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Attachment 1 |
Chair's report - April 2017 |
I write this after what has felt like a very busy couple of months. Just last week we had our first ‘What’s Happening Wainuiomata’ meeting in conjunction with several other key organisations in our town. Love Wainuiomata, Sportsville and the Community Hub gave some fantastic presentations, and there is certainly a lot going on in our community which will have positive outcomes over time.
One of the main focuses of the evening, and indeed of the next month for us as a board and the other organisations that work with Council, is the Annual Plan. Submissions on this are due by April 28th, and I would encourage participation in this. Sportsville in particular is one of the bigger items on the agenda for Wainuiomata. Council have been quite clear that community support for this to happen is vital. Making submissions on this will help show Council the level of local support, and help make it a reality.
There are also several other city wide items in the annual plan, such as the future of the wharves in Petone and Eastbourne areas. If you did not receive one with your Hutt News last week there are copies available in the library or online at www.huttcity.govt.nz/annualplan
A common theme of the evening was the purchase of the mall by Progressive Enterprises. There is a strong community desire to see any development of this space to happen with the community in mind, and making sure it works for us as well as the owners in the long run. Council, as well as myself personally, have made a commitment to work with them as closely as we can to do our best to achieve this.
It is also worthy of note that the Local Alcohol Plan is currently up for review. The main changes here are geared towards limiting the number of off-licence premises that are able to operate in particular areas. Wainuiomata as a whole is listed here, and Council would like to hear from residents with evidence to support their submissions.
On March 22nd there was a great meeting held by the Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (WREMO) which went over the response to the November 14 earthquake, and discussed some changes that are being made to the response plan and resourcing within Wainuiomata. I would encourage anyone that is interested to attend a Community Disaster Response Day being held by WREMO on April 8th. Please see attached flyer for details.
In recent times I have also received correspondence from the Wainuiomata Historical Society requesting name changes to some reserves within Wainuiomata. These are outside of Hutt City Council jurisdiction (and therefore ours) so have been referred to Greater Wellington Regional Council and the Department of Conservation.
As a part of the resource consent process for the old landfill there was a condition that the Community Board be advised of any dust or smell pollution that occurs after it was capped. Given it has been four years without incident, and the nature of the capping makes it highly unlikely that this will occur in future, I gave my support to council to have this condition removed which will reduce compliance costs to council over the long term.