OUR PROJECTS QUEENSTOWN TOWN CENTRE MASTERPLAN

CLIENT: Queenstown Lakes District Council
DATE: 2017 - 2018
STATUS: Directly used to help unlock around $300 million of Central Government investment

The Queenstown Masterplan came about when a long period of under-investment in the town’s infrastructure inevitably collided with an ongoing period of unprecedented and sustained population growth. This combined with exponential growth in the tourism industry saw Queenstown reach a point where its network performance and customer experience began to fail.

In 2017, Queenstown was under enormous pressure. On a normal day, the Wakatipu Ward had a population of just over 27,000 people. However, during a peak day in high season, Queenstown would become the eighth largest centre in New Zealand. Looking ahead to 2050, it could be the size Tauranga is today.

This resulted in consistent problems around congestion, access, 'liveability', loss of heritage and culture and reduced quality of experience in the Town Centre.

WHAT DID WE DO?

Rationale worked closely with QLDC to lead a multi-disciplinary team to identify and address a number of growth-related challenges arising in the Queenstown Town Centre. The team developed a Masterplan that, for the first time, considered a complex set of projects in an integrated and spatially-based way. This way of working has had a positive influence on the way QLDC approaches its work to plan for future growth.

Rationale directed the process and navigated the team through the Better Business Case (BBC) framework to develop a Masterplan Programme Business Case. The use of the Treasury approved BBC approach was crucial in that it provided a recognised investment framework and allowed the team to ensure the project was evidence driven. This was an innovative approach for QLDC, resulting in a steep change in how large, complex projects of this nature are approached.

Urban Design experts LandLAB worked within the project team to develop a spatial framework that sat alongside the Masterplan. This spatial thinking provided a new way of understanding a complex range of infrastructural requirements for Queenstown and allowed the project team to easily communicate what the Masterplan was trying to achieve to a wide audience.

Community and stakeholder engagement were integral to the success of the Masterplan. With such a complex and integrated project, it became very clear in the early stages that a simple, effective and innovative communications approach was going to be a make or break for the project. Importantly, the community has not only been brought along for the ride, but their input has been incorporated into the journey and shaped the process from start to finish.