Year one

In year one of our Long-term Plan 2021–41, the ever-changing impacts of COVID-19 on both our community and Council. We’ve played a leadership role, advocating for our community’s best interests as major government changes unfolded in water reform, resource management, housing intensification, and more. Despite these challenges we’ve stuck to our plan and invested for resilience and growth.

Our performance

You can get a picture of what we did in 2021/22, including our financial performance, in our Performance Reports and Annual Report 2021/22. We’ve highlighted some activities below.

Infrastructure

Water services

Improving the safety and resilience of our drinking water supply.
Progressing upgrades to our wastewater treatment plants in Waikanae and Ōtaki.
Progressing 32 major stormwater priority projects.
Ten stormwater asset renewals and upgrades in construction phase, two in procurement stage, and 20 in design and consenting phase.
We’ve cleaned 17.3 kilometres of open drains, and completed districtwide stormwater asset investigations.
Completed a 1.5-kilometre trunk water main upgrade to boost supply to the Ōtaki central business district.
Installed a new bore head and raw water pipeline in Hautere–Te Horo to improve drinking water safety.

Access and transport

Paraparaumu Transport Hub design completed and preparation works commenced.
We’ve sealed 12.2 kilometres of local roads, and built 1.7 kilometres of footpaths.

Community services

Parks and open spaces

We have 49 playgrounds in neighbourhoods across Kāpiti, building community connectedness and keeping our tamariki (children) active. Each year we renew and upgrade a selection of these from across the district. In 2021/22 we completed the renewal of the Mazengarb Reserve hockey turf. We also consulted on, designed and planned:

Lorna Irene playground replacement
Shotover Grove playground replacement
Milne Drive playground replacement.

Construction of these playgrounds will begin in the 2022/23 financial year. Read more at Open spaces.

Recreation and leisure

Our pools and libraries are popular places to be! In 2021/22 we had a total of 223,110 pool visits across our three pools, broken down as follows:

Coastlands Aquatics Centre – 146,006
Ōtaki Pool – 37,439
Waikanae Pool – 39,665.

Our libraries issued 500,138 library books, including 29,100 ebooks.

Community facilities

In 2021/22 we continued to invest for our community in our district’s growth and resilience. This included:

beginning the Mahara Gallery rebuild project
exploring options for a permanent Waikanae Library and Service Centre replacement
opening new public toilets in Waikanae.

Partnerships

Tangata whenua

Council agreed to appoint one representative from each of our three iwi mana whenua partners to our Strategy and Operations Committee, Appeals Hearing Committee, and the Grants Allocation Subcommittee, with full voting rights from 1 July 2022. This will support a mutually mana-enhancing partnership that honours the Crown’s Treaty obligations.

Read more about our partnership at Tangata whenua.

Governance

We completed our representation review, resulting in new arrangements from October 2022 that include additional councillors for the Waikanae and Paraparaumu wards, a change in the ratio of ward to districtwide councillors from 5:5 to 7:3, and another community board.

Economic development

Our Major Events Fund supported the following events to help attract visitors, stimulate tourism, and support our local economy and social wellbeing.

Kāpiti Women's Triathlon
Kāpiti Half Marathon
Xterra Wellington
Kāpiti Food Fair
Ōtaki Kite Festival
Māoriland Film Festival
Matariki Ramaroa Lights Arts Festival.

We also delivered the Kāpiti Arts Trail, and adopted our:

Destination Management Plan
Workforce Plan.

Read more about these at Supporting economic development.

Planning and regulatory services

Growth

To help address our district’s need for more than 15,000 extra dwellings to house 32,000 new residents, and the infrastructure and environmental protection needed to support this growth over the next 30 years, we adopted these strategies in 2021/22:

Growth Strategy – Te Tupu Pai
Open Space Strategy – Toitū Kāpiti
Housing Strategy
Sustainable Transport Strategy.

You can find out more about these at Council strategies.

Consultation

We received 19,429 email and website submissions on:

your building consent experience
traffic bylaw
your resource consent experience
local alcohol policy
Our Growth Strategy – Te Tupu Pai
growing and enhancing our open spaces
District Plan Change 2: Intensification
open space zoning of Council-owned sites
modification of indigenous vegetation
reclassification of Arawhata Rd, Tutanekai St and Ventor Dr
Maclean Park refresh
Stormwater Management Framework
affordable housing and our Housing Strategy
coastal hazards
Representation Review
Annual Plan 2022/23.

Regulatory

Our regulatory team:

processed 1,185 building consents for building work with an estimated value of $243 million
issued 1,193 building consents
received 390 applications and issued 268 decisions.
responded to a total of 3,240 requests for service, the most related to wandering dogs (535), dog noise complaints (386), and dogs found (332)
processed 46 new Food Act registrations, and renewed 223
issued alcohol license applications for 63 premises, and 101 special licenses
carried out 63 health inspections and 205 trade waste inspections.

Corporate

Customer service

Despite a challenging year with COVID-19 and significant weather events, in 2021/22 our Council team kept our essential services operating and responded to:

21,078 service requests
25,897 front counter customers
47,445 customer calls.

Residents' opinion surveys

Residents who took part in our residents’ opinion surveys said they were satisfied with the quality of our:

drinking water
libraries
pools
access to beaches
public toilets

We know more work is needed on roading, street lighting, and emergency management preparedness.

Climate change and emergency management

In 2021/22 we continued preparing our communities for the impacts of climate change, reduced the amount of our greenhouse gases, and responded to emergency events. We’ve done a lot of this work under our sustainability and resilience activities.

Responding to a changing climate

Adopted our Climate Emergency Action Framework.
Advanced work to explore climate adaption options through our Takutai Kāpiti project.
Progressed design work for seawall projects in Raumati and Paekākāriki.

Read more about our work around Climate change.

Reducing our carbon emissions

Invested in electric vehicles.
Transitioned most streetlights to energy-efficient LED lights.
Supported Energise Ōtaki’s solar farm to help provide power and resilience to the town’s wastewater treatment plant.

Read more about our Emissions reduction work.

Responding to emergency management events

In 2021/22 we responded to more emergency management events than in any other year. We fully activated and staffed our Emergency Operations Centre, which forms part of the local civil defence response, for:

COVID-19 August 2021
Flood event 6–7 December 2021
Waikanae tornado 9 June 2022 (partial activation)
Rising Waikanae River levels and tornadoes 12 June 2022
Reikorangi Road closure 13–14 June 2022.

As well as the 126 hours spent on these events, our staff also undertook 245 hours in training, to make sure we're always prepared for event activations.