Council listens regarding Kindergarten Street Reserve
Council approved the reclassification of the Kindergarten Reserve for the pensioner housing project and has developed a new plan for the reserve site that provides for both units and open reserve, after reading written submissions and listening to submitter's presentations.
"Council listened to the Kindergarten Street Reserve submissions both for and against the proposal and we acknowledge the petition signed by a large number of people," said Council's Deputy Chief Executive Ben Smit. "We have come to a compromise that allows for six or seven units to be constructed and leaves a significant piece of open reserve intact for the community to use for recreation."
"This may also leave some funding to look for other areas to build or renovate units for our pensioner housing activity," continued Mr Smit.
The orientation of the units has not yet been decided on and this will be dictated to some extent by the stormwater and other Council services beneath the reserve. The plan would be to build a fence close to the existing footpath to provide separation between the tenants of the units, the reserve users and people using the walkway.
Council sees a number of benefits in the compromise. It allows for a significant amount of the reserve to continue to be used for recreation purposes, some of the existing trees growing where the units would be built would be removed which would minimise the significant Autumn leaf problem that many residents living over the road have brought to Council's attention, and importantly Council is able to continue to develop the area for the housing to benefit the ever increasing low cost housing needs of our older people.
"We will retain some of the trees on the Clyde Street side for the pleasure of reserve users and locals and we are very pleased that we can continue with our plans to partner with Waiariki Institute of Technology to provide practice building experience for our carpentry students and units at a reduced cost," concluded Mr Smit.
There are a still some steps to come, including finalising our agreement with Waiariki, employing a Licensed Building Practitioner to oversee the quality and regulatory requirements of the project and finalise the layout of the units on the newly scoped area.
Council still hopes to start construction in March next year. Ends: words: 384
Background (for information)
In May 2014, Council approved $950,000 from its Economic and Community Development Fund for the development of more housing for our older people. There were a multitude of options available for scoping and we looked at several. Our key goal was to create partnerships to achieve as much as possible with this funding while achieving a great outcome for our community.
Council we will be working with the Waiariki Institute of Technology using its Carpentry Trade Training Unit students to build the units on land we already manage/own. This means reduced building labour costs, no mark-up on materials and no land cost, which means we can build more units than originally identified in the initial proposal. A Licensed Building Practitioner will be employed to oversee the project to ensure quality and regulatory requirements are met.
Six or seven units will be constructed on Kindergarten Street Reserve following a change in status and a consultation period.
Council is excited by this community/public/private partnership that will deliver pensioner units for our aged at no financial cost to our community.
