Queenstown Town Centre Masterplan recognised by the IPWEA

Rationale and client Queenstown Lakes District Council have received an industry award for excellence from IPWEA New Zealand.

At the 13th Excellence Awards hosted by the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, Rationale and QLDC were presented with the award for Excellence in Strategic Planning. They received the award jointly for their work on the development of the Queenstown Town Centre Masterplan.

Rationale Managing Director, Edward Guy was delighted to see the hard work done by both QLDC and Rationale acknowledged with this award. “The development of the Masterplan has been a huge piece of work with significant implications for the future of Queenstown. We’re very proud of the work we’ve done to support and partner with QLDC and it’s great to see the project team come away with this award.”

“The successful approval of the Masterplan in June as part of QLDC’s Long Term Plan, signals an investment of $327M over the next 35 years. That this level of investment was approved unanimously by Council, with broad community support, speaks volumes to the degree of evidenced based planning and stakeholder engagement integral to this project from its inception,” said Mr Guy.

QLDC General Manager Property & Infrastructure, Peter Hansby said the combined teams truly deserved the judges’ recognition as an ‘impressive process with extensive stakeholder engagement.’

“The Masterplan was built on partnerships with agencies, stakeholders and the community. QLDC and Rationale worked collaboratively to bring together a highly capable team of stakeholders and service providers to analyse, understand and work together with the community to address the Town Centre’s challenges,” said Mr Hansby.

Entries into the Excellence in Strategic Planning category had to demonstrate excellence in providing clear strategic direction in the progression of public works. Strategies could be in any area related to public works, including infrastructure strategies, asset management and the development of capital works projects.

QLDC Mayor Jim Boult said the award reflected the commitment in the district to making Queenstown a great place to live and work. “This is a significant programme of work that is a big part of this Council’s bold Ten Year Plan. Industry recognition such as this demonstrates how hard the team has worked to get this right for our community. I would like to personally offer my thanks and congratulations to the QLDC and Rationale project teams,” said Mayor Boult.

Rationale developed the project Establishment Report which was informed through a range of workshops with stakeholders, elected members and the community. Once the project was approved by Council, Rationale provided strategic direction whilst facilitating workshops and community engagement sessions, leading the development of ILMs and Business Cases for the four key workstreams. These included:

Public and Passenger Transport
Parking
Town Centre Arterial Routes (Inner Links)
Project Connect (later delivered outside of the Masterplan scope)

Rationale also supported the development of a Spatial Framework for the Town Centre, a document that defined the proposed developments for the area and pulled the detailed Masterplan Story into one place.

Through numerous workshops, weekly project and planning meetings and frequent interactions, Rationale ensured project team partners could actively contribute to the programme development. The project team also utilised regular briefings and reviews with the Town Centre Advisory Group, elected members, the Transport Governance Group and QLDC executive team to test, refine and adapt the proposed masterplan components.

The 13th IPWEA NZ Excellence Awards were presented on 22 June 2018, the final evening of the IPWEA NZ Conference in Rotorua.

BACK