Heritage Fund

We have some special and unique places on the Kāpiti Coast, and landowners can get financial help to protect them for future generations.

Our Heritage Fund helps landowners take care of and protect heritage features like historic buildings, ecological and geological sites, significant trees or wāhi tapu. Whether it’s protecting native bush, restoring a heritage building or doing educational research, your project may be eligible.

2024/25 Recipients

See more about our 2024/25 recipients


Criteria and guidelines

Review the criteria and guidelines document [PDF 198 KB] before applying, to check if your project could be eligible.


Apply

You can apply online or by downloading our form [PDF 195 KB].

Questions

Email our Environment and Ecological Services team if you have any questions about this fund, or call us.


Timeline

Date

Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Opening of applications.

Monday, 4 August 2025

Closing of Heritage Fund Grant applications.

August/early September

Site visits, if required.

Tuesday, 16 September 2025

Funding decision made by Grants subcommittee.

Thursday 18 September 2025

All applicants notified of outcome.

June 2026 (exact date TBC)

Opening of 2026/27 applications

 


Previous recipients for the 2024/25 funding round

There were nine recipients for the 2024/25 funding round.

Paraparaumu – $5,000

To carry out planting and weed control as part of a wider native forest restoration project as part of the Tararua Forest Park, Whareroa Farm to Queen Elizabeth Park ecological corridor.

Te Horo – $5,000

For pest animal and plant control, planting and building a boardwalk through a forest and wetland area on a property that contains an ecological site and part of Makahuri Pā, which is a wāhi tapu.

Te Horo – $5,000

For a weed survey and pest plant control in a regionally critically endangered totara and matai remnant forest.

Te Horo – $4,992

To assist the natural expansion of the 1.2 hectare Waitawa wetland through to neighbouring gullies by fencing and planting the slopes surrounding the wetland with native grasses and plants.

Waikanae Beach – $3,625

To repair windows of the heritage-listed Methodist Church, built in 1911 at Hautere Cross then relocated to Waikanae Beach in 1959.

Ōtaki – $3,300

To assist with the purchase of traps, bait, and track maintenance for animal pest control in an ecological site.

Ōtaki – $3,000

For tree planting and blackberry control as part of a heritage management project to restore Haruātai Forest, a regionally significant swamp forest remnant now used as an outdoor classroom.

Nikau Valley – $2,500

For assisting with blackberry control in a buffer zone between Paraparaumu Scenic Reserve and Nikau Valley Reserve.

Paraparaumu – $1,958

For ongoing animal pest control and to help with monitoring costs for lizards. The property contains a number of regionally rare and threatened species.


Following is a list of previous funding recipients and projects.

Recipient
Project
Amount Year

94 Huia Road, Waikanae
Ecological site K063

To establish a QEII Trust covenant on a bush block, and fencing and planting an adjacent, currently grazed paddock to include within the covenant. $5,000 2021/22

303 Reikorangi Road, Waikanae

This project involves retiring streams and wet areas of the farm property and replacing them with native plants. $5,000 2021/22

268 Maungakotukutuku Road, Paraparaumu

To assist with fencing streams and wetlands on the property, and to carry out riparian planting plus weed and pest controls. $5,000 2021/22

7 Morrison Road, Te Horo
Ecological site K056

To assist with the cost of rabbit proof fence materials. $3,000 2021/22

990 State Highway 1, Te Horo
Ecological site K037

To assist with creating a destination to be known as The Kilns at Te Horo, which will create and sustain a unique visitor destination centred around the kilns. $4,500 2021/22

5 Akatarawa Road, Waikanae

To assist with the cost of the repainting of St Andrew’s Anglican Church and Hall in Reikorangi. $5,000 2021/22

331 Valley Road, Paraparaumu
Ecological site K098

For animal pest control on the property which contains the Kotukutuku Ecological Restoration Project. $3,450.31 2021/22

84 Te Hapua Road, Te Horo
Ecological site K056

To remove exotic pest trees, and install native plants and plant guards. $2,072.79 2021/22

176 Te Hapua Road, Te Horo
Ecological site K055

To install native plants and plant guards, plus animal pest and weed control. $2,978.00 2021/22

95 Panorama Road, Paraparaumu
Ecological site K095

For animal pest control. $520 2021/22
20 Mahara Place, Waikanae For funding to research and produce a pamphlet and map detailing the Field Family and artist Frances Hodgins. $1,548.90 2021/22
Waterfall Road Bush
118 Waterfall Rd, Paraparaumu
Funding of trap network maintenance
Landowners of the 17.3 hectares heritage bush-remnant site have received financial support to protect and restore its native biodiversity, including native plant, insect, lizard and bird populations.
2020/21
Haruātai Forest heritage management
State Highway 1, Ōtaki
Planting more trees and controlling pest plants and animals
This heritage management project will control pest plants and animals in Haruātai Forest, the second biggest swamp forest remnant in the district after Ngā Manu–Jacks Bush. The remnant is a taonga of local iwi, and is used as an outdoor classroom by Te Wānanga o Raukawa students.
2020/21

Ecological Site K017 (125ha bush block on the edge of Tararua Forest Park)
1400 Ōtaki Gorge Road, Ōtaki

Extending and maintaining an existing 3km network of bait stations and traps to control possums, stoats and rats
Funding will assist the control of pest animals and weeds on a 125-hectare bush block on the edge of Tararua Forest Park. This block is a valuable part of an evolving ‘mountains to the sea’ ecological corridor that has the potential to link the wilderness of the Tararua Range to Kāpiti Island via the Ōtaki River, providing a safe habitat for many native bird species.
2020/21

Te Hapua wetlands site (ecological site KO57)
234 Te Hapua Road, Te Horo

Restoration planting to buffer the wetland
The previous owners of 234 Te Hapua Road spent more than a decade restoring the 4.1 hectares of wetland on their property. The new owners are not only continuing restoration but also increasing the wetland’s size by retiring adjacent land from grazing and planting native wetland species. Protected by a QEII Trust covenant, the wetland is part of the regionally significant swamp and is considered one of the best and largest remaining examples on the Kāpiti Coast. 
2020/21

Outlying wetland site in Te Hapua network
7 Morrison Road, Te Horo

Tree removal, and native plants to be planted this winter
The landowner is removing invasive plants and planting native trees to restore the margins of the Te Hapua wetland. This will enhance the 0.5-hectare wetland and provide 1 hectare of complementary dune forest habitat for native plants and animals.
2020/21

Kahikatea – key indigenous tree in urban areas
34 Leinster Avenue, Raumati South

Protecting kahikatea by felling Australian blackwood
The funding will be used to save a large, protected kahikatea tree which is being threatened by a faster growing and larger Australian blackwood. 
2020/21

Privately owned native bush area (ecological site KO61)
58 Hadfield Road, Peka Peka

Fencing and native plants
Landowners of a site near the Waikanae Scenic Reserve will use the funds to reposition stock fences to provide protective buffer-planting around the forest’s edges, and control weeds and pest animals such as rabbits, possums, stoats and rats.
2020/21
Telegraph Hotel
284 Rangiuru Road, Ōtaki
Roof renewal
Since opening in 1872, the Telegraph Hotel in Ōtaki has been an important social hub and business in the town for more than 125 years, and is a listed heritage property in the Kāpiti Coast District Plan. The owners have undertaken a major refurbishment since 2011 and will use the funds to re-roof the building in time for its 150th anniversary in 2022.
2020/21

Notable trees
121 Amohia Street, Paraparaumu

Removal of Phoenix palm threatening magnolia, and of deadwood limb on rimu.
The property owner has received funding for an arborist to protect two notable trees on their property – a rimu and magnolia (Magnolia grandifolia).
2020/21

13ha of native bush (ecological site K078)
313 Reikorangi Road, Waikanae

Fencing of wetland area in steep gully
The owners of the farm at 313 Reikorangi Road, Waikanae, are conservationists who have a 13-hectare area of bush on their property protected by QEII Trust covenant, which forms part of the Waikanae River catchment. Their funded project entails fencing and planting a wetland in a steep gully to protect the native trees and plants there.

2020/21
Dactylanthus taylorii/Pua ō te Reinga restoration site 74 Nga Manu Reserve Road, Waikanae Production and installation of large information signs
The Ngā Manu Trust has received support from the Heritage Fund to produce and install large information signs that will detail the biology and ecology of a little-known and threatened native plant the plant, Dactylanthus taylorii/Pua ō te Reinga.​
2020/21

For further details, see the Grants allocation subcommittee (Heritage Fund) Agenda for 11 March 2021.

Related links