Thank you to everyone who recently shared views and ideas for the future of the area south of Richmond towards Hope, as part of our Reimagining Richmond South project. We appreciate your thoughtful feedback and creativity about how this area might grow to become a place where more people can live, work, and spend time.

Council collected feedback over a four-week period in April, building on what we learned from our first round of engagement late last year.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the recent round of engagement was online and over the phone. We held webinars, visioning sessions, workshops, and received detailed feedback via our website form.

When considering housing typologies, respondents generally saw a need affordable, well-designed terraced houses, low-rise apartments, and two-to-three storied houses that have access to quality shared spaces. There was also a focus on walkable communities, cycle links and public transport as ideas to help reduce carbon emissions and combat rising fuel costs.

We heard there’s broad consensus that productive land is highly important and needs to be carefully considered when planning for the growth of Richmond and Hope. Some participants said productive land is important in the area, while others felt that productive land is very important for the Tasman region but that productivity in the focus area is limited by existing fragmentation and cross-boundary effects. There were suggestions that in the future local produce could come from home gardens and intensive boutique production, with larger scale production on the Waimea Plains.

We’re looking forward to engaging on the more detailed next phase of this project later in the year and hoping to have in-person conversations with the wider community again.

This third round of engagement has been pushed back to allow time for direction from the new Future Development Strategy (FDS) to inform the possibilities for growth in the area. This responds to feedback received from members of the community.