News

Advocating for Tauranga and Western Bay’s long-term growth plans

1 March 2024

In recent months, the Chamber has been busy advocating for Tauranga and the Western Bay’s growing economy and workforce. The community has reached a point where doing nothing will compound the problems that local employers and our workforce are facing.

SmartGrowth 50-Year Growth Management Strategy

SmarthGrowth is the overarching growth planning forum for the Western Bay sub-region. It’s a joint planning partnership made up of local councils, central government, and iwi. In 2023, SmartGrowth sought public feedback on its draft 50-year growth plan for the Western Bay.

You can read the Chamber’s full submission by clicking here.

In summary, the main points from our submission were:

SmarthGrowth provides a degree of long-term direction for businesses to plan their investments – e.g. locating in future growth areas, near residential areas for their workforce, and access to main transport corridors for logistics.
Transport and housing must be the main priorities. Recognise that more of our workforce will live in the more affordable Waikato region, commuting each day to Tauranga on State Highway 29.
Documenting aspirational goals is meaningless without a plan to implement. For example, SmartGrowth has goals to improve housing density, but communities in Mount Manganui pushed back against TCC’s proposed plan change 33 because it would be against the character of the Mount. Additionally, there are lofty goals of getting more people to use bikes and buses to commute to work and school, but it will not be achieved without an honest plan and political buy-in from communities.

Tauranga City Council’s (TCC) Long Term Plan 2024-2034

TCC’s Long Term Plan is the main document that sets the Council’s rates, fees and services for the next 10 years. In December 2023, the Chamber submitted on the draft plan – which you can click here to read our full submission.

In summary, the main points from our submission were:

The main priority of this plan needs to be finishing projects before starting new ones, and housing and transport.
Variable road pricing is too strongly unpopular for the Chamber to support. Employers are most concerned with the decisions that their employees will be forced to make. Having said that, we support proceeding to the next stage so we can have a more informed conversation on improving traffic flows.
Creating a new industrial rate, separate from the commercial rate – once explained, people generally understand the logic, but few industrial ratepayers are aware of it. If you proceed, roll it out in a slower transitional capacity.
If you sell the CBD carparking buildings, make it conditional on keeping the same number of public carparks.
Regarding the stadium at Wharepai Domain, it makes sense to complete further assessments as those assets reach their end of life, but including stadium capex in this long-term plan is not a priority.
Council’s $4b capex projects mean more disruption for businesses. Ensure you and contractors keep promises, be upfront with realistic timeframes so businesses can properly prepare, and let’s explore how the Chamber can provide support to businesses to improve their resilience.
Council shouldn’t in-house services where a competitive supplier market exists. It was mentioned Council is in-sourcing maintenance contracts for parks and transport. Instead, work with suppliers and instil better performance monitoring and incentives if there have been issues in the past.
The levels of service KPIs for economic development should better reflect the deliverables by Council’s contracted partners.
Finalise this Long Term Plan before the election in July. The developers and civil construction crews need long-term direction and continuity to deliver the necessary infrastructure. The incoming elected council can amend the LTP whenever it chooses, including reviewing previous decisions. The city needs to keep moving.