Te Awa Lakes - A destination for the Waikato region

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to sit down for a chat with Te Awa Lakes Development Director, Lale Ieremia, and Vanessa Mills, an Executive Assistant at Perry Group; for a chat about the new Te Awa Lakes development.

What and where is it?

Te Awa Lakes is an adventure park / tourism hub and residential property development with community hub, proposed for the north of Hamilton.

Sitting entirely within Hamilton’s existing city boundaries, Te Awa Lakes fulfils the council’s preference for infill developments that don’t just contribute to urban sprawl north of the city.

Traveling south from Auckland along the Waikato Expressway, the development would be the first thing people see. Horotiu used to be a small settlement on the road to Hamilton from Auckland; the area will now become a visibly unique GATEWAY TO THE CITY - a grand entrance into Hamilton, showcasing us as a city of the future (as we like to call ourselves).

Instead of an empty industrial zone, visitors will be greeted by a visually pleasing mix of green space, waterways, modern buildings and the adventure park. The development will include high quality medium density residential housing, river links, tourism activities, neighbourhood centre and commercial accommodation. Te Awa Lakes will trigger tourism opportunities throughout the region.

It is a five-year, billion-dollar investment, that will play a significant role in helping Hamilton meet the Housing Accord targets in terms of both supply and affordability.

The proposed Te Awa Lakes is a 62-hectare development, on the old Perry sand quarry at Horotiu. The entire development will be built on the disused sand quarry meaning it doesn’t require more rural land.

It will be transformed into a vibrant community hub and tourism destination, complementing the existing features of Northern Hamilton.

Transport connections are well served thanks to the new Waikato Expressway and Horotiu interchange that link the Te Awa Lakes to both Hamilton’s CBD and north to Auckland.

Te Awa Lakes is nearby to one of the New Zealand's largest shopping complexes, The Base. The soon to be built Rotokauri Transport hub is also close by, which will include park and ride facilities for the new train station and Hamilton to Auckland commuter train. The transport hub is part of a $2 Billion, 10-year capital investment by Hamilton City Council, to enable and support planned, sustainable growth and look after future transport, infrastructure and community facilities for one of the country's fastest growing cities.

The Waikato Expressway borders the site for convenient access, and a bike park is already in place drawing recreational users to the area thanks to easy access via the Te Awa Cycleway.

Te Awa Lakes’ medium density housing will be self-sufficient (upon completion there’ll be some 860 new dwellings in total). The shops, links to the river, tourism and the adventure park will come together to form a community, and a new way of living for Hamilton.

Adventure Park & Tourism

Te Awa Lakes will create a new recreation hub for the region. A planned leisure and recreational space on the western side of the site, adjacent to the Expressway interchange, will anchor the development. The adventure park will consist of approximately 5-10 activities including a mix of outdoor and indoor recreation with a core of water-based activities, aimed to cater for a wide range of activity and skill levels. It will also include the typical supporting activities such as merchandising, and food and beverages. Activities are likely to include:

• Cable tow water skiing/wakeboarding
• Aqua golf/mini golf
• Climbing frames
• Electric go-karting
• Ropes course and zip lines
• ‘Aqua Park’ amusements
• ‘Slip and fly’ water slides

A fun and exciting destination for both locals and visitors to the Waikato.

Te Awa Lakes also has the capacity to support wider tourism objectives by being a gateway that showcases the Waikato with ‘tastes of the region’ through offerings of agricultural, adventure or cultural experiences or ‘tasters’ of other established tourism products around the region. These taster attractions may be included in the adventure park itself or in the adjacent mixed-use area/tourism precinct.

There are also feasibility studies being currently done into a potential Honey and Milk Tourism Centre. One of the Perry Group businesses is Three Peaks Manuka Honey, who exports premium high UMF Manuka Honey products into the fast-developing China market. 

Lale Ieremia also chatted about the possibility of Ngāruawāhia becoming a tourist destination. With over 150,000 visitors a year already climbing the 1349 steps to the Hakarimata Summit, Perry Group would create a zipline, like what is seen in tourism hubs, Queenstown and Rotorua.

With Te Awa Lakes having quality accommodation, it can also become a hub from which people can then to travel to other nearby tourist destinations such as Rotorua, the Coromandel, Waitomo Caves and Hobbiton, without having to travel into central Hamilton for accommodation.

Residential Development & Community

Te Awa Lakes will be a community for residents to “live, work, play and sustain”. It will be an integrated and environmentally sustainable community, which forms connections to Community, Tourism, Culture, Commerce, Health, Education and Recreation.

The aim is to make Te Awa Lakes a green community, with cycling and walking encouraged over driving. Perry Group want people to “slow down” when they enter the community.

In times when we seem to spend half our time in cars trying to get where we want to be, Te Awa Lakes is designed to have everything you need in the one precinct — activities for the kids, bike trails, river activities, cafes and restaurants, convenience shopping and modern work spaces.

The "ride-sharing" or car-sharing model such as Loop Carshare is also likely to be at the forefront of transport in the area, to minimise the amount of garaging and parking required in the development. Residents and tourists alike can hire a car to drive into Hamilton if they need to. Similar to Lime Scooters (Which are likely to be very popular in the development), but with cars!

The 860 (plus or minus 10 percent) new medium-density homes will be a mix of single-family homes, terraced accommodation and apartments, that will increase housing supply at a time when demand is high and outstripping supply.

It will bring a range of economic benefits. Services such as food and beverage outlets and visitor accommodation at Te Awa Lakes and neighbouring areas stand to benefit from an expected bump of some 20,000 visitor nights to Hamilton, bringing some $3.7 million in additional spending. In addition, the adventure park will provide a range of new employment opportunities.

A proportion of 'affordable housing' will be built, using TDM Modular Homes, that could potentially see homes of around $575,000 to $650,000 being built.

Similarly, to Hobsonville in Auckland, Te Awa Lakes will feature different products and a cross section of residents with the amenity of the lakes and Waikato River.

There will be upmarket properties near the river, and higher-density closer to the highway network. Those homes will overlook the lakes, which will have provision for an adventure park with water sports and outdoor activities. 

Gyms, cafes, bars and green spaces are also included in what will be a mixed-use master planned development that will act as a highly visible gateway to the city. The business zone is also proposed to include small neighbourhood shops, restaurants, cafes, licensed premises, small offices, banks, doctors' rooms, and light service industries. There could also be an opportunity for upper floor apartments.

Connecting with the river

A big focus of Perry Group is to utilise our major natural resource more - the Waikato River.

Te Awa Lakes connects Hamiltonians to 1.5 km Waikato River frontage. It will offer future river access, through the construction of an esplanade, new plantings and a host of new connections between Te Awa Lakes and the existing Te Awa Cycleway.

Perry are a founding sponsor of Te Awa – The Great New Zealand River Ride with the Te Awa River Ride Charitable Trust. The cycleway will stretch along the Waikato River from Ngāruawāhia in the north to Karapiro (Cambridge) in the south. Currently, per year, 300,000 people on average are using the completed 31 Kilometres of path.

Work has just started on completing the Hamilton section, the final section of the full 70 km cycleway, will result in a fully concreted path that walkers and cyclists can use. The Hamilton section will go from Hamilton Gardens across the Hillcrest gully system, through Tamahere and connect with the already completed Cambridge path. It will be predominantly off-road and will follow the banks of the Waikato River in places. It will also include bridges over stream gullies and boardwalks.

"It creates opportunity for tourism. As you know, the Otago Rail Trail and other cycling trails in New Zealand are massive for tourism and economic benefits, accommodation, food, and beverages. So, we're hoping once we get this section through, we can start promoting the trail to New Zealand and the world"

Figures show that on a weekly average, 939 people use the already constructed Ngāruawāhia section while 2292 use the section by Cambridge's Avantidome. The NZ Transport Agency is contributing $7.9 million to the $20 million Hamilton section project. 

With cycle tourism on the rise in New Zealand, Te Awa Lakes is perfectly positioned to capitalise on this success.

The Perry Bridge in Ngāruawāhia, is part of the river path, and allows pedestrians to access the cycleway. Perry Group name the bridge, which spans the Waikato river next to Ngāruawāhia Golf Course. The 130m long and 3m wide bridge features a flax weaving inspired design which symbolises the weaving together of the various communities that will enjoy the bridge for many years to come, with the colour blue to signify the Waikato River and green to link in with its natural surroundings.

River taxis could also be on the agenda to link Te Awa Lakes back to Hamilton city. The Waikato River Explorer has ties with Perry and is the only company with commercial vessels currently operating on the Waikato River.

“We would like to put a connection along the river, back to the CBD, via a river ferry.”

The service could also ferry tourists to the Hamilton Gardens without having to put a vehicle on the road, with the newly upgraded jetty at the gardens. There are also plans for a jetty below the Waikato Museum, which also sits alongside the river, in the CBD.

If plans for the Waikato Regional Theatre go ahead, which will sit nearby to the museum, there could be real demand for this type of service, linking the quality accommodation in Te Awa to tourism opportunities in Hamilton.

Who's the developer?

The Perry Group are developing the proposed Te Awa Lakes, who are primarily involved in the manufacturing, importing and distribution, and property industry sectors. Established by Brian Perry in 1954, the Perry Group has become a well-established and highly respected privately-owned enterprise based in the Waikato region.

Perry Property & TDM Group

Perry Property and TDM group are part of the Perry Group of Companies.

Primarily involved in residential property development, Perry Property is currently managing several large-scale projects within the Waikato region including River Terraces and the proposed Te Awa Lakes development. Perry Group recently acquired TDM, who are New Zealand's leading modular home builders.

“TDM has come up with really nice designs with potential and we’re willing to work with TDM and help them achieve some of those growth goals.

Perrys can also provide the galvanising for the steel framing at Te Awa Lakes via its Perry Metal Protection division.

The Perry Group and its’ investments are defined by the mission of ‘Built to Last’ and five deeply-held values:  people, excellence, win-win, community and pride. These values are central in the day-to-day business practices throughout the Perry Group.

In 1976 a charitable trust was established and more than 40 years later, the Brian Perry Charitable Trust continues to develop strong partnerships with other organisations to deliver the vision of Building Stronger Communities. Te Awa Lakes will help achieve this vision.

What's held the project up?

Perry Group originally applied to be a Special Housing Area. These were introduced in 2013 by the National Government, with the purpose to enhance housing affordability, by facilitating an increase in land and housing supply in certain regions or districts identified as having housing supply and affordability issues. This allowed the streamlining of new housing developments, between accords between Central and Local Government.

However, the New Zealand Labour Party Government declined the application for being too "complex", and have also decided not to extend the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas legislation.

Perry Group is now using the Private Plan Change process, as the Horotiu land must be re-zoned from industrial to residential.

Te Awa Lakes development director Lale Ieremia said with the extra due diligence, there is an even better chance it will succeed in the resource management process.

"For whatever reason, largely around complexity of issues, government didn't support it and pushed us back into the RMA. So, we started the suspended private plan change process again but with the benefit of all of the information that we've developed through the SHA. Consequently, we have information that's a lot better than what you would normally have in a private plan change request."

Perry Group has already put in infrastructure, piping water and waste water, with enough capacity for the full development.

A complicating factor is that 60ha of the land is in Hamilton City Council territory, with the remaining 15ha in Waikato District Council. The Waikato council has notified a district plan review that would see its parcel of land rezoned from country living to residential. Perry Group is poised to build a retirement village beside the river along with medium density housing on that part of the subdivision, totalling 500 dwellings.

Some of the new work includes addressing issues raised by opposing submitters and ensuring a buffer zone between the development and Fonterra's factory to the south.

Hearings for the proposed private plan change are scheduled to start on November 25.

Watch a concept video below, and watch this space!