Improving our town centres

Our goal 

To create vibrant, diverse and thriving town centres that are easily accessible, reflect the unique flavour of each town’s centre, attract visitors and investment, and have more people working locally in higher paid jobs. The Expressway is here and we need to make sure our two largest town centres, Paraparaumu and Waikanae, remain attractive places for people to do business, invest and spend time.

Our plan 

Since 2014 we’ve been working with the community, tāngata whenua, local businesses and others to develop a vision and plan for improving our town centres. In the 2015-35 long term plan we adopted an ‘achievable’ programme for the development of these two town centres. The programme was to see projects totalling $41 million carried out over 14 years. Early projects, such as the Kapiti Road shared pathway and Kapiti Lights upgrade have been completed or underway.

We’ve now reviewed our plans in light of our new financial strategy to reduce debt, and with the benefit of having seen changes in travel patterns around the District since the Expressway opened. To keep within our financial limits, we’ve reduced the overall budget and we’re spreading the programme over a longer timeframe. The total budget allocated to the programme, from 2015 to 2033, is now $32m.

In the coming years we’ll make incremental improvements and carry out town centre projects as work happens around making SH1 into a local road, and our Stride n Ride initiatives are carried out.

Keeping up to date

Talk to your community board, follow our Facebook page and e-newsletter Everything Kāpiti,  or email the team.

• Paraparaumu town centre
  Your town centre is the heart of your community Our plans to improve the Paraparaumu town centre focus around making it the heart of the District and the primary focus for retail,...
• Waikanae town centre
  Your town centre is the heart of your community... Our long-term vision for the Waikanae town centre is that it has an arts and cultural focus, and that it meets the needs of your...
• Monthly Activity Status dates
  This timeline outlines key milestones for our town centres improvements. Month Activity Status July - November 2018 Concept designs and planning for Mahara Place...
• Project reports
  This page provides links to key reports related to our town centre improvements projects. Please note - some of these are historic documents and no longer reflect the current...
• Other town centre improvements
  Our town centres improvements projects are initially focusing on Waikanae and Paraparaumu town centres. Other work has already been done in most of our District’s other town...