News

Council seeking community vision for Richmond South and Hope

6 April 2022

Share your vision for Richmond South

Tasman District Council wants to hear from landowners, neighbouring communities, and potential future residents of Richmond South about their vision for the area.

Tasman District Council Environmental Policy Manager Barry Johnson said Council is encouraging people to be part of the process to reimagine Richmond South as a place where more people can live, work, and spend time.

“Our population is growing. People are coming here for the great lifestyle, to take up work opportunities or start a new venture, and to return home.

“As a council, it’s our job to work with communities, iwi, and stakeholders to plan for quality sustainable housing and infrastructure for all who want to live here.

“In October last year, we launched the Reimagining Richmond South project to create a structure plan for the area south of Richmond towards Hope. We had a productive first round of community engagement and are now seeking further creative ideas and feedback on early concepts to help shape the community vision.

“This community vision will be used by the team to create the preferred structure plan option that will be consulted on in a few months from now,” said Mr Johnson.

The structure plan will be a guide for how Richmond South could develop, looking at things like housing type and density, areas for business, how people will get around, where’s best for community spaces, as well as the natural environment.

This is an opportunity to carefully plan the Richmond South area and provide much needed housing. The final structure plan will be considered by councillors and if Council agrees, it will go through a formal plan change process.

Council Planner and Reimagining Richmond South Project Lead Jeremy Butler is grateful to all who shared their views last year and encourages everyone to get involved as the project moves forward.

“In the first round of engagement, we received feedback from around 250 members of the public through events at Hope Hall, letters, phone calls, and online. We’ve taken what we’ve learned and combined it with known constraints to create four early concepts for Richmond South growth.

“We were hoping to hold more face-to-face community meetings to talk further in person about the future for Richmond South but due to COVID-19 this is not possible. Instead, over April we’re sharing early concepts through live webinars, our website, and booklets in the TDC service centres. We’re then seeking your feedback through online community visioning sessions, workshops, and our website feedback tools. You can also phone us and request a call back from a planner.

“We want to better understand perspectives on how Richmond and/or Hope should grow so we can develop a vision for the area and refine early ideas. Visit our website to register for an upcoming online event,” said Mr Butler.

Richmond South was identified as a potential residential and employment growth area in the adopted Future Development Strategy 2019 (FDS) – a strategy which looks at how growth in the Nelson and Tasman regions will be accommodated over the next 30 years.