The Residents’ Association meeting on March 20th focussed on reports and updates about local issues. These are some of the topics discussed.
Neighbour’s Night
Daphne Pilaar, one of the main organisers, gave a summary of the very successful evening – thanking the variety of individuals and organisations involved. See here for a full description of the evening.
Newtown Festival Street Fair Day, Sunday March 5th
Rhona Carson reported on another successful event.
Plans to create a Trust to run the Festival are moving ahead, and a motion was passed requesting that this process be completed by the end of the financial year – a practical time for ease of accounting.
Garage Sale, Saturday March 11th – a very wet day, but some people participated.
Bike KREW Rodeo – was to have been on Sunday March 12th, but extreme weather conditions meant it was postponed till Saturday March 18th. About 30 children, with caregivers took part – a good number and a successful first Bike KREW Rodeo. Many thanks to ReBicycle and to the Communities on Bikes fund.
Our Town Newtown – the project planning for community facilities in Newtown.
Currently it seems that the community input phase will take longer than the planned June timeframe. The next step is a working group meeting in early April, and news of other community events should follow soon after.
There is a questionnaire almost ready to send out, and we are hoping that there will be a good rate of response when the time comes.
WCC Annual Plan
Our local Councillors, Paul Eagle and David Lee, gave an update on the Annual Plan process and outlined some of the proposals in the draft.
There was less public participation in the development of the draft Annual Plan for 2017/18, but there will be public consultation before it is finalised.
Predator-Free Mt Cook / Newtown
This project has been expanded to include Newtown.
David Lee reported that a workshop on March 19th produced about 70 traps. The target is about 250. (One house in five is sufficient to gain control over rats.)
Contact the organisers (Gary and Andrew) if you would like to be involved – mailto:predatorfreemcn@gmail.com
Local Housing
WCC is half-way through a 30-year plan to refurbish its housing.
Housing New Zealand are reconditioning some of their buildings.
No new special housing areas have been created. The meeting expressed concern about the process and consequences of granting Special Housing Area status.
History Projects
An attendee with a special interest in history asked for an update. There are two projects on the go – one describing the history of Newtown and the other the history of the Wellington South Licensing Trust. Both of these are in the process of transferring data into an online format, and are still works in progress.
Suggestions were made for local Improvements, including:
“Welcome to Newtown” signs to promote and show pride in our suburb, extended Library hours on Saturdays and improved speed management on local streets.
The Big Girls – created by local women at workshops led by 
Market Stalls in Riddiford Street – we host one of the biggest and most exciting markets in the region.
Two of the many Zero Waste volunteers, coaching participants in minimising waste going to the landfill.
newtown.org.nz 