• The number of residents will have grown from the current 6000 to 20,000.
• There will be new affordable housing at Barrowcliffe, and regenerated healthy neighbourboods at Rātā Vine and Inverell/Hoskens.
• New residential neighbourhoods will have popped up on the DHB site and at Pacific Gardens on Great South Road.
• Te Papa Manukau will be the cornerstone of the destination and cultural offer attracting more visitors to the area.
• Hayman Park will be significantly upgraded and Manukau Plaza will be revitalised for all to enjoy.
• A healthy Puhinui Stream will be a source of community pride as it flows through the neighbourhoods from the Botanic Gardens all the way to the Manukau Harbour.
• Manukau will be firmly established as a learning, innovation and community enterprise hub, and there’ll be a new metro school in response to the growing population.
• Large scale mixed use development and a new anchor commercial tenant will help diversify the local employment opportunities.
• An upgraded Putney Way will become the new main street, while Great South and Wiri Station roads will be transformed into urban boulevards making Manukau more pedestrian friendly.
• A new mass transit line will run between Botany and the Airport (bus or light rail) through central Manukau – providing better connections for local people.

Most importantly people will start to call Manukau home – and when they do we will know that the transformation of central Manukau has been a success.

Manukau is unlike any other place in New Zealand. With a strong Maori heritage, its position as the world’s Pasifika hub, along with the creative and economic potential, it should be the thriving heart and soul of the south.

Transforming Manukau is about fostering and building upon the existing pride, values and talent of the people who live and work there, and visit it most often. In doing so, we will ensure that transformation of the area continues to appeal to locals, while also attracting future residents, workers and entrepreneurs.

There’s a strong desire from the local community, as outlined in the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board plan, to create a thriving heart for Manukau - an attractive visitor destination, business centre and place to shop, live, learn, work and play in world-class facilities and spaces. To achieve this it needs a strong resident population, and needs to be seen as a desirable and innovative place to do business.

The project area for the Manukau transformation covers 600ha and includes the whole metropolitan centre, the Manukau Sports Bowl and the Wiri suburban neighbourhood to the south, including the large 49ha Manukau Super Clinic site.  Auckland Council owns 95ha of land within the project area, comprising approximately 40 properties.

The Transform Manukau project aligns closely with The Southern Initiative which aims to mobilise strategic and transformational social, physical and economic change in south Auckland.

To be truly transformed, Manukau requires the multiplier effect of a number of key moves..

Puhinui Stream will link neighbourhoods and provide high quality open space for all to enjoy. It will be an exemplar project for ecological, social, cultural and economic transformation.

Key elements of the move include:

1. Linking key destinations

• completing the ‘missing link’ through the District Health Board block
• better connections to the Manukau Harbour
• better connections to Auckland Botanic Gardens

2. Creating a conceptual ‘diversion’ through central Manukau

• beautifying Barrowcliffe Bridge

3. Expanding open spaces and facilities

• developing key open spaces, and improving their recreational and other uses (e.g. Hayman Park, Barrowcliffe, the Auckland Botanic Gardens and a new wetland domain at Wiri).

4. Establishing a functioning eco system

• practising kaitiakitanga and working with local people to restore the mauri of the stream and its surrounds 

The focus will be to create a healthy and vibrant heart at the core of central Manukau that can radiate out to surrounding areas.

Key elements of the move include:

• supporting residential development
• enriching leisure and cultural destination opportunities including Te Papa Manukau and new hotel developments, along with improving the links between existing attractions
• improvements to the Civic Building and Kōtuku House
• expanding and diversifying the retail offer to include mixed-use development on the Westfield Manukau City car parks
• developing new commercial office space for key tenants
• reimagining the public spaces including Manukau Plaza, Putney Way as a main street, Osterley Way as a north–south link, Amersham Way as a hospitality-focused street, Hayman Park as a destination park and Manukau Station Road as a boulevard.

This map depicts a potential scale of redevelopment but this is not a masterplan so the detail of each site is still being worked through.

The Wiri neighbourhood, lying to the south of State Highway 20, will become a place where people can live in healthy homes, in safe neighbourhoods with good schools, and benefit from improved health services that foster healthy living.

Key elements of the move include:

1. Increasing housing supply and choice in Wiri:

• with the progressive replacement of 380 existing Housing New Zealand homes over time to create up to 1180 new homes, as well as 400 new homes on the District Health Board site
• at least 200 homes at the Barrowcliffe site which will be part of a urban neighbourhood planned by Panuku
• 900 homes on the Pacific Gardens Special Housing Area site on Great South Road

2. Developing new street patterns to improve connections in the area

3. New and improved open spaces along the Puhinui Stream and a new wetland domain in Wiri

4. An increase in community services and facilities, with a focus on children and young people, and potentially including new leisure facilities

Learning and innovation are seen as a cornerstone of changing how Manukau functions – empowering the local community to drive economic prosperity.

The building blocks are already there with improving early childhood education participation and a rapidly increasing tertiary presence in the area.

There will be a particular focus on local community and social enterprise, iwi and pasifika enterprise and harnessing growth sectors (health, food and environmental tech, and advanced manufacturing).

Key elements of the move include:

• a learning network which encourages collaboration between learning establishments providing a complete learning pathway from early childhood through to further education and training, and onto employment.
• The Southern Initiative’s local enterprise and innovation initiatives, including the Makerhood, and Māori and Pasifika trades and training programmes
• the Manukau Innovation Neighbourhood as a means of engaging large-scale local employers to grow local innovation and talent
• an integrated energy initiative to explore the potential for collective local energy solutions
• a multipurpose learning and innovation centre
• a shift to innovative learning environments in schools that prepare children to play their part in the Manukau of the future.

Manukau will continue to be transformed from a car-based centre. There will be better connections to surrounding communities through improved public transport, and easier walking and cycling options.

Key elements of the move include:

• upgrading Great South Road as an important north–south urban avenue
• delivering a mass transit route from the airport to Botany, via central Manukau
• creating a comprehensive cycle network
• making it easy, safe and attractive to walk around Manukau.

• The metropolitan centre of Manukau was approved for development as a ‘transform’ location by Auckland Council’s Development Committee in December 2015 after a selection process.  Panuku will ‘transform’ locations by using our planning and development expertise, working alongside others to regenerate these areas.
• The over-arching plan for the regeneration (known as the High Level Project Plan <link to plan below>) for the redevelopment was approved by the Development Committee on 14 April 2016.
• Panuku is working with Housing New Zealand, who owns a large amount of land in the area which they are looking to use to build more housing of a higher quality.
• A Framework Plan has been completed in partnership with the Crown and the Council family including the Ōtara-Papatoetoe and Manurewa local boards. The Framework Plan shapes the scope of the project and guides the delivery of the outcomes.

The transformation of Manukau is a long-term project taking 20-25 years to complete. The first projects include the new bus station, the Putney Way street upgrade and the Hayman Park playground.

Panuku is also working with The Southern Initiative to involve local people in the urban regeneration process by engaging young people and local activators in placemaking for the area. #ourmanukau