The monthly meeting was on June 20th at the City Mission/St Thomas’s Community Lounge.

Mass Rapid Transit through Newtown

The main topic was a presentation from Daran Ponter, Chair of the Greater Wellington Regional Council, on Let’s Get Wellington Moving, and in particular on the potential impact of Mass Rapid Transit through Newtown.

All four LGWM options have MRT through Newtown. Daran is keen to get this message to the community because LGWM will have very broad impacts. More road space will be required to make room for a MRT route as well as car, bus and cycle lanes. This potentially includes the removal of the historic shops at the Adelaide Rd and Riddiford St intersection as it would be hard for mass transit to use that intersection as it stands.

See the full minutes for more about the discussion, and the LGWM website https://lgwm.nz/all-projects/mass-rapid-transit/#e661for more about the project.

Alistair Henshaw – Predator Free Wellington, on moving into Newtown more intensively. 

Alistair described how the project to eradicate pests started in Miramar with great co-operation from local people, and how the team are now moving into the Southern suburbs. Progress has been made in Island Bay, and Newtown is next.

They need about 7000-10,000 ‘permissions’ from residents to place very safe bait stations to target rats and mustelid eradication. See https://www.pfw.org.nz

The Proposed District Plan

Hilary Watson (Newtown RA Executive member) outlined the next steps. The Proposed District Plan will be voted on by the WCC Pūroro Āmua/ Planning and Environment Committee on June 23rd. When it’s approved the proposed plan will be notified and there will be 6 weeks for public submissions between July and September. Hearings will be at a later date – expected to be early next year.

The June 23rd meeting is a final opportunity for Councillors to make amendments to the plan before it is notified. There was agreement at the meeting that Newtown Residents’ Association continues to support it’s previous submission and calls on the Council to reinstate the character areas as recommended by Council officers for inclusion in the Spatial Plan. We do support intensification and welcome additional residents to Newtown, but feel this should be managed and planned primarily along the main spine of the suburb.