Kāpiti Coast council votes to end Te Uruhi/Kāpiti Gateway project

Kāpiti Coast district councillors have voted to end the controversial Te Uruhi/Kāpiti Gateway project.

At a council meeting on Thursday afternoon, councillors unanimously backed a motion by district wide councillor Liz Koh to stop the Te Uruhi project. Deputy mayor Lawrence Kirby was absent from the meeting with apologies.

It comes after council officials advised councillors last week not to continue with the project because significant cost escalation made it “not viable to progress”.

Koh initially made the motion at a council meeting last November to order council officials and contractors to cease all work on the project.

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The motion also noted recommendations from staff to explore other options to achieve Te Uruhi’s proposed outcomes, which included promoting Kāpiti Island as a tourist attraction and to facilitate mana whenua story telling.

Te Uruhi had been controversial from the beginning, starting off with a 3000-strong petition against it when it was first approved in March 2021.

The project had an original $4.46 million price tag, but the latest figure is $8.4m – $650,000 more than last year’s number of $7.75m.

Of the $1.55m already spent on the project, $1m came from the council and the rest was paid for by funding from the Government’s Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund.

Mayor Janet Holborow​, who supported the project through most of its progression, said at the meeting she backed the motion with “a little bit of regret” but also with “a sense of pragmatism and acceptance.

“It does seem like a sensible decision not for us to proceed with this project today,” she said. “It’s always a shame to stop the project before completion but in this case, the cost increase isn’t just about the amount.

“It’s about the context, in terms of the economic environment we find ourselves in at the moment and the cost of living crisis that we’re experiencing.”

Holborow also said she could see some existing projects, like the Waikanae Library and the district’s art programme, which people could put a strong cultural lens on.

Koh said at the meeting it was time tobring the community back together.

“It’s time now to set those divisions aside and to look how we can achieve those goals for the benefit for our district by working together in a transparent and open way.”

The district council had already secured $150,000 funding from the Better Off Fund, part of the Government’s Three Waters reform, to design and implement storytelling related to Kāpiti Island at Maclean Park.