The engagement was hugely successful. Not only were we able to get vital insights to inform and refine our work programme and key plans, but we were able to unlock wider social and community outcomes.
Some of these outcomes included:
- The Te Akapuanga Kuki Airani Cook Island Hall, which we supported to reopen through hiring their hall for our engagement, is now used weekly for community events and activities.
- The night market activities we supported to encourage participation in our engagement, were so successful that the Porirua City Council has now launched a permanent monthly Pacific Night Market at the same hall we helped re-open.
- The approach we took was endorsed by community who asked that all agencies follow the format. To support this, we gifted the physical exhibition to Porirua City Council as community infrastructure so that it can be reskinned and used at their Pacific Night Market events as a vehicle for government, social service agencies and NGOs to use to engage with the eastern Porirua community. It has been reskinned multiple times since to support these engagements.
- The insights from the engagement were incorporated into the final draft of the Spatial Plan, which was approved by Kāinga Ora’s board November 2023.
- The Community Ambassador group established remains our primary channel for communicating with and engaging the community.
- Key insights have been incorporated into the Parks Landscape Plan (soon to be released to the community) and the Neighbourhood Master Plans. The approach we took, enabled us to get feedback on how we should approach the Outcomes Monitoring and Evaluation Framework research. From the feedback, we decided to bring on 5 community researchers to support us to get a baseline of community wellbeing through more in-depth questions, which was completed in March 2024, with participation from 1,200 community members. This level of engagement shows us that the community is committed to staying on this journey with us.
- We’ve also partnered with other agencies to see opportunities be unlocked from the community wellbeing insights. These include supporting community events, enabling more activities for youth, enabling more jobs to be available on the project through launching a cadetship programme, enabling more transitional and supported housing through working with Community Housing Providers to take over some of our homes for this purpose, working with a local NGO to understand key community safety improvements needed to incorporate further into our master planning, and working with NGOs and Ngāti Toa to increase affordability and access to key goods and services.
Engagement high-level insights
Summary of community feedback provided:
- Local identity – Local identity is key to the delivery of all spatial plan focus areas.
- Consider different cultures when developing and delivering work programmes
- Protect and restore spaces valued by the community
- Spaces should incorporate culture, promote social connectivity and celebrate diversity.
- The environment – Project and community action are key to delivering environmental outcomes.
- Young people want greater environmental outcomes through the project
- Outdoor spaces should include more play options, cultural amenities and community gardens.
- Resilient and sustainable development – This is a priority especially waste, waterway restoration and stormwater issues.
- Local people should gain jobs and skills through the project
- Cultural and community input will bring indigenous knowledge to help achieve outcomes.
- Better connections – Safety upgrades are vital for connections; lighting, road design, traffic calming, pedestrian crossings and accessibility.
- More frequent and reliable public transportation
- Greater access to alternative modes of transport – more community-led support will encourage more use of these modes.
- Vibrant centres – This is the greatest opportunity to unlock aspirations and build social connection and cohesion.
- More local, cultural and food shops
- More arts, community and cultural spaces
- Improved and increased social services and community amenities
- More jobs and skills pathways
- More markets and events.
- Neighbourhoods – The community wants to be and have good neighbours.
- More interventions to address safety issues, disruptive behaviour and noise concerns
- Increase community participation in environmental improvements and stewardship
- Increase local amenities and businesses for greater social connections.
- Homes – Greater affordability and pathways to home ownership.
- More homes to be safe, warm and dry
- Different types of houses to cater for larger families, larger multicultural living and those experiencing accessibility issues
- Options for those experiencing homelessness.
Community wellbeing
The community provided extensive feedback about community wellbeing and how it can be supported. It was acknowledged that Te Rā Nui can't deliver community wellbeing initiatives on it's own and that strong cross-agency and community collaboration was needed to enable this. Some emerging themes that came from community insights included:
- Community-led change supported by government and social service agencies
- More local offerings for youth including pathways to opportunities and youth spaces
- Addressing homelessness in the community through working across agencies to enable more transitional and supported housing options
- Affordability and access to food, wifi, power, goods and services
- Community events and opportunities for connection
- Safety improvements and maintenance
- Jobs, skills and entrepreneurship pathways.
Evidence of satisfaction
We received hundreds of messages, emails, and phone calls congratulating us on this engagement with community telling us, “You heard us!”
One of the biggest confirmations of this success was seeing the over 50 social media posts from community members celebrating the engagement and feeling their own sense of ownership for its success. Government and social service agencies also shared how valuable the data was for helping them shape their plans for eastern Porirua.
Innovation and uniqueness
Our hope for this engagement is that it provides a new way of taking community on the journey of change in their communities, through visual story telling making key changes very clear while enabling input.
The strength of this engagement was in the innovative story-telling approach, coupled with in-person and in-depth talanoa sessions to dive deeper into insights and ensure voices could be heard that often don’t have the opportunity due to language barriers. By embracing and celebrating culture through talanoa led by community leaders in 15 languages, everyone could participate.
The notes from these talanoa were shared within 2 weeks of the engagement, helping these communities have a deeper understanding of what’s important to them, while supporting our project and other agencies to leverage insights to ensure the community voice could be embedded across work programmes.
Often community engagement is done in silos and this approach helped break these down to get a better outcome for the community and for the government and social service agencies that serve them.
Further information about this project
For more information about this project, see:
Locals invited to have their say on the future of eastern Porirua – kaingaora.govt.nz