These notes cover the main points, but see the full minutes at the end of the post for more details.
Following up from the flooding disaster in April
Vania Szymkowiak (WREMO) addressed the meeting. She provided maps for people to record house numbers and impacts to capture callouts. Acknowledged meeting held in Berhampore the night before – there was a great turn out of flood affected people.
Jamuna Rotstein (WCC Flood Recovery Team) – reinforced the value of letting Council know if you have had any issues, to get a better understanding of the community needs and to coordinate support.
A key problem was that the Council was unable to respond to the required volumes of phone calls at the time (circa 3am) when the flooding hit. There was discussion of possible solutions.
Laurie Foon acknowledged the work of the City Safety and Wellbeing Team.
WCC City Safety:
Sehai Orgad (WCC City Safety & Wellbeing Manager) reviewed earlier calls to build on the City Safety Plan, and referred to the City Safety and Wellbeing Briefing Report. This Council has allowed more funding for safety initiatives.
The Council has about 120 cameras around the city streets, and is working on being proactive rather than reactive. The various support networks, including Māori wardens, Pacifica and Ethnic patrollers and others, work together. An example of output is well-lit and visible support stations, three on trial in the CBD. They are affected and people are using them, and have been shown to deter offenders as well as support actual and potential victims.
Specifically to Newtown, Council has written three papers towards a Newtown Safety Team. This work is on-going. The Newtown Safety project ran from October 2025 and closed in January 2026. The team continue to work with the Police and other agencies.
Joel Berryman (WCC City Safety Adviser). [Joel was one of the team working in Newtown from October till January. Their work was outlined in our November Newsletter.] The ongoing Council role involves co-ordinating between Police, DCM, Wellington City Mission, Salvation Army and other agencies. Council pays attention to Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design – CPTED – looking at the physical environment is their responsibility.
During the Newtown project many activities were enhanced including upgrading CCTV and street lighting. There is now a dedicated street cleaner in Newtown, Monday to Friday. De-escalation workshops and mental health training were made available.
HMDT (Homelessness Multi-Disciplinary Team) Hui involve all Pōneke services supporting people who are chronically hanging around on the street. There are often drug and mental health issues to consider.
NZ Police update:
Mel Paddon is currently filling in for Sergeant Mike Bryne for Community Policing, based at Kilbirnie. Des Foo is part of the team, working in Newtown. Their role is about prevention rather than acute responses. Mel is working on a plan including a wider range of agencies.
Duncan McLean (Newtown Heart) noted that the presentations had not mentioned retailers, who were being affected by people disrupting them from the street.
Sehai outlined a key initiative Homelessness Coordination Service target services to create a focus on individual cases, identify systemic gaps from Council briefing back from March.
There was discussion about calling the Police – this is recommended whenever there is concern about what is happening on the streets. Mel advised that 111 is always a reasonable call. Staff will respond if they can, depending on the urgency of other jobs getting attention at the time, eg: if a car is available, they will drive by.
SMART Newtown:
Jane Patterson (Chair of the Newtown Community Centre Trust) spoke about Smart Newtown – Anna Symons (NCC Kaiwhakahaere) and Jane submitted to the Oral Submissions on the Council District Plan today. It was noted that Smart Newtown is part of our disaster resilience path, and needs to be funded by the Council.
Carrara Park update & mural:
Rhona updated the meeting on progress of the Carrara Park toilets, specifically saying that the Association has been invited to nominate an artist to create a mural for the end wall facing the Park entrance. Paul Forrest has put forward his proposal, which meets the councils brief, talked about options for the artwork – and that it would be good to hear the ideas from other artists.
Member of Parliament update:
Julie Anne Genter encouraged people to contact her electorate office, with matters like central government, housing, immigration, visa, citizenship needing help, and can go to her electorate office. Having been assisting post-floods, Student Army from Vic University can help.
Government budgets due and a lot of stuff happening, could provide updates.
WCC Councillors update:
Laurie Foon addressed the meeting on behalf of herself and Councillor Nureddin Abdurahman. They are very busy regarding flood recovery work – recoveryenquiries@wcc.govt.nz
Other current activities centre around the District Plan deliberations, and the transition to Tiaki Wai.
Noted that Wellington Water is not responding to leaks and advised to email details to Cr Foon.
Council Amalgamation is another medium term consideration. Our Mayor supports the concept but there are a lot of things to consider. There seems to be very little evidence of potential cost reduction through this process, but serious concern about lack of democratic representation. Maori wards could be affected, forced to have or not have.
Duncan shares variable speed regulations on Green Street, a dead end street, it seems senseless and a waste of money and time. It was noted this is a Government requirement.
newtown.org.nz 