How do we get there?

The City Centre Strategy is not just NPDC’s vision for the city centre but is owned by a range of public and private sector organisations. This is important, as its implementation requires the public and private sectors to work together. We will achieve this by: 

1. As an early City Centre Strategy action, creation of a cross sector ‘town team’ focused on representing all city centre interests and acting as an advisory panel on identified projects and initiatives.
2. Strengthening links with the private sector including a dedicated consent team resource focused on enabling development proposals and ensuring timeliness in the statutory processes.
3. Embracing the co-governance model, where NPDC works closely with Ngāti Te Whiti in future decision-making.
4. Partnership with the Business and Retail Association and associated groups to ensure co-ordinated event planning, focused support for new businesses via an Enterprise Hub and investigation of potential of new funding mechanisms such as a targeted rate for the City Centre Core.
5. Using assets owned by NPDC effectively, i.e. to leverage wider opportunities, raise funds that can be invested in other projects and deliver exemplary development, working with private sector developers and investors committed to achieving the Strategy’s goals.
6. Raising standards of architecture and heritage protection and investigating the appropriateness of an independent city centre Design and Heritage Review Panel that would include representation from Ngāti Te Whiti.
7. Partnering with tertiary institutions such as WITT on initiatives that support the city centre’s independent business sector, including tailored training packages and internship opportunities. 
8. Utilising and prioritising social procurement methods to support local communities and supply chains.

Key thinking of the City Centre Strategy aligns with the Proposed District Plan including objectives, policies, proposed zoning, height restrictions and frontage controls. The Strategy will inform subsequent strategy, policy and guidance that will be required to enable and deliver the change envisaged. These include: 

• Regional Housing Strategy – this strategy is being developed with multiple agencies (including councils, iwi and government departments) as part of the Covid-19 recovery plan. It should align with the City Centre Strategy and where appropriate aim to identify possible city centre locations with the intent of providing affordable housing in or close to the city centre.

• The Emissions Reduction Plan, this plan seeks to reduce emissions across the city including those produced by NPDC in terms of its own buildings and vehicle fleet. The plan should align with the City Centre Strategy and consider initiatives such as low emission zones, adoption of new hydrogen technology for buses, new sustainable performance standards for new buildings and the promotion of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

• Eastern Neighbourhood Development Framework and potential plan change – preparation of a detailed framework/precinct plan which identifies infrastructure interventions, design aspirations and policy changes required to enable its transformation.
• Huatoki Catchment Management Strategy – there is a need to prepare a holistic strategy for the whole catchment – mountain to the sea - to ensure the very best water quality and ecological value can be achieved through the city centre and the stream’s mouth.
• Apartment Design Guide – an amendment to the City Centre Design Guides that focuses more specifically on apartment living aimed at ensuring new developments are of high liveability standards.
• Ngāmotu Māori Design Principles – prepared by Ngāti Te Whiti in collaboration with NPDC, the principles or prompts will, like the Te Aranga principles developed by Mana Whenua in Tamaki Makaurau, help developers and designers frame their engagement with mana whenua on development proposals.  The Design Principles will be further supported by the identification of view shafts to sites and areas of significance that must inform the design of buildings (views to and from). 
• Bylaws - Review of city centre bylaws to ensure they are in step with the City Centre Strategy e.g. Public Places (outdoor dining, airspace licences etc), Trading in Public Places and Dog Control (access to parks).
• The review of the Reserve Management Plan which sets down how NPDC will manage its green assets will consider the implications of the City Centre Strategy with particular consideration given to the proposed Pukekura and Pūkākā (Marsland Hill) Green Links.
• Reserve and Public Space Naming Policies - Build on current conversations and policies around the naming of new and established streets and spaces to strengthen cultural distinctiveness. 
• Integrated Transport Plan – this will guide future transport projects and initiatives and be prepared by NPDC within the first two years following adoption of the City Centre Strategy. It is anticipated the Integrated Transport Plan will provide holistic direction for the various transport modes and parking options and progress thinking around the projects identified in the Strategy such as the declassification of State Highway 44, relocation of the bus station and changes to Devon Street East and City Centre Core streets. Through the development of the Integrated Transport Plan, the current Parking Strategy will be updated and absorbed. Provision of parking will be based on principles such as prioritising public space to deliver the highest value, efficiently using space dedicated to parking and ensuring it supports wider urban and transport outcomes.

The City Centre Strategy requires significant public and private sector investment over a 30-year period.  The broad funding strategy can be summarised as follows: 

• Optimising the $10m already earmarked to the city centre in NPDC’s 10-year Long Term Plan (2021-31) with a focus on modest early-win tactical activation projects that provide ‘proof of concept’ for additional funding requests at the next annual plan/LTP review. 
• Review of NPDC grant schemes ie, Built, Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection Grant, Creative Communities and Main Street Fund, to align with city centre strategy projects and inititaives. 
• Leveraging planned infrastructure spend to deliver public realm enhancements, e.g. reinstating streets to an improved design after being dug up as part of drainage/sewer upgrades.    
• Recycling of funds from the sale of NPDC land within the city centre (rather than going into the general pot). 
• Partnering with funding agencies/Crown entities such as Kāinga Ora  and Waka Kotahi on housing projects (specifically the Eastern Neighbourhood) andstrategic roading schemes (e.g. State Highway 44 and 45) respectively. 
• NPDC working in partnership with Ngāti Te Whiti on priority public good and commercial projects.
• Leveraging private sector investment with the potential, for example, to introduce bonus floor area provisions into a future review of the District Plan
• Attracting sponsorship of events, public art andtactical urbanism projects (this approach uses short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions to catalyse long-term change in the city. It is a way of trialling improvements and changes to the public spaces and streets before investing into permanent upgrades). 

Sequencing of projects and initiatives is critically important to ensure every dollar spent is optimised.  Priority must be given to consolidating previous investment, ensuring an additive approach and recognising interdependencies. Refer to each identified project and initiative under the Key Moves for broad timing and key steps.

NPDC will continually review progress towards achieving the goals in the City Centre Strategy. Key targets have been identified for the five goals that seek to address the challenges and opportunities within the city centre. 

The targets are not intended to be an exhaustive list but seek to establish an appropriate range of representative measures across a wide range of activities. These targets relate to activities that NPDC controls or has a strong influence over, or that are not measured by others. It is expected they will provide insight into the change that is occurring over time, help inform decisions, and allow us to adapt our thinking and activities as required. In general, we will measure our targets every three years (this timeframe may vary depending on the type of measure, expected amount of change over time, and availability of information).