Emotional scenes as Tararua council votes to expand for population growth

Tararua District Council has voted to progress rezoning plans for its main centres.

The move comes with expectations that growth in the district will outpace available residential and industrial land in the next 25 years.

At an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday the council unanimously support progressing changes to the district plan to allow for the rezoning and addition of residential and industrial land across Dannevirke, Woodville, Pahīatua, Eketāhuna and Oringi.

Leading the meeting, deputy mayor Sharon Wards fought off tears of joy while endorsing the changes.

Wards told councillors she would do her best to conceal celebratory songs, signalling both her excitement for the proposal and pride in work of committees and councillors' contribution.

"We knew we needed these tools in our toolkit to pull this together," said Wards, who was looking forward to hearing community feedback on expanding the district.

Planning services manager Aimee Charmley said Plan Change A would respond to the "district-wide land shortfall" predicted by 2053, when Tararua would require anywhere between 46ha to 115ha of additional zoned land.

Residential land was "effectively at capacity" across Dannevirke, Woodville, Pahīatua and Eketāhuna, and the completion of Te Ahu a Turanga highway in 2025 was just one factor driving district growth.

Charmley said the council's decision to open plans up for public consultation was timely and it helped to solidify Tararua's aspirations within the wider region.

In terms of the additional residential land required, independent analysis by Business and Economic Research LTD (BERL) identified Dannevirke as needing 16ha to 48ha, Woodville 12ha to 26ha, Pahīatua 12ha to 27ha, and Eketāhuna an extra 6ha to 14ha.

Daniel Bately from BERL said due to on-going legislative changes and the provided exemption, there was just a "small window of opportunity" to finalise decisions.

The plan also presented two additional frameworks to clarify consenting processes for developers and allow council to have strong controls over the quality and integration of new developments.

Last year, the minister for housing Chris Bishop announced a Plan Stop policy which was implemented and finalised last August through the Resource Management Amendment Act 2025.

As a result, councils were prohibited from notifying plan changes until December 2027, and work previously pursued by Tararua council on district growth was suspended. However, following an exemption request, the minister approved Tararua to continue the mahi.

Having prioritised such growth since joining the council and following this journey for years, councillor Peter Johns said Wednesday was a momentous day for Tararua.

The total spent on preparing Plan Change A for public notification was about $26,000, but work had come in under budget and it was funded through existing plan change review schemes.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.