Community ideas sought for Parklands entrance revamp

May 16th, 2014
[by David Armstrong]

Parklands School is preparing to rejuvenate its High Street entrance space, and they want all residents to share their ideas on how it could be made into a more inviting place.

The project has been discussed by interested parties for about a year, and now it's time for action, says board of trustees chair, Marion Edwin.

The space is the southern section of the Motueka museum forecourt, bordered by the Patisserie Royale. That land is owned by the school, while the rest of the space across to Muses Cafe is owned by Tasman District Council.

Two workshop sessions will be held next week at which the project organisers will outline the history and proposed use of the space, and then get creative people engaged in brainstorming new ideas.

The area to be rejuvenated has for many years been a rather dark corner with a foreboding iron fence across it leading to the school gate.

Being one of the few open civic spaces in central Motueka, the school wants to make it "feel welcoming, a place that we would want to pause in, to enjoy and to explore", Marion says.

The process of community input is called "place making", a concept promoted by David Engwitcht, an Australian expert in making public spaces more vibrant, who has inspired similar projects in Nelson and other New Zealand towns.

In summary, his approach is: "Place making is like home making. Home making makes a house into a home. Place making turns a space into a place".

The key groups with a direct interest in the project - the school, TDC, museum board, Muses Cafe, police, Our Town Motueka and Vision Motueka - have all submitted what they would like to see, as well as what they would not want to have changed. Now it's time for community input.

The first meeting will be held in the school's Aniwaniwa room next Tuesday, May 20th, from 5.30pm to 7.30pm. This meeting will introduce the project goals of the project, the idea of place making, and the history of the immediate area and objects in it.

The second meeting, at the same venue, will be on Saturday from 1.30pm to 5.30pm, to start the creative and brainstorming process, gathering ideas for how the area could be used and what could be built or installed there.

Initially it was hoped that the whole rectangle fronting the entrance, the museum and Muses would be available for the revamp, the museum trust board were not happy, saying at a recent meeting that their views were not being adequately considered.

In any case, Tasman District Council said it was better not to plan any changes to the wider area as the future of the museum in this space was subject to decisions about what will be done to bring the building up to building standards for earthquakes.

However new ideas for the school entrance section are expected to include how the two parts of the total rectangle will tie in together, Marion says.

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