Three councils meeting yesterday at Classic Flyers to sign off on the SmartGrowth review were set to overhaul long term growth plans for the Western Bay of Plenty.

The review by the partners – the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Tauranga City Council – has taken months and re-orients SmartGrowth from its original 2004 policy, says independent chairman Bill Wasley.

While SmartGrowth in 2004 was a collaborative growth management plan focussing on creating a united partnership to advocate for key infrastructure required for the Western Bay, today's 2013 SmartGrowth is developing into a spatial plan which involves the community and includes aspirations and actions across all the well-beings and multiple stakeholders.

'It is a mechanism to harness the collective impact of local government, iwi, business, central Government agencies, key industries and the community,” says Bill.

The change requires more engagement of communities and involvement in the strategy from the ground up, says Bill. There has been a steep change in the way SmartGrowth engages with communities. During the updating of the project the councils met with more than 40 different groups and organisations to get their input to the draft Strategy.

This move has paid dividends with communities and groups being able to shape the direction of the Strategy and being committed to achieving the vision, says Bill.

'The mechanisms for community involvement have also been strengthened through the strategy with the expansion of the SmartGrowth Partner Forums.”

SmartGrowth looks at the longer term, 30-50 years, on topics such as where people are like to want to live and what changes will be needed to allow that to happen.

'I think that's why SmartGrowth is ahead, because it brings together the infrastructure requirements and the land use together with the broad funding matters.”

This time round, the councils have also tried to make the strategy more flexible and able to cope with the unforeseen or unexpected – if the operating environment changes or the circumstances of a council or a community change.

Bill says what's changed the most with SmartGrowth 2013 is the councils have stopped allocating numbers to intensifications.

'So actually, the strategy outlines a work programme in terms of looking at various intensification issues.

'We have gone away from looking ‘x per cent' in green fields, recognising there is still the settlement pattern review to be undertaken in the next year.”

This involves revising the demographic projections for the sub-region using data from the recent census.

'Once we have this information we will be able to undertake a revision of the settlement pattern,” says Bill.

'Through this project we will be assessing our planned Urban Growth Areas and asking whether we need to make any changes based on the revised demographic projections and current operating environment.”