Draft Urban Design Strategy 2025-2050

Tararua District Council is partnering with Wayfinder Landscape Planning & Strategy to develop an Urban Design Strategy—a comprehensive plan to enhance public spaces and create thriving, welcoming town centres.

What is the Urban Design Strategy?

The Urban Design Strategy builds on the foundation set by the Urban Growth Strategy, which identified key growth areas, infrastructure needs, and housing challenges. While the Growth Strategy focuses on private land and infrastructure, the Urban Design Strategy focuses on improving public spaces, ensuring our town centres are vibrant, safe, and well-connected as they grow.

This strategy will:

  • Identify investment priorities for public spaces.
  • Set guidelines for amenities and beautification projects.
  • Encourage cohesive development involving developers, the council, and the community.
  • Promote sustainability by integrating public feedback and future growth projections.

Some of the key areas we’ll address include:

  • Vibrancy and character: Enhancing spaces with planting, street furniture, and art.
  • Safety and usability: Reviewing parking, pedestrian crossings, and lighting.
  • Connectivity: Improving walking, cycling, and other micromobility pathways.
  • Community involvement: Developing approaches for residents to lead and contribute.
  • Buildings: Addressing empty and earthquake-prone buildings.

This initiative is made possible through Better Off Funding, enabling us to plan for sustainable and thriving communities.

Your Input Matters

We’re committed to a community-driven approach, and your voice is essential to shaping this strategy. Join us at a drop-in session or workshop to share your thoughts on the future of our town centres:

Woodville
🗓️ 26th November
⏰ 3–6 PM
📍 Woodville Sports Centre (Supper Room)

Norsewood
🗓️ 2nd December
⏰ 5:30–6:30 PM
📍 Norsewood Memorial Hall

Dannevirke
🗓️ 3rd December
⏰ 3–6 PM
📍 The Hub (Conference Room)

At these sessions, you’ll learn about the initial phases of the strategy, contribute your ideas, and help shape recommendations for the future.

Learn More About the Urban Growth Strategy

The Urban Growth Strategy provides the foundation for managing Tararua’s future growth through housing, infrastructure, and planning. The Urban Design Strategy builds on this by enhancing public spaces to align with growth priorities.

👉 Learn more about the Urban Growth Strategy

FAQs

The Urban Design Strategy aims to create a plan for enhancing our town centre’s public spaces. It will guide future development, promote cohesive design, and identify investment opportunities to support community growth.

Each town's strategy will focus on improving public amenities, beautification, connectivity, and accessibility. Community input will help shape these plans, ensuring they align with each town’s unique needs.

The strategy will explore enhancements of public spaces like public amenities, green spaces, walking and cycling options, micro-mobility options, aiming to create vibrant and accessible town centres.

You can attend the public engagement sessions scheduled in your town.

Feedback gathered from the community will be used to set priorities and refine the strategy. Key themes and objectives from the community will be shared back for review.

The final Urban Design Strategy is expected to be adopted in May 2025, following a series of community consultations, draft reviews, and final amendments.

Once complete, the strategy can be used to support funding applications for projects that align with its goals, helping secure resources to bring planned improvements to life.

The strategy focuses on the main town centres in the Tararua District, including Dannevirke, Woodville, Norsewood, Pahiatua, and Eketāhuna.

The Growth Strategy examined the districts projected growth to identify requirements, address the challenges posed by increasing housing demand, and provide recommendations for meeting these demands efficiently and effectively. One key recommendation was to develop an urban design strategy that supports our aspirational growth goals. This strategy emphasizes the need to invest in our town centres, focusing on enhancing amenities and improving urban design.

The Urban Design Strategy is focused on a medium to long term outlook and is focused on outcomes that can be achieved alongside other projects that may be developer, community, or council funded projects.