Shaping our region's future: Interview with Future Development Strategy Lead - Parvati Rotherham
WRLC Communications Advisor Freda Wells recently interviewed Parvati Rotherham, Project Lead for the Future Development Strategy, to find out more about what it takes to co-ordinate a pan-regional strategy. Parvati shares her key learnings, her hopes for the future of our region, and her great advice and tips to anyone else embarking on similar work!
Parvati Rotherham
Project Lead - Future Development Strategy
Q: Congratulations on both the successful endorsement of the Future Development Strategy (FDS) by the Wellington Regional Leadership Committee (WRLC), and for the WRLC New Zealand Planning Institute Award!
In your own words, why does the FDS matter for our region, and what were your responsibilities as the FDS Project Lead?
The FDS is important for our region as it provides us with a collective vision for how we want to grow. We are expecting around 200,000 people to come live in this region over the next 30 years and we need to supply 99,000 homes and all the associated infrastructure to support this growth, and do it in a sustainable way. Doing this collaboratively will be more cost effective for us and reflect the reality that our people don’t move only within the city they live in to work and play.
As the Project Lead for the Future Development Strategy, my role was to plan, coordinate and deliver the work. This involved working closely with a core team made of local and central government planning staff (who had their day jobs too!) to do background research, scenario testing, engagement with key stakeholders and creation of the Strategy. We also engaged specialist contractors for parts of the process. This FDS involved the greatest number of local councils, central government partners, iwi and external stakeholders working together for spatial planning compared to any other region in the country.
Q: It’s a huge process! What have been the highlights, the key challenges, and key learnings for you from delivering the FDS?
Key Challenges: Balancing everyone’s views – national, regional and local level. Local government elections resulting in having to spend extra time upskilling new mayors, time it took to complete the Housing and Business Assessment. Lack of information about infrastructure.
Key Learnings: Having a dedicated team who do this mahi would help the process be more effective next time, this team could be do all the research and prep work in intervening years between each FDS review or redo. Our iwi partners voice is invaluable and having more support for their involvement would add value.
Looking back at young Parvati, were there clues you’d end up in this line of work?
There were not really any clues back then, I was really interested in animals, science and nature. My Intermediate teacher gave me the responsibility of looking after our school aviary, so you could say that I’ve always been organised and had a strong sense of responsibility which helped me get through this project. I fell into town planning after I finished my Master of Environmental Science and got a role at Auckland Council and rest is history.
The year is 2054 (your kids are now adults!) You’re visiting this region for the first time since 2024, and it’s clear that the FDS objectives have been successfully delivered. What has changed? How can you tell it’s been successful?
One of the key reasons I took on this role was that the thought that my daughter will be the same age as I was when I started the project in 30 years time (the timeframe for the strategy). It is really important to me that we invest in creating a future that our children will be proud of.
In 2054, I’ve come back to find a region that is well connected by an enhanced rail system where you don’t need to worry about the timetable you can get from Lower Hutt to Kapiti without waiting 30mins in Wellington for the next train.
Our cities and regions unique character is celebrated in the design of public spaces, green infrastructure is the norm, there is vibrancy and opportunities to connect in the third realm.
Also we have made clear decisions on how we live with the impacts of climate change especially with flooding. Children can safely walk and cycle to school and we have over 75% of kids doing so!
Q: (Great answers!) What are the top three pieces of advice you’d give to anyone leading a pan-regional initiative like the FDS?
- Start by getting the right people in the room together and forging strong relationships with them
- Spend a good amount of time upfront on wide stakeholder engagement before getting into the project itself.
- Keep a cool head under pressure!
Q: What will be key to successfully implementing the FDS?
The key to successfully implementing the FDS will be through continued collaboration. Local and Central central government do have challenges ahead with funding constraints, however together we can be more efficient for example by completing our Housing and Business Assessment (HBA) together, instead of individually, we have collectively saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. The WRLC is the ultimate vehicle for this. The FDS is our guiding light we need to come back to keep us on track.
Q: The FDS talks about ‘well-functioning urban environments’ – where have you experienced (can be in NZ or global) what you considered a great example of this?
There is a long-winded definition in the National Policy Statement about a well functioning urban environment which includes, having a variety of homes, enabling Māori to express their cultural norms, land for business, good accessibility for people to work, live and play, reduce our emissions and be resilient to climate change. No city is perfect but in New Zealand we are taking steps to get us to a Well-Functioning Urban Environment.
Find out more about the Future Development Strategy here.
Connect with Parvati on linkedin.
Some cool things I saw on my recent travels:
Above: Seoul – Cheonggyecheon – this was once a highway, which has been removed revealing the old stream than ran below, resulting in a natural respite in the middle of a densely populated city.
Below: Also injecting fun into their cities there were plenty of interesting things to take pictures with – like this shopping centre mascot!
