Wood Street Revitalisation Project
BACKGROUND
In September 2019 the Mangawhai Business Association approached Kaipara District Council, to address issues relating to high levels of congestion, traffic issues, and pedestrian safety around Wood Street.
Since then, the Council has been collaborating with the Mangawhai Business Association and community, testing layout and design to create a vibrant, unique, warm and people-friendly place. The current interim design has been in place since December 2020. Using temporary materials has allowed features to be tweaked and changed throughout the testing period, informed by community and business feedback, vehicle data, and regular monitoring.
This year (2023/2024) the Kaipara District Council project team have continued to meet with individual landowners, business operators, impacted residents and the Mangawhai Business Association to clarify the final technical layout, identify public and private boundary lines and make sure that due consideration is given to concerns or opportunities presented such as upgrading of premises/loading zones/deliveries. The permanent design for Wood Street has now been finalised, and the final concept design for the off-street area (down Fagan place) has been confirmed.
WOOD STREET PERMANENT DESIGN
Work to construct the permanent layout is planned to start in March 2025. Select the image below to see reasons and rationale behind each of the design choices.
OFF-STREET AREA CONCEPT DESIGN
Following a community workshop in December 2023 where workshop attendees brainstormed configurations for carparking, playspace, loading zones, and public toilets, a concept design was published and the project team invited feedback from the community.
Key items of the concept design for this area
- The playground location shifted, improving connectivity to the shopping area and joining up the carparking spaces for a better flow
- This new configuration allowed for an increase in carparks, including extra provisions for longer vehicles, dedicated parent and child and accessible parking spaces.
- Two large loading zones were allocated at the back of the shops and in the old fire station site
- Close to 80 people gave feedback on the concept design and the project team updated the design in response.
Parts of the design that were refined following community feedback
- The addition of seven carparks were incorporated on Fagan Place (west side of the new playground location), including another mobility park. Important note: the medical centre is planning to shift to Mangawhai Village area and construction of their building is planned to start in approximately one – two month’s time.
- Space has been provisioned for a future toilet block near to the playground (not included in this design) and the back of the shops.
- A concept for playground/playspace area has been created, incorporating feedback to include shade sails, creating a fenced, well-designed, accessible space.
- Feedback informs final concept design for off-street area (15 March 2024)
- Off-street area final concept design document (PDF 12MB)
_____________________
Other information (OLD):
- Permanent upgrade of Wood Street to start next year (8 May 2023)
- Community co-design workshop Sat 18 July 2020 (workshop notes PDF)
- Community co-design workshop Thurs 30 July 2020 (workshop notes PDF)
- Community co-design workshop Thurs 20 August 2020 (workshop notes PDF)
- Community collaboration leads Wood Street revitalisation
- Wood Street revitalisation project fund announcement
- Wood Street Innovating Streets application
- Wood Street revitalisation project - some common questions
- Wood Street revitalisation project - changes to interim design, published in the Mangawhai Focus 21 June (1MB PDF)
The interim design is currently in place and tested from December 2020.
Flythrough of interim design (updated Dec 2020, please note there have been further tweaks and updates to the trial in place)
First Wood Street summer trial 2019/2020
We facilitated community design sessions to generate ideas, mapped out some temporary solutions and developed an implementation plan for 16 December 2019 to 10 February 2020. In addition, technical officers carried out a site visit to assess infrastructure, safety, and operational issues.
First Wood Street summer trial (Dec 2019-Feb 2020):