The Strategy Story 2023
Join us as we plan for the future of the western Bay of Plenty, from 2023 - 2073.
Welcome
We’re in the draft stages of developing our new SmartGrowth Strategy 2023, which will set the direction for growth and investment in the Western Bay of Plenty.
The Strategy provides a 50-year direction for housing, employment, and people's wellbeing in the face of rapid and sustained long-term growth - while safeguarding what people value most about the sub-region.
It’s the most important plan for our sub-region – weaving together many documents to create a final ‘plan of plans’ - allowing us to take a unified approach to growth.
Here’s where you come in!
The draft SmartGrowth Strategy is now available for you to read. We would love to know what you think.
Consultation will be open during September - October, with a formal hearing process taking place in December. More details below:
Strategy Contents
In this collection of chapters we take a journey through the draft Strategy Story. This is a brief overview of what the Strategy contains, why we need it, and the parts where we most need your input. Take a look and let us know what you think.
- What is SmartGrowth?
- Context
- Visions, pillars and transformational shifts
- We're growing - challenges and opportunities
- Our growth scenario
- Our spatial plan
- Our Future Development Strategy
- Implementing the Plan
You can view the full Strategy document here:
What is SmartGrowth?
The SmartGrowth Strategy is an initiative between central and local government and tāngata whenua as part of the SmartGrowth partnership. The SmartGrowth partnership covers the western Bay of Plenty sub-region and is made up of Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Tauranga City Council, Western Bay of Plenty District Council, tāngata whenua and central government.
We provide a framework to manage growth in an integrated and collaborative way and address complex planning issues, especially matters that cross over council boundaries.
Te Whatu Ora (Health New Zealand) and Priority One are our implementation partners.
Context
SmartGrowth is in the process of updating its 2013 Strategy.
We're working on a Strategy that will consider how housing, infrastructure, transport, community development and the environment need to be looked at together to achieve effective growth in the western Bay of Plenty.
The Strategy is a continuation of the work we’ve been doing since the launch of the first Strategy in 2004. Here’s a look at the journey that we’ve been on, the many documents that have been woven into this plan, and how we’ve integrated partner, public and stakeholder feedback along the way:
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You can find out more about who we talked to and what we heard here .
We're growing
Growth is happening quickly. Here are some of the key links we want to foster as we grow. Click image to expand.
The sub-region has experienced a sustained period of rapid growth over the past 60 years due to its sought-after lifestyle, natural environment and economic opportunities. Today the population is around 220,000 and is projected to grow to 290,000 by 2052, and potentially to 400,000 in the next 50 years. The rapidly ageing population also has significant implications for housing, economy, and how services are delivered.
The sub-region has been significantly affected by the national housing crisis, with Tauranga City having some of the worst housing affordability in the country. There are significant financial pressures on those who are priced out of the housing market and are under-served by the wider housing system.
Here are some of the challenges and opportunities we face as we plan for the future of our sub-region. Click image to expand
The sub-region is one of the only areas in the country to have an identified housing and business land shortfall over a 30-year period. The sub-region continues to face significant challenges in enabling sufficient development capacity in the short, medium and long-term.
The infrastructure funding model is not fit-for-purpose, and this is particularly so for growth areas like ours, with a legacy of uncertainty and underinvestment.
Accommodating growth is a major and ongoing challenge given the constrained and sensitive environment, located alongside the harbour, estuaries, the coast and areas of highly productive horticultural land, and natural hazards. The resource management system is not fit for purpose, adding substantial uncertainty, cost and delay to planning and development.
The need to address this through a joined up approach by central and local government is urgent given the environmental, social, and economic cost of land and infrastructure not keeping pace with growth.
Arrow through the images below to find out more about our sub-region and its challenges:
Click the arrows to see more
Vision, Objectives and Transformational Shifts
The SmartGrowth partnership brings together the people and organisations that have a significant role in managing growth in the western bay. The Strategy's development and implementation rests on four key pillars:
The four well-beings
The Strategy itself is about so much more than infrastructure. It’s about shaping what we want our cities, towns and villages to look and feel like – connecting people with the places they live, work, learn, and play.
Our Strategy seeks to address four key community well-beings through the following vision and objectives below:
Vision and Objectives
Transformational shifts
The Strategy identifies six Transformational Shifts that will lead to the greatest improvement in community wellbeing outcomes, while achieving Strategy Objectives. These include:
1. Homes for everyone
Rent and housing prices are amongst the highest in the country and are escalating faster than other areas. Housing cost increases are creating financial stress for many households.
The challenge to address housing gaps is one of the most critical issues we’re facing. Everyone deserves to live in a safe, warm, dry home that they can afford.
Targeting actions across all agencies that will strengthen the segments of the housing system that are facing the most significant challenges.
Growth directives:
- A range of housing types, tenures and price points is provided within all growth areas and Māori land.
- Public housing supply is increased and aligns the typologies of new and existing housing stock to match the needs of the community.
- Proactively support the delivery of public and affordable housing in existing urban areas and growth areas.
- Provide land and infrastructure sufficient to address identified short, medium and long-term shortfalls in housing and business development capacity.
2. Marae as centres and opportunities for whenua Māori
Marae as cultural, social, and economic centres, activating the affordable development of housing on whenua Māori and opportunities for papakāinga (housing, education, social, hauora facilities).
This approach supports mana whenua practice and exercise of “ahi ka / ahikāroa” being the occupation of the whenua in a new and evolving context, strengthening communities in the face of change.
Growth Directives:
- Support and realise tāngata whenua aspirations for Māori land and papakāinga development in urban areas and in the rural environment.
- Improve access to collectively owned Māori assets in the region for benefit of iwi, hapū and whanau.
3. Emissions reduction through Connected Centres
A substantial shift towards reducing our emissions through Connected Centres including:
- Accessing local social and economic opportunities within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. This encourages strong local centres and connected neighbourhoods while reducing vehicle emissions.
- Increasing the number of dwellings by intensifying our existing urban and new growth areas. This is to maximise the land available for development and support a well-functioning multimodal transport system – i.e., walk, bike, drive or public transport.
- Provide frequent and reliable public transport and safe, connected cycle facilities within and between centres, supporting intensification areas and higher densities.
Growth Directives:
- Transport and land use planning are integrated to achieve the SmartGrowth live, learn, work and play vision and ‘15 minute’ neighbourhoods (local social and economic opportunities within a 15-minute walk or bike ride).
- The number of houses in existing urban areas is increased to a minimum of 30-50 dwellings per hectare over time, and new growth areas have a minimum of 30 dwellings per hectare over time.
- Frequent and reliable public transport and safe, connected cycle facilities is provided within and between centres.
4. Strong economic corridors linking the East and West to the city and the Port
A strong and productive economic, land use and multimodal transport corridor that links the western and eastern growth areas with the Tauranga City Centre and the Port of Tauranga. This includes the employment areas of the Port, City Centre, Tauriko and Rangiuru. The economic corridors should link with key growth areas so that jobs are provided close to where people live. This integrated corridor approach supports emissions reduction.
These economic corridors also provide important intra and inter-regional linkages into the Eastern Bay of Plenty, Rotorua and the Waikato. International connections for freight and tourism are provided through the Port and Airport.
Growth Directives:
- An efficient freight network is enabled to support movement to Port of Tauranga and contribute to local and wider economic wellbeing.
- Transport solutions are future proofed, adaptable, resilient and integrated with the system view.
Economic growth:
- Is integrated within sub-regional spatial planning.
- Supports the UFTI connected centres approach.
- Supports environmental protection and enhancement.
- Takes account of wider regional and Upper North Island economic plans.
5. Restore and enhance eco-systems for future generations
Ensuring what’s special about the western Bay of Plenty environment is restored and enhanced – the beaches, harbour, open spaces, native bush, wetlands and air. Development has placed unsustainable pressure on ecosystems, and we are seeing the negative impacts from this. Natural hazard resilience is needed along with understanding the impacts of climate change, including consideration of climate change adaptation.
Growth Directives:
- A full range of ecosystems in the western Bay of Plenty are maintained or restored to a healthy functioning state.
- Development avoids areas with important environmental, cultural and heritage values; or that are at risk from coastal erosion (including inner harbour erosion).
- Take a precautionary approach to development in areas identified as ‘go carefully’, consistent with national policy statements and the Regional Policy Statement.
- Coastal, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems are enhanced to improve carbon storage and resilience to climate change.
- Nature-based solutions and water sensitive urban design are prioritised and used in urban areas.
6. Radical change to the delivery, funding and financing model for growth
New ways of funding, financing and delivering development including growth-related infrastructure are urgently needed. Tauranga and the Western Bay have a significant infrastructure deficit and SmartGrowth cannot deliver on this Strategy without this. A coordinated and aligned approach for enabling housing, business and infrastructure to better meet the needs of the community is required.
Growth Directives:
- Funding and financing models, including public and private sector partnerships where appropriate, are established to support agreed priority infrastructure for urban growth.
- New and enhanced streamlined planning processes are provided to address regulatory barriers for infrastructure and development.
- Shared service models for social and community infrastructure capital and operation costs are explored.
Our Growth Scenario
This Strategy uses an envisioned population scenario of 400,000 people over the next 50 plus years. The population scenario is based on the high end of population forecasts and takes into account growth to date, and the context of where the western Bay of Plenty sits within the Upper North Island. While there is uncertainty as to when, how and at what rate the sub-region could reach this population, the Strategy provides for a settlement pattern that could accommodate this population if required. However, this is not a growth target.
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Connected Centres
A big part of the Strategy journey has been undertaking the Urban Form and Transport Initiative (UFTI), which was launched in 2020 to research how sustainable urban settlement can be achieved in the western Bay of Plenty. From UFTI came the delivery plan for a ‘Connected Centres’ vision for managing growth in the sub-region, through consideration and testing of different spatial scenarios. A 'Connected Centres' approach focusses on two core concepts - building up, instead of out, and improving transport access.
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You can find out more about the UFTI / Connected Centres programme, which forms the basis of our updated Strategy here:
Connected Centres
The transport components of the Connected Centres are four high frequency and dedicated public transport corridors linking key centres for work, learning and play. Dedicated walking and cycling paths enable safe and easy access, along with freight priority areas to support access to the Port of Tauranga and enable movement of goods around the harbour.
The aim is to intensify current urban areas across the board, achieved through a multimodal transport system to ensure existing and future communities are connected by frequent public transport services along prioritised public transport corridors. New communities are developed in the east, west and north of the sub-region. These communities have higher densities, excellent public transport options and are based around high quality urban amenity to support live, learn, work and play lifestyle.
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Our Spatial Plan
This section of the Strategy sets out the spatial approach for the sub-region. It recognises te taiao (the environment), and identifies areas for growth, development and improvement including housing, transport, and infrastructure. Each spatial layer explores the challenges and identifies the preferred future growth direction.
Future Development Strategy
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The purpose of the Future Development Strategy (FDS) is to show the areas for development over the next 30 years and the infrastructure needed to support it.
An FDS helps local authorities set the high-level vision for accommodating urban growth over the long-term and identifies strategic priorities to inform other development-related decisions, such as district plan zoning and related plan changes and priority outcomes in long-term plans and infrastructure strategies.
The spatial scenario underpinning the FDS is Connected Centres. The FDS has been informed by the Spatial Plan, including the “No-Go” and “Go Carefully” constraints on development.
Housing and business assessment
It is estimated that between 37,000 and 43,000 new homes will need to be built over the next 30 years within the western Bay of Plenty to meet housing demand, comprising a mix of detached and attached dwellings. Tauranga City will require another 30,000 to 34,000 new houses and Western Bay of Plenty District another 7,000 to 9,000 new houses for its future population.
Housing supply insufficiency. Click image to expand
As indicated in the table above, a housing supply insufficiency has been identified for the sub-region in the short, medium and long-term (next 30 years), which reflects the challenges for intensification, and the delay in being able to bring new greenfield development areas to market due to significant planning and infrastructure hurdles.
The FDS is informed by the SmartGrowth Housing and Business Capacity Assessment (HBA) 2022: www.smartgrowthbop.org.nz/categories/housing .
There is an existing housing shortage in Tauranga estimated to be between 4,300 - 5,300 homes, which has been factored into the housing allocations.
In order to support business development, the HBA identifies that a further 300 to 400 hectares of greenfield land is also required for business land uses within the sub-region over the next 30 years.
The diagram below illustrates the lead-in times required for greenfield development before there are homes or businesses on the ground. This highlights the importance of planning early.
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Residential growth allocation for the next 30 years. Click image to expand
Connected Centres development strategy
As mentioned in earlier sections, the FDS is underpinned by the Connected Centres programme. The table to the right outlines the proposed dwelling allocations over the next 30 years to support the Connected Centres programme. These allocations have been informed by the HBA and Long-Term Plans. The allocations cover the period 2024 to 2054.
These allocations are estimates based on the best information that is available. There may be variances in what can be delivered on the ground following any future structure planning and natural hazard or other development constraint identification. There are wide range of factors that affect whether or not development can be delivered, some of these are outside the control of the partners.
Further investigations are required to confirm several of the future growth areas including infrastructure requirements, development capacity and planning assessments, creating some uncertainty and risk to delivery.
Key growth areas for Connected Centres over the next 30 years:
Western corridor
- Tuariko West, Keenan Road, Tauriko Business Estate
Eastern corridor
- Te Puke, Pāpāmoa, Wairakei, Te Tumu, Rangiuru, Eastern Centre
Northern corridor
- Ōmokoroa, Katikati
Central corridor
- Central Te Papa, Ōtūmoetai, Mt Maunganui - Arataki/Bayfair
Residential growth allocation beyond 30 years. Click image to expand
Residential growth allocation beyond 30 years
The Connected Centres programme also provides for an envisioned scenario of potential growth areas for the period beyond 30 years:
Business employment land. Click image to expand
Business employment land 9
The sub-regional demand for business land over the next 30 years (2024-2054) based on current employment densities and assuming business as usual is: 10
Development infrastructure
The FDS identifies enabling infrastructure to support development including the following critical infrastructure.
For the full table with all of the growth-related infrastructure please see Appendix 1 of the draft Strategy document. The table below is a summary of that information.
Use the arrow on the right to tab through the tables of Critical Enabling Infrastructure.
Responsive planning
The Connected Centres settlement pattern needs to be agile enough to respond to change. There are many factors that influence growth and the timing of development. This includes migration rates, economic cycles and unforeseen events. In addition, the timing of development is affected by regulation, infrastructure and funding.
For this reason, it is important that the settlement pattern is responsive to changes that could occur. This includes the need to increase intensification or bring development areas forward if there is a shortfall or if particular growth areas don’t occur in the timeframes anticipated.
SmartGrowth monitors development annually through the Development Trends report. The FDS is reviewed every three years, with a full update every six years, to ensure that necessary changes are made. The implementation plan is also required to be updated annually.
Future Development Strategy - Staging map
Key:
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The staging timeframes shown on this map are based on when development will commence in the area. Detail around development in each greenfield area is available in the tables and text in the Future Development Strategy section.
The future development areas show are indicative only. Detailed information for individual areas is available in the respective District or City Plan (as applicable) or will be developed through future planning processes.
Western Bay of Plenty housing
This map illustrates the main housing initiatives over the next 30 years for the sub-region.
Marae centres and Māori Land Development Focus Areas
Key
Click to expand image.
Implementing the plan
An Implementation Plan has been put together to set out the details of priority actions over three years that are required to give effect to the Strategy, including assigning funding and delivery, roles and responsibilities, and timeframes. This is a separate document to the Strategy, and the Implementation plan is:
- not subject to the consultation and engagement requirements under the Local Government Act, and
- does not have the effect of a Future Development Strategy when Councils are preparing or changing Resource Management Act planning documents.
Implementation and funding the plan
The SmartGrowth partners will prepare an Implementation and Funding Plan for the whole Strategy, including the Future Development Strategy. The Implementation and Funding Plan will set out the details of priority actions over three years that are required to give effect to the Strategy including assigning roles and responsibilities and timing. This will occur in collaboration with SmartGrowth Partners and stakeholders, with timing that is aligned closely with the planning cycles of SmartGrowth Partners.
The National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) requires that a separate Implementation Plan be prepared for the Future Development Strategy (FDS).
Funding and Financing
The sub-region faces significant funding challenges in order to enable sufficient development capacity in the short, medium and long term. The ability to fund priority projects is limited to the current tools available to councils, namely debt, rates, cost efficiencies and user fees and charges (including development contributions).
A critical issue for SmartGrowth is the need to find enduring funding solutions set within a framework of delivering well-functioning urban environments. The SmartGrowth partners need a funding framework to operate within, along with commitment from all partners. The need for this is urgent given the environmental, social, and economic cost of infrastructure not keeping pace with growth.
Resource Management System
Plan making, consenting and permitting processes create significant delay and cost to delivery of development capacity. Recent legislative reforms are endeavouring to address this.
A new resource management system will be implemented during the life of the Strategy and presents an opportunity to improve the way development is regulated and controlled, providing greater certainty and achieving improved wellbeing outcomes. This may also lead to organisational changes to support delivery of the new outcomes-based system.
Partners will ensure that implementation through consenting and permitting strongly supports the priority outcomes in the Strategy.
Partnership and Collaboration
SmartGrowth provides a collaborative leadership approach to the management of key issues facing the western Bay of Plenty.
Working together from one agreed Strategy allows for greater efficiencies and provides certainty to all partners and the community that we are collaborating to effectively manage growth.
Current structure of SmartGrowth. Click image to expand.
Monitoring and Review
There will always be uncertainties and changes in our operating environment. This includes changes in political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors that influence the Strategy.
Monitoring and review will be important to ensure that the Strategy adapts to any new initiatives and changes that will occur.
The Strategy will be reviewed every 10 years or earlier if circumstances change substantially.
A Future Development Strategy must be prepared every six years. It will be reviewed every three years to determine whether any updates are required. This will occur in alignment with long-term plan cycles.
The Implementation Plan will be reviewed annually and updated to respond to emerging challenges and changes. This will occur in collaboration between SmartGrowth Partners and stakeholders.
Priority Development Areas (PDAs) are identified to address the significant and urgent housing and business land needs within the SmartGrowth area. Monitored quarterly, PDAs seek to ensure close alignment, integration and coordination between respective key public sector agency programmes and actions.
SmartGrowth has Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are monitored from both UFTI and the Transport System Plan (TSP) and Housing System Plan (HSP). The Implementation Plan will review the KPIs to ensure they are fit for purpose and reflect Transformational Shifts.
Next steps
Consulting the public
We need your feedback on the draft Strategy by 5pm on Friday 20 October 2023. We'll use your feedback to help inform the final Strategy.
Hearing process
Hearings are underway from 4 - 6 December 2023. Please indicate in your feedback if you would like the opportunity to speak your feedback with the hearings panel.
Making changes
Once the hearing period has closed, we'll make any changes to the plan and run it past our partners for final sign-off.
Final strategy released
We expect to come back to you with the final SmartGrowth Strategy in mid-2024.
Don't forget to tell us what you think
Return to the 'Have your say' section above for all the links and information about how you can have your say on the draft Strategy.
More information
Find out more about SmartGrowth by visiting our website below.
If you have any questions about the Strategy or providing feedback, you can email us at haveyoursay@westernbay.govt.nz
