Work is going to begin on preparing a 30-year blueprint for the future growth of the Te Papa peninsula, known as the Te Papa Spatial Framework.

Te Papa is the historical name of the peninsula in which Tauranga developed, meaning ‘the flat area'. The peninsula includes the suburbs of Tauranga, Tauranga South, Gate Pa, Parkvale/Merivale and Greerton which covers an area of 1100 hectares.

Tauranga City Council will be working with the community and key stakeholders over the next 12 months in preparing the blueprint.

TCC's general manager for strategy and growth, Christine Jones says the Te Papa peninsula was selected for this project as it contains a number of key community, social and infrastructure assets.

'It has significant employment hubs and is well serviced by public transport services which will improve in frequency over time. The peninsula also has a comparatively lower risk to the natural hazards that our coastal areas face.

'In planning for managing the long term growth of our city over time, the Te Papa peninsula provides an opportunity to provide more housing choice in close proximity to employment, services, schools, public transport corridors and in a mostly hazard resilient area,” says Christine.

The project's main focus will be on the development of a plan supporting public investment in amenities, infrastructure, and other initiatives to enable and deliver sustainable growth as the change occurs over time.

Over the coming months, council and its partners will be undertaking community engagement on the project, with a focus on: informing the community about the project, understanding the important values and attributes associated with Te Papa from a community and stakeholder perspective, and asking how the community wish to be engaged going forward on the project.

'The Te Papa project has been developed as part of council's wider response to the significant growth challenge that the city is experiencing,” says Christine.

'The number of people living in Tauranga has doubled in the last 30 years. We are still growing, and are expected to have another 50,000 people living in Tauranga over the next 30 years.

'It is intended that the project will be a blueprint for the future development of the Te Papa peninsula over the next 30 years. It will inform changes to the city plan currently being developed, drive public investment in amenities, infrastructure and initiatives through the long term plan, and align private investment and development in the area over time.”

In managing growth over time, Christine says they need to consider how the community could change and what their needs may be in the future.

'As part of this we need to consider what infrastructure, community services and facilities will be required for these future populations as well as how we can recognise cultural values and what we can do to improve environmental outcomes.

'Along-side the Te Papa Spatial Framework we are currently investigation how city planning rules can be changed to support more housing choice.

'To understand all of these questions and as we investigate all of these areas, this project team will work with the community to understand the important values of the area, and provide opportunity to input on what future growth looks like along the peninsula.

'We will shortly be engaging with the community to understand and respond to the needs and priorities of current and future communities.”

Christine says through this project they are hoping to develop a 30-year blueprint for managing growth along the Te Papa peninsula.

'As we grow, the blueprint will inform how land use could change, identify implementation projects we need to undertake to support these communities and ensure we are delivering projects that efficiently meet the needs of future populations.

'The vision is that this will become a living document that is reviewed over time which identifies implementation projects which can guide the council's long term plan investment priorities and entice central government funding, services and support.”