This meeting was at 7.30pm on Monday April 14 at the Community Lounge, St Thomas’s Church, 200 Riddiford St Newtown. Our local City Councillors, DM Laurie Foon and Cr Nureddin Abdurahman, were at the meeting to discuss the WCC consultations on the Long Term Plan Amendment, Annual Plan and Wellington Water Done Well. The deadline for submissions to Wellington City Council is Monday 21st April.

The Newtown Parking Plan

Paul Barker Wellington City Council Street Transformation Manager, attended the meeting to talk about this. He outlined the parking plan, which is already operating in Berhampore and Newtown West  and is due to begin in Newtown East on June 24th. For more details go to https://www.transportprojects.org.nz/current/berhampore-and-newtown-parking-scheme – the interactive map comparing the current parking regulations with the new ones is very helpful.
 
The first phase of the Parking Plan has been reviewed, and the WCC Koata Hātepe | Regulatory Processes Committee meeting on Wednesday 9th April agreed to investigating the need for more restricted spaces in Berhampore, and extending the zones for residents’ permits to include residents in the local commercial centre. Permits are allocated in priority order – currently there are nine priorities. Local Centre could be a tenth priority.

Residents in Newtown east will receive a letter and a leaflet in early May – this will have information on the parking changes and how to apply for a resident parking permit and visitor permits. Applications for residents’ permits will be open from mid-May. The application is done online or by phone. 

The discussion covered a number of issues, including how to help people from refugee and migrant communities where there is a language barrier to find out about and understand the new rules, the site specific parking issues around the Zoo and Newtown Park, and assurance that Constable St residents living inside the Local Centre Zone who are currently eligible for a parking permit will still be eligible in future.  See the the full minutes for these and other topics.

A discussion of the WCC open consultations followed – Long Term Plan amendment, Annual Plan and Local Water Done Well. Submissions close on Monday April 21st.

DM Laurie Foon clarified that anything that is not listed in the consultation document is remaining in the LTP and is not being consulted on. This includes the Arts Funding, which was agreed in the previous round of consultation.  

LTP amendment consultation

Cr Nureddin outlined the process leading to the amendment about not selling the airport shares, and listed some of the proposals for funding changes resulting from this.

As usual the Consultation Submission Form focusses on these projects and asks submitters whether they approve or disapprove of various options. It is important to realise that submissions don’t have to be limited to these projects, anything can be mentioned in a submission, and feedback can be about projects from any area of the city.

For instance there is local concern about when the Carrara Park toilets will be installed. This was approved by Council in August 2023 but when Cr Nureddin enquired about progress  the answer was that nothing has happened yet because it is scheduled for year four of the LTP (the next Council). We thought it had higher priority, and we will request that this be brought forward and included in the current Annual Plan.

There was also discussion about the new 177 Owen St Park, now under construction and making good progress. The request for a toilet in those plans was defeated – there is a Council policy of no toilet if there is another public one within 5 mins walk. We could reopen this request.

Another local issue is that there is money in the proposed LTM for Suburban Centre Upgrades, Newtown and Johnsonville are likely candidates.

Annual Plan – Deputy Mayor Laurie Foon spoke about this

There is a proposal that the Council provide $700,000 each year to Taranaki Tenths Trust to maintain Mātai Moana Reserve on Miramar Peninsula. This is something we could consider supporting. https://wellington.govt.nz/your-council/projects/matai-moana-reserve

Commercial rates for Air B & B providers are suggested in the Annual Plan. Any submissions on this topic will be of interest. Cr Nureddin noted that this is a very tricky issue.

The projected rates rise is 12.2%. This includes 1.4% for the waste minimisation fund.

Local Water Done Well

This is a very big decision. The options are

A multi-council water services organisation with all the Greater Wellington Councils. The water related assets, debt, revenue and liabilities would be transferred to the new entity. The costs would no longer be included in Council rates, households would be charged directly for their consumption.

A Wellington-only water services organisation – similar to the above but solely owned by WCC and only applying to Wellington water services.

Continuing with existing arrangements, WCC owns the assets and services are contracted out to Wellington Water.  

Water meters are probable whichever option is decided.

Cr Nureddin noted that with existing arrangements it would take 660 years to fix the pipes.

We can feed back into this process if we have concerns about: The potential for privatisation, Lack of Council control over the new entity, Potential of the new entity to avoid any targeting of charges.

Transferring 3 waters to a regional entity would mean that  City Council would have reduced assets to secure borrowing.

This meeting was on June 17th 2024. These were the topics discussed.

The Parking Scheme for Berhampore and West Newtown – due to start on Monday 24^th June.

Attendees affected by the new parking scheme talked about their experiences of applying for permits, and their concerns. DM Laurie Foon took notes, in order to follow up with the WCC Officers responsible for the scheme.

Laurie Foon passed on some information

-for the first 3 weeks of the scheme only warning tickets will be issued.

– there will be a review of the scheme after the first 6 months.

The new park at 177 Owen St

This is the former Workingmen’s Bowling Club site. When the WCC Councillors discussed the Park proposal on June 6^th they agreed that the existing club buildings could be demolished (too costly to fix) and the site developed into a neighbourhood park for community use and small events. There is already $1,500,000 in the budget for this. Cr Nureddin Abdurahman proposed an amendment to request that toilets be included, but when put to the vote the result was 9 for and 9 against, with the Chairperson’s casting vote being against. The official Council policy is that toilets aren’t needed because there are other public toilets within 5 mins walk – at Newtown Park.

Since the Council meeting Rhona Carson, Steve Dunn, Cheryl Robilliard and Jane Patterson have had a meeting with Sanjay Patel and David Halliday, the WCC Officers overseeing the project, to discuss the plans further. The intention is for demolition of the buildings to start in the near future, and the redevelopment to happen within the year. The plan is for a large open space for general recreation and events, including BBQs, seating, a children’s play area and a stage.  There is some continuing discussion about the best position for the stage.

The discussion at the meeting agreed that the decision not to include toilets was short-sighted. The Association is likely to to look for an opportunity to have this reconsidered.

Community Garden at Carrara Park

Currently the plots are kept in order by a few neighbours (who are Association members), but new gardeners would be welcomed. Recently the Association applied to the WCC Community Garden Fund (known as Stone Soup) for a grant, and have received $115 (inc gst) to be spent on compost, seeds, seedings etc for refurbishing the beds.

Wellington Heritage Festival

Assciation President Rhona Carson is still in the process of gathering information for a series of applications for events during the Festival in October-November.

Alex Hockley, the WHF CEO, said that there were about 140 events confirmed so far, with several from Newtown.

Judicial Review

There was a brief discussion of the news that the Live Wellington Trust has filed for a Judicial Review of the WCC decision to reject the District Plan Independent Hearings Panel recommendations about the extent of Character Precincts in inner city suburbs.

The meeting was at the St Tom’s Community Lounge on Monday April 15th 2024. 
Alex Hockley, CEO of the Wellington Heritage Festival talked about potential Newtown events, and Deputy Mayor Laurie Foon outlined issues in the WCC long Term Plan. Submissions are due on 12th May.

This meeting was held at 7.30pm on Monday 16 October 2023 at the Community Lounge, behind St Thomas’s Church, 200 Riddiford St. These were some of the topics covered –

Merania Roa, the candidate for Vision NZ in the recent Rongotai Election, thanked us for the invitation to our Meet The Candidates meeting.

Kāinga Ora’s new developments in Newtown – people are moving into the new apartments in Owen St.

Carrara Park Toilets Petition and the positive response from the Councillors.

Water Leaks – the Community Patrol has reported 165 leaks across parts of the city. One piece of good news – a longstanding leak in Rhodes St has been fixed.

Berhampore and Newtown Parking Scheme – a large part of the meeting was devoted to discussion of concerns with the details of the scheme.

Notes from the meeting.

This meeting was held on Monday August 21st, 7.30pm at the St Tom’s Community Lounge, 200 Riddiford St.

Association President Rhona Carson opened the meeting by thanking everyone who helped with the Newtown Residents’ Association 60th Anniversary Celebration on 29th July.

She then introduced the visiting speakers.

Kāinga Ora – Josh Clark introduced himself as the Stakeholder Relationship Manager for the Wellington Area. He outlined the housing developments either under construction or planned for Newtown and the surrounding area. These include 80 homes in Rolleston St, which are almost completed, and 301 homes at Arlington St where construction is in the early stages.

In Newtown 36 homes at 175 Owen Street are in the final stages before completion. There will be an open day for the community in November. In addition work is underway on 21 homes at 131 Coromandel St & 9 at 124-130 Coromandel St 

Newtown to Berhampore transport project and Newtown Parking Plan

Bri Peters, Nicola, and Paul Barker from the WCC Transport project team outlined the three parts of these plans.

Metlink bus priority plan looks at improvements to Bus Stops and the way they are designed.

The Newtown to Berhampore Cycleway will run from Riddiford St through Rintoul St, Luxford St and Adelaide Rd. to join the Island Bay cycleway.

The Parking Management Plan follows from the city-wide plan and parking priorities which were approved in 2020. The proposal is that a large proportion of what is currently unlimited on-street parking parking will be designated P120, with no time limit for residents holding a residents’ parking permit. It is recognised that this will be a big change for hospital staff currently parking on the street, and WCC and the Hospital have been consulting about this.

Public consultation on all 3 parts of the project will start on September 12th and run till October 8th.