26 Feb

WCC Annual Plan (2016/2017)

Below are speaking notes to the submission I made to Council on 24 February 2016

“Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback and in a timely fashion so that it may be considered before finalising the Annual Plan for 2016/17

The Annual Plan was presented online for feedback. It looked very professional, lots of special web effects, cool graphics. When I peeled back the layers, what I found was;

  • There is a lot of information to go through –too much and; not integrated and joined up for communities to get a sense of what is planned for their community
  • Information about significant projects (such as Medium Density Housing in areas of Newlands, Island Bay and Khandallah) was not easily found and in fact one could say was conveniently ‘hidden’ under other subject matter  – Strengthening our Town Centres (Tawa and Karori)
  • Information was not current- relating to 15/16 not 16/17
  • Projects (which are a big part of discretionary spend) There was no simple integrated list of key projects city wide
  • There were no clear performance indicators both past and present. If you don’t effectively measure and monitor, how do you drive organisational effectiveness, know where to improve,  what to stop, what to continue, what else is required?

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01 Feb

Medium Density Housing – Khandallah

Below is the submission I made on Council’sproposal for medium density housing In Khandallah. While I support intensification as a concept, I considered the Council’s proposal to be considerably lacking. My submission was made in the context of Khandallah but it is as equally applicable to the other suburbs (Newlands, Karori and Island Bay) also impacted.

7 December 2015

Introduction

This submission highlights my key concerns around the;

  • robustness of Council’s policy towards medium density housing and the Khandallah suburban centre and its ability to implement
  • weaknesses in the approach taken by Council, i.e. processes, that will not deliver the outcomes intended
  • lack of effective engagement by Council with the Community (people) and the Council’s lack of understanding of the peoples’ needs and how they want to interact within their community

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