River Recharge in use from Saturday

• Waikanae River continued to drop into the weekend and at 9am Saturday morning the river recharge scheme was started

• We have been using it since to top up the river so we can continue to supply treated river water to the Waikanae Paraparaumu and Raumati communities (the bore water is added below the treatment plant so it doesn’t enter supply).

• This is the second time we’ve used the river Recharge Scheme

• Because we have introduced water meters, which have successfully reduced consumption, and built the River Recharge Scheme using our borefield, Kāpiti is in a good position to weather projected dry spells

• We haven’t needed to impose water restrictions unlike many parts of the country.

• If the dry spell continues, we have still have our bores as a backup. This gives us surety that many other parts of the country don’t have

• As a direct result of water metering, we took over a billion litres less water from the Waikanae River last year compared to past years

• Reducing consumption has meant we can defer capital spending on upgrading water infrastructure

• We’d like everyone to keep up the good work of conserving water. This is what makes a difference and reduces what we need to take from the river or borefield.

Celebrate your neighbours this weekend and win festival tickets!

• It’s time to befriend your neighbours and get to know those in your neighbourhood this weekend, March 19/20. Neighbours’ Day Aotearoa is an opportunity to celebrate community spirit, meet the people we live alongside and create healthy, resilient communities.

• Take a photo during the weekend of you doing something cool with your neighbour and post it on the Sustainable Communities Facebook page #neighboursday, or email vanessa.crowe@kapiticoast.govt.nz, to win tickets to the Coastella Music Festival on 26 March at Southward Car Museum (tickets kindly donated by the festival organisers). Voting on all entries runs from 22-24 March, so be sure to check in and ‘like’ your favourites!

• You can also help Kāpiti in the ‘Neighbours’ Day Aotearoa City & Town of the Year’ competition by registering your Neighbours’ Day activity on the national website (neighboursday.org.nz). The town and city with the highest number of activities registered for Neighbours’ Day per capita will win the titles.

• Over forty different neighbourhoods in Kāpiti have registered to have an ‘Over the fence cuppa’ but if you haven’t registered, you can still do something – this could be as simple as popping next door to say ‘hi’!
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Town Centres and Connectors Transformation Project

• Work to transform the Waikanae and Paraparaumu town centres, and the parts of State Highway 1 (SH1) within the two towns, is moving into the design and construction phases.

• Council spent 2014 and 2015 listening to feedback from the community, coming up with concepts and then securing funding through its long term plan.

• Now a design and construction team led by Brian Perry Civil has been engaged as we start to roll out the 14-year programme of improvements to the two town centres.

• We’ve spent the start of 2016 looking at what’s changed since last year and opportunities to maximise the benefits of private development. As a result we’ve come up with the revised order in which to undertake the individual projects within each town centres, supported by the Council (see attached newsletter).

Residents Survey

• Kāpiti residents are being asked their opinion on the service the council provides.

• Key Research Ltd will be carrying out a telephone survey of 400 residents this month

• The annual survey is designed to get feedback from the community and identify any gaps or perceived performance issues in service delivery

• To ensure the survey gathers the views of a representative sample of residents, people will be asked where they live, their gender and age and then a series of questions on council services. The interview takes at least 15 minutes.

• Once processed, the results will be presented to the Council

• The results will be available on the Council website for the public to see

LGNZ Rural and Provincial meeting

• Mayor attended the LGNZ Rural and Provincial meeting, bringing together Mayors and chief executives from provincial areas

• An important opportunity to meet with three Government Ministers (Sam Lotu-Iiga, Nick Smith and Nathan Guy)

• Particular message the Ministers underlined was the need for efficiency and financial performance from local authorities

The Public Good of Swimming Pools

• Mayor was bemused to see some social media discussion recently and an advertisement, questioning the fact that the cost of swimmers using the Coastlands Aquatic Centre is subsidised by the Council

• Council believes the pools are a public good

• We have three in Kāpiti – in Paraparaumu, Waikanae and Ōtaki – and each is important to the local residents.
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• It would be totally wrong, to ask those people to pay the full cost of having our pools. This isn’t a case for “user pays”.

• The value of a swimming pool is in teaching children (and adults) how to swim, for their water safety. It is about providing opportunities for aqua fitness to improve the health of all ages and abilities and for swimming clubs and water polo teams. And it is about providing fun recreation for all our people.

• It is rare to find a public swimming pool anywhere that breaks even or makes a profit. Neither should that necessarily be the goal.

• It’s like our parks, our walkways and cycleways and our sports fields. … our libraries .. our children’s playgrounds

• We provide them for our community because we want people to enjoy life and leisure to the full

• Like our swimming pools, they are there for the public good.

Work starts on shared cycleway/walkway on Mazengarb Road

• Work has begun on the first stage of a new shared path on Mazengarb Road that will connect to the new shared cycleway beside the Kāpiti Expressway

• First of a network of off-road links being developed by the council under the Stride N’ Ride programme

• $5million Stride N’ Ride package will deliver over 30 kilometres of off-road shared paths and on-road cycleways between Paekākāriki and Waikanae that connects the Expressway cycleway to busy rail stations, schools and town centres.
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• The programme is supported by investment from the Government’s Urban Cycleways Fund and will focus on creating linkages through the arterial routes of Poplar Avenue, Raumati Road, Kapiti Road, Mazengarb, Otaihanga and Te Moana Roads

• The extensive network of shared walkways and cycleways will increase the appeal of living in Kāpiti and contribute to our already-numerous lifestyle benefits

• The Mazengarb shared path will be constructed in three stages over the next two months at a cost of $170,000.00. The first stage will be from the intersection of Realm Drive to the M2PP Expressway site works

• Stage two will go from the M2PP Expressway site works to Makarini Street and stage three will be outside Paraparaumu College.

• Work will involve removing the existing footpaths and laying a wider, 2.5m footpath that can be comfortably shared by pedestrians and cyclists

ends

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