Draft Urban Enhancement Strategy 2025-2050
Tararua District Council partnered with Wayfinder Landscape Planning & Strategy to develop an Urban Enhancement Strategy—a shared vision to enhance public spaces and create thriving, welcoming town centres.
What is the Urban Enhancement Strategy?
The Urban Enhancement 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 Enhancement Strategy focuses on improving public spaces, ensuring our town centres are vibrant, safe, and well-connected as they grow.
The Urban Enhancement Strategy is a guide. Designed to steer the future of our town centres, it will provide direction and inspiration for anyone wishing to develop or enhance these spaces.
From council projects and community-led initiatives to major developers, the strategy serves as a reference document that highlights the needs and aspirations of our communities. While it doesn’t dictate specific actions or timelines, it ensures that anyone working on urban projects in Tararua has a clear understanding of what matters most to the people who live here.
This strategy:
- Identifies investment priorities for public spaces.
- Sets guidelines for amenities and beautification projects.
- Encourages cohesive development involving developers, the council, and the community.
- Promotes sustainability by integrating public feedback and future growth projections.
This initiative is made possible through Better Off Funding.
Feedback period closed on Friday 27 June
Thank you to everyone who took the time to have their say — whether you made a submission, gave feedback online, or had a conversation with us in person. Community input helps shape our strategies and plans to reflect the values, needs, and expectations of those who live in, visit, or travel through our district.
We’ll review all the feedback received and consider any changes needed before presenting the final strategy to Council to be considered for adoption. We’ll update you when this happens.
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
Frequently Asked Questions
The Urban Enhancement Strategy aims to create a tool 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.
Feedback is open from 2 - 27 June 2025. More information on how to give feedback is available above.
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 Enhancement Strategy is expected to be adopted in June 2025, following community engagement 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 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 enhancement 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 Enhancement 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.