable that growth will pick back up again. If there's a silver lining, it's that the lockdown has given us some breathing space to sit down and have a conversation about what we want our future to look like."

"While the results of the community survey differed across our main townships, one thing that was pretty clear is that people want to protect what we have and what makes our district so special, so this is a great opportunity to work out what we want to see over the next 30 years. We can't stop growth, but we can plan for it and make it work for us, that's my hope - it's an exciting time and we think the community as a whole will get in behind the process."

The plans will be developed using facilitated stakeholder workshops, community engagement, optioneering and analysis to evaluate a wide range of information and identify a preferred way forward for each township. They will look at the following workstreams for each town:

• Environment, Mana Whenua, Social and Culture
• Land Use
• Sustainable Infrastructure
• Mackenzie District Council Property

The next steps in the process will see a number of workshops held in July involving selected community participants, the project team and elected members. Following these workshops, the public will be asked to provide feedback on options for each township. This is expected to begin in late August. Further information will be provided as the process moves forward.

ENDS

http://www.mackenzie.govt.nz/Site/Community/Public_Notices/district_plan_survey_results.aspx

Mackenzie District Council is praising the community after a massive response to the Mackenzie Community Survey earlier this year.

The survey was carried out from 16 January to 16 February 2020 and had a total of 759 responses. Its purpose was to get a high-level understanding of the how the community feels about the district. More specifically, it asked three main questions of residents, ratepayers and visitors:

1. What one thing do you like the most about the district?
2. What one thing would you most like to see changed about the district?
3. Looking ahead, what is the one thing you would like the Mackenzie District to be known for in the future?

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/2upEAFJ

Mayor Graham Smith is delighted with the strong response to the survey. “To have received 759 responses as part of this process is a fantastic result. It is by no means a surprise to see we have such a passionate and engaged community, and all of the information received will help us shape the future of our District.”

“We’ve also put together an online interactive tool to help the community understand the main themes appearing in the survey responses, which gives them the ability to dissect the results by things such as age, gender, location and relationship with the District.”

“While some of the results come as no surprise, such as the fact that almost everyone loves the amazing scenery and natural environment, there are other things that certainly warrant further investigation.”

“There’s obviously room for improvement for Council, and this survey lays that out in plain sight. We’re not shying away from this and that’s why we’re sharing the results with our community. We hope that this will start a wider conversation about the future of the District, and we look forward to having that discussion over the coming months.”

The results will help form part of the evidence used as part of a spatial planning project that will be launched shortly, and will ultimately will inform the District Plan Review. It is expected that three spatial plans will be developed for Fairlie, Tekapo and Twizel that will help shape how the towns grow over the next 30 years and beyond.

Further community engagement is being planned as part of this process and details are expected to be announced for opportunities for communities to get involved over the next few weeks.

ENDS