Tairua Skatepark
- Project typeSports facility
- Contractor nameVeros Property Services, ACID NZ
Update: Friday 10 November
The skatepark is tracking well (a few days ahead of programme) even with road closures from the recent storm. The works are still in the early stages with plenty of hard mahi left to go.
All the remaining wall footings are completed and the walls for the quarter pipe have been poured. The “down and flat ledge” feature for tricks has also been poured.
The drainage works have progressed well and all the works in the tennis court area have been completed with concrete repairs finished and grass starting to strike.
The footpaths from Hornsea Road have already been poured leading up to the skatepark – ahead of schedule. All going well, the target is to have the footpath from Hornsea Rd to the tennis court completed and both tennis courts available for use before Christmas.
Fencing around the skatepark site at Cory Park Domain in Tairua went up in September 2023, marking the beginning of construction.
Some parts of the domain and its facilities will be unavailable while the build takes place. The site fencing will go inside the tennis courts, but one court will still be available for playing, except when it too will need to be closed for drainage work which is planned for mid-October. Access to the tennis courts will be from the back via Hornsea Road.
The site fencing will extend to the current location of the rugby posts, which will be removed for the time being until the fencing is pulled back at the end of the year within an earth bund that will be built to separate rugby field users from the skatepark.
On Friday 8 December the site will shut down for the summer. The target is to have all the retaining walls and pathways to the netball courts and Hornsea Rd completed.
On 30 January 2024 construction will resume. Construction is expected to be completed by 26 April and the skatepark will be open for use. Landscape planting will take place within the planting season, starting in June.
See the site fencing plan:
Legal challenge dismissed
In mid-August 2023 the High Court in Hamilton dismissed the legal challenge from Preserve Cory Park Domain Society to block our Council’s project to build a skatepark in Tairua.
Justice Powell dismissed the claims that the process and public consultation our Council and contractors followed to make decisions about a skatepark for Tairua were flawed.
“We are grateful for the Court’s expedient hearing of the judicial review,” says our Mayor Len Salt.
“This process has validated the process and decision making to site a skatepark on Cory Park Domain.”
Read the judgement here(PDF, 644KB).
The final design plans for Tairua Skatepark were approved by Council at its 26 April 2023 meeting, which also authorised the project team to proceed with procurement and construction.
The plans can be seen in the meeting agenda on our website.
The project team will continue to engage with users of Cory Park Domain – the site of the skatepark – to finetune any minor design changes needed for health and safety purposes.
Our Council has appointed Veros to project manage the second stage of the Tairua Skatepark Project through detailed design and construction phases to completion. Acid NZ are designing the skatepark.
Stage One involved extensive community consultation on the appetite for, and preferred site of, the Tairua Skatepark. This comprehensive consultation process included site walk-throughs, in-person public meetings, online public meetings and digital surveys.
To guide the design of the skatepark, a Skatepark Design Reference Group was set up. It included representatives from a range of groups such as skaters, residents who live beside Cory Park, The Protect Cory Park Domain Society (PCPDS), Tairua Sports and Rugby Club (TRSC), Tairua Recreation Sports Trust (TRST), and Police.
Our Council received 1,044 submissions to our formal consultation asking if the Tairua community agreed with Cory Park Domain as the proposed location for a skatepark in Tairua.
Sixty-three people indicated they would like to speak to their submission to our Council at hearings held on 28-29 April 2022.
In summary:
• 92.49 per cent of submitters agreed with Cory Park Domain as the location for the skatepark.
• 7.03 per cent of submitters disagreed with Cory Park Domain as the location for the skatepark.
• 0.48 per cent were neutral or provided no response.
We’d like to thank the Tairua community for their patience and engagement with the consultation process.
An initial survey in October-November 2021 helped shape the site selection criteria, sites to be shortlisted and skatepark design elements.
A second survey in November-December 2021 was run to understand people’s official preference on the site from the shortlist of Cory Park Domain, Pepe Reserve and Tairua School.
On 8 February 2022 our Council adopted Cory Park Domain as the preferred site for the skatepark.
The final stage was the submission process, held over 14 February to 8 April 2022, on Council’s preferred location of Cory Park Domain. This submission process was held following the special consultative procedure as set out in the Local Government Act. This is the same process we use for consultations on our Long Term Plans and Annual Plans.
Tairua Skatepark Formal Consultation
This consultation closed on Friday 8 April 2022.
A formal consultation on our Council's preferred site for a family friendly skatepark in Tairua opened on 14 February and closed on 8 April.
Our Council engaged an independent consultancy, Veros, who used a Multi-Criteria Analysis tool, adopted by our Council, following community input, to evaluate all the sites. Cory Park Domain scored the highest and was therefore the recommended preferred site. The other two were Pepe Reserve and Tairua School.
The Statement of Proposal, available to download from the right side of this page, clearly states the reasons for this recommendation.
The Site Selection Consolidated Report (the Report) contains more information on the site selection process, the criteria used to evaluate the sites and the detailed results of that evaluation.
We would like to extend our thanks to the wider community for the significant contribution to this process to date.
Clarification of effect of Tairua skatepark on playing field at Cory Park Domain:
Our Council has received a copy of the newsletter from Tairua Rugby and Sports Club inc (TRSC) sent to the club’s membership on 15 March 2022.
The newsletter makes some statements about the potential effects of locating a skatepark on Cory Park Domain in Tairua on the playing field there. In conjunction with Veros, the independent consultancy hired to evaluate potential skatepark sites in Tairua, our Council has responded to the rugby club’s newsletter in order to clarify some potential misunderstandings.
The full response can be downloaded from the right side of this page.
Tairua Skatepark Summary of Information:
How Council identified all reasonably practicable options.
Following the First Community Survey response of 93% support for a skatepark in Tairua, our Council determined that not progressing a skatepark without serious consideration of site options was not a reasonably practicable option.
Over the close-to-30 years of project history many potential sites were raised and rejected for various reasons.
As part of the First Community Survey three shortlisted sites were suggested. These were (in alphabetical order, which is the order used throughout this SOP):
- Cory Park Domain.
- Pepe Reserve.
- Tairua School.
74 per cent (336 respondents) to the First Community Survey agreed with the shortlist.
An assessment of the other sites suggested was carried out and reported to Council to confirm the shortlist. Due to a number of reasons including significant increases in cost to, for example acquire land, distance from town, wider economic consequences and time delays, none of the other sites suggested were included in the shortlist.
The results of the application of the multi-criteria analysis to the shortlisted sites are provided below.
Assessment of options
The First Community Survey asked the Tairua community if they thought the multi criteria site assessment criteria outlined in the survey were a good basis for making a decision on the location of a skatepark in Tairua. 89 per cent (412) respondents said yes. Of the 11 per cent (53) respondents who said no the two most-mentioned reasons for the no response were:
- Distance from neighbours – distance from neighbours was already a criterion; however, as a result of the feedback this criterion was changed to provide more nuanced testing of distance from neighbours at distances of 30,40 and 50m.
- Access to toilets – access to toilets was already a criterion. The feedback on this criterion did not results in a change to the criterion.
Four criteria categories with 13 specific criteria elements (some with additional breakdown of testing within them) were adopted by our Council on 7 December 2021.
The categories and criteria are:
1.0 Mana Whenua and Community Views and Considerations
1.1 The level of community support for each location and why
1.2 The level of mana whenua support for each location and why
2.0 Location
2.1 Distance from Neighbours
2.2. Distance from Town Centre
2.3 Safety: We used the national guidelines for Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) to assess safety. You can find out more about CPTED here.
I. AccessII. Surveillance
III. Layout
IV. Activity mix
2.4 Noise
3.0 Cost and Timing Impacts
3.1 Land availability
3.2 District Plan compliance
3.3. Reserves Act compliance
3.4 Other matters; archaeological, flooding, earthworks, removal or repositioning of existing structures
4.0 User Needs Met
4.1 Minimum site size met
4.2 Environmental considerations
4.3 Accessibility to amenities for users
Tairua Skatepark Location Options assessment summary (advantages and disadvantages)
The comprehensive site assessment report completed by Veros is available to view at the Thames-Coromandel District Council office in Thames, all Service Centre, and the Tairua Library and online on this webpage. This report also contains the full criteria methodology which shows how each criteria was applied.
The table below shows how each site scored against each of the criteria. A ‘3’ is the highest and best score a site could achieve, a ‘0’ the lowest and worst. Noting that as all shortlisted sites met the minimal site size requirement each site scored a 0 for that criteria.
The results of the MCA assessment are:
- Cory Park Domain 31.87 (recommended preferred site)
- Pepe Reserve 20.80
- Tairua School 11.17 (noting that due to a fatal flaw relating to the security of tenure at Tairua School this site was removed from the short-list).
More information on the advantages and disadvantages of the sites are on the Statement of Proposal available on the right of this page.
Tairua Skate Park location consultation background information
A site at Cory Park Domain was identified but legal proceedings in 2021 forced a halt to the project. In order to start with a clean slate, the Tairua-Pauanui Community Board agreed at its June 2021 meeting to revoke all previous decisions made in regards to the skate park.
An out-of-cycle budget of $60,000 funded from the Tairua-Pauanui Community Board’s retained earnings is being used for Veros Property Services, an independent company with expertise in planning, consultation and project management, to lead the work.
We include regular updates on this project in our email newsletter. To receive it, visit tcdc.govt.nz/subscribe
Location
Cory Park, Tairua, Tairua/Pāuanui View Map
-37.0004654,175.8516625
Cory Park, Tairua ,
Tairua/Pāuanui
Cory Park, Tairua ,
Tairua/Pāuanui
Tairua Skatepark