Finding ways to handle city growth without passing debt on to ratepayers is one of the goals of an upcoming study trip to Australia organised by SmartGrowth.

Tauranga city is still grappling with almost $400 million of debt incurred in the last growth spurt, and with further growth expected over the next decade as 30,000 people move into Eastern Papamoa, the region's local government is looking for better solutions.

A delegation led by SmartGrowth are hoping to learn from their upcoming trip to Australia. Photo: File.

The SmartGrowth trip to Sydney and the Gold Coast is a collaboration by regional council, the city and district councils in response to the demands of rapid population growth in the Western Bay of Plenty.

In 2001, 135 people per week were moving to the Western Bay, placing added pressure on the infrastructure in both urban and rural areas.

SmartGrowth implementation manager Duncan Tindal says: 'We recognise that debt is a key issue for Tauranga and the Western Bay.

'What we're looking at is ways the infrastructure that supports development can be provided in ways that minimises the debt burden.”

They will be looking at elements of financing as well.

'Potentially, it doesn't need to be the public sector that finances and provides all of the infrastructure as we see it.

'We are looking at opportunities and models where developers have been more involved in the provision of some of that infrastructure.”

Alternative infrastructure funding is one of SmartGrowth's strategies, and is also being taken up by the government's Productivity Commission in its report on the affordability of housing.

'What we want to do is understand where this has worked previously, where they haven't worked and where the challenges are,” adds Duncan.

The delegation of mostly planning staff from the three councils will be meeting people from both state and local government in NSW and Queensland.

They hope to be shown examples of recent development on a comparative scale to what is being considered for growth areas in the Western Bay sub-region.

'They've been through big growth in the same way Tauranga has and is expecting to,” says Duncan.

'We're meeting people who helped write the policies and helped broker the developments across different levels of government - in the same way SmartGrowth operates with regional government and works with the government nationally.”

The face-to-face meetings with various tiers of Australian government and developers means they will also be able to learn about potential challenges and unforeseen outcomes, he adds.

'There is very little that replaces those conversations and the ability to see the concepts that people are talking about and see them first hand,” he adds.

'Particularly the unintended consequences, because people don't tend to talk about those or write about them, but you see them as you are walking around.

'By doing that it means we are ahead of it and learning from other peoples' experience rather than learning from our own.”

The delegation is also planning to look at how people will live in the new town, and what alternatives there are for sustainable, medium-density urban developments to the ubiquitous three-bedroom detached houses.

'I don't think we'll have much time to write post cards,” adds Duncan.

As well as Duncan, the tour party includes an NZ Transport Agency rep and delegates from the three Smartgrowth funding partners; BOP Regional Council, Tauranga City Council and Western Bay of Plenty District Council.

The respective councils are paying their own staff costs.