Te āhua o ā mātou mahi How we operate

We have three ‘levers’ for implementing our mahi across Tāmaki Makaurau:

The public good investment lever, the commercial lever, and the placemaking lever.

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We have a vision

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Our mission is to create amazing places. We’re dedicated to delivering a Tāmaki Makaurau that’s made up of strong, thriving neighbourhoods.

We love expertise

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As part of the Auckland Council whanau, we’re guided by expertise such as the Auckland Plan, local board plans, town centre plans and economic development strategies. Our work is based on deep research and extensive feedback.

We’re place-led

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We know that each of our neighbourhoods is unique, and that their identity, attributes and aspirations should be supported to thrive. This attitude leads our thinking in everything we do, from engagement to design.

We don’t work alone

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So far as we’re concerned, working with others will always beat working alone. Collaboration with local communities, Auckland Council, mana whenua, the private sector and the like means better results for everyone. Just as Tāmaki Makaurau is made up of various neighbourhoods, each neighbourhood should evolve with the help of various friends.

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A focus on quality design

We work with the city’s best urban planners, architects and designers to create thriving town centres where people want to work and play.

This means:

  • Ensuring our designs align with council plans and what the community wants.
  • Regularly talking to stakeholders and the community to ensure our projects reflect the character and needs of the neighbourhood.
  • Creating environmentally-friendly developments that incorporate public transport, roads and public spaces for all to enjoy.

All our urban regeneration projects need to reflect the people, character and needs of the area, which is why placemaking is crucial to our work.

Placemaking is a process that fosters the creation of vital, successful places. The kind of places where people feel a strong relationship with their communities and a commitment to make things better.

Our placemaking practice has been developed over the last decade or so, initially for spaces like the city centre waterfront, but now across the wider Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland region.

Through placemaking, the people of a place play a strong cooperative role in the building of their public places. It’s an inclusive approach which can benefit all outcomes – social, commercial and everything in between.

The Eke Panuku approach to placemaking

Our commitment to Māori is outlined in the Auckland Plan 2050 and is part of our commitment to the council. We work closely with our mana whenua partners to understand their priorities in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Mana whenua believe what is best for Māori is best ultimately best for everyone in Tāmaki Makaurau. They have shared their top five aspirations with Eke Panuku, and these can be summarised as:

  1. Governance: We’ll engage mana whenua in decision-making and inform them of our work.
  2. Culture: We’ll increase our practice of kaitiakitanga (by all) and ensure visibility of Māori identity and culture in our projects.
  3. Economic: We’ll create more commercial investment, procurement and engagement opportunities for Māori.
  4. Social: We’ll foster a sense of community and connectedness and create career pathways for rangatahi.
  5. Natural environment: We’re increasing the practice of kaitiakitanga (by all) across our work, ensuring significant improvements to te mauri o te taiao.
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Place-led thinking

All our urban regeneration projects need to reflect the people, character and needs of the area, which is why placemaking is crucial to our work.

Placemaking is a process that fosters the creation of vital, successful places. The kind of places where people feel a strong relationship with their communities and a commitment to make things better.

Our placemaking practice has been developed over the last decade or so, initially for spaces like the city centre waterfront, but now across the wider Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland region.

Through placemaking, the people of a place play a strong cooperative role in the building of their public places. It’s an inclusive approach which can benefit all outcomes – social, commercial and everything in between.

The Eke Panuku approach to placemaking

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Working with Māori

Our commitment to Māori is outlined in the Auckland Plan 2050 and is part of our commitment to the council. We work closely with our mana whenua partners to understand their priorities in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Mana whenua believe what is best for Māori is best ultimately best for everyone in Tāmaki Makaurau. They have shared their top five aspirations with Eke Panuku, and these can be summarised as:

  1. Governance: We’ll engage mana whenua in decision-making and inform them of our work.
  2. Culture: We’ll increase our practice of kaitiakitanga (by all) and ensure visibility of Māori identity and culture in our projects.
  3. Economic: We’ll create more commercial investment, procurement and engagement opportunities for Māori.
  4. Social: We’ll foster a sense of community and connectedness and create career pathways for rangatahi.
  5. Natural environment: We’re increasing the practice of kaitiakitanga (by all) across our work, ensuring significant improvements to te mauri o te taiao.
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The environment

Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do.

Our approach promotes a low-carbon lifestyle where people can live, work and play near their homes and public transport. This reduces reliance on cars, and supports more walking and cycling.

We set meaningful standards for our development partners and ourselves.

Our Public Realm Environmental Guidelines outline the commitment Eke Panuku has made to respond to the climate emergency and take prompt, meaningful action to address climate change and environmental issues facing Tāmaki Makaurau. These guidelines define Eke Panuku environmental ambition for our public realm projects.

All our development partners are required to deliver homes with a minimum 6 Homestar rating in our Transform and Unlock neighbourhoods. This means that homes are good quality, warm, dry and efficient to run.

We seek to future-proof our communities by accounting for climate change, including factoring adaptation and resilience into our buildings and spaces. Our communities will be designed to cope with warmer temperatures and extreme weather events.

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Our engagement strategy

As the city’s leading urban regeneration agency we value the voice and input of the people in our neighbourhoods. We are dedicated to having constructive dialogue with the community and stakeholders that is open, transparent, accessible and inclusive.

Our full engagement strategy document can be read here.

We understand that urban regeneration is a collective effort, and the success of our work is dependent on inputs from diverse stakeholders.  The insights collected through our engagement processes, provides us with meaningful information to support sustainable decision-making.

This strategy provides a strategic, overarching direction for community and stakeholder engagement across all activities of our business. We recognised that weaving sound engagement methods into our standard business practice and embedding it into our DNA is a priority that contributes to the success of our work and programmes.

This strategy is not just a commitment to involving stakeholders in conversations about aspects of our work that interest or impact them. It is a deliberate approach to making it happen. It is intended to be a guide for our engagement activities and to be used by people from across the business who are responsible for the planning and execution of engagement plans or activities.

The foundational aspects of this strategy are influenced by internationally recognised best practices for engagement as endorsed by the International Association for Public Participation.

In practice the implementation of the strategy will be supported by a

  • Practical How to Guide
  • A stakeholder relationship matrix that identifies our regular and key people we engage with
  • A Guide to engagement with local boards - we recognise the council unique shared governance structure, we have developed a Guide to Engagement With Local Boards to support staff who are undertaking such activities with local boards

The strategy will be reviewed every three years and the supporting documents will be updated on ongoing basis.

The strategy acknowledges the changing nature of engagement with the ongoing introduction of new digital and online platforms that we can invest in and utilise to connect with the communities and to tell our story.