Tags

Search / “15 Reasons Spring Weather Is So Unpredictable”

Matching Newsitems

    • 2022 Island Bay Race
      • Thirteen boats, including one from Evans Bay, took to the water on an overcast morning to race to the top of Somes/Matiu Island, out of the Heads and around to Island Bay.  One boat was enjoying it so much they decided to sail a bit further than the virtual mark. Results can be found here. [...]
      • Accepted from RPNYC feed 2019 by feedreader
      • Tagged as:
      • island-bay
      • Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, 103, Oriental Parade, Oriental Bay, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Support Kaibosh in May
      • Kaibosh Food Rescue are holding their “Give A Meal In May” campaign in May and this organisation provides food to the community through our organisation in Kapiti.  They are amazing, please support this cause so it can help Kaibosh to provide food security for our community! The post Support Kaibosh in May first appeared on Kapiti Women's Centre.
      • Accepted from Kapiti Women's Centre feed by tonytw1
      • Tagged as:
      • kapiti

    • Review: Rent
      • Christmas has come early to Gryphon Theatre, with Kauri Theatre Company’s tinselled up production of Rent selling out before opening to those begging for a chance to see creator Jonathan Larson’s iconic Winter-set musical. I am grateful director Lox Dixon has tackled such a huge artistic project to bring Rent back to Wellington, so I […]
      • Accepted from Wellingtonista Blog Feed by feedreader
      • Tagged as:
      • theatre

    • Plimmerton Farm: getting greenfields right
      • If we’re hellbent on doing more residential development in greenfields, what does “decent” look like in Plimmerton, hilly land near an existing suburb – like most of our region’s greenfields? This post is basically a guide for anyone who cares about Plimmerton, good urban development, or healthy wetlands, streams and coast, but is time-poor and can’t face going through the truckloads of documents they’ve stuck up without any specific meta-guidance (some FAQ are here). Hopefully this will help you pop in a submission! PCC’s “information” pages they suggest you use for submitting. Every one of these is a large PDF document, 90% written in technical language… aargh! The background: what where and how For those who don’t know, Plimmerton Farm’s a big proposed subdivision of hilly farmland draining into the significant Taupō Wetland and to Plimmerton Beach, just over the train line and highway from Plimmerton village (original Ngāti Toa name: Taupō). It’s going through a Streamlined Planning Process, a pre-COVID government scheme for accelerating development. The key step is the requisite change of the land’s zoning in the Porirua District Plan (“rural” zone to “residential” and other “urban” zones) that sets out what kind of stuff can then be built, where. It’s mostly streamlined because there’s just one shot for the public to have input on the plan change. One shot. Why submit? I was born and raised in Plimmerton, live here now, and intend to for the rest of my days. I’d love to see it grow, well. I would love Plimmerton to get more wallets, more hearts and minds, more faces (more diverse ones too!). But not with more traffic, and pointless damage to our environment. Right now, the proposal has some serious flaws which need sorting. I say Sorting because the changes won’t make it crazy innovative, just good enough for a development in the spot it is, being kicked off in 2020. Time matters too: there’a a bunch of good things happening imminently (and some bad Porirua trends that need to be reversed). I cover these in Get it right, below. It’s worth submitting because given the situation, a 1990s-grade development just won’t cut it. So what about Plimmerton Farm needs to change? It boils down to two themes: dial down the driveability and dial up the liveabilitymake Local the logical and easy choice for daily needs I’ll outline what needs to change in each. NOTE: There’s a third – don’t stuff the wetlands and streams. This is really important as Taupō Wetland is regionally significant, and all our streams and harbours have suffered from frankly shameful mismanagement of sediment from earthworks-heavy subdivisions like Aotea and Duck Creek, and from the earthworks-a-rama of Transmission Gully. Friends of Taupo Swamp have an excellent submission guide for you – add in some of their suggested bits to your submission. I: Dial down the driveability, dial up the liveability There aren’t many truly black-and-white things in life, but there’s one for towns: If a street is nice to drive in, it’ll be a crappy place to do anything else in (walk / eat / hang out / have a conversation / play / scoot or cycle / shop / have a pint). If it’s nice to do anything else in, it’ll be a crappy place to drive in. Mostly this is because of the nature of the automobile: big solid things that smash into our soft bodies if someone makes a mistake (75% odds of death if that’s at 50km/hour, 10% odds of death if at 30km/hour) big objects that need lots of space for manoeuvering and especially parking – which offstreet can be crazy expensive and push up the cost of a home, and onstreet hoover up valuable public space. big solid things driven by us real humans (for a while at least) who respond to the environment but also get distracted, and generally aren’t good at wielding these big solid things safely. The transport setup proposed for Plimmerton Farm makes for a much too driveable and poorly liveable place. 1. Narrow down all the roads. The current proposal’s roading setup has roads and streets that are too big, and there’s too much of them. Right sized roads for a liveable community The cross-sections for the roads include on-street parking and really wide lane widths. This is really gobsmacking for a consortium that talked a big talk about good practice. For all the reasons that Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are good, this is bad. (And it’s especially nuts when you realise that the excessively wide “arterial” roads (11 metres!) will need earthworked platforms built for them where they’re drawn running up the sharp ridges and across the tops of gullies. Expensive, damaging for the environment, and … what were they thinking?) So recommended changes: NARROW DOWN THE ROADS. Seriously. Design all the living-area streets and roads, and the centre, to be self-explaining for an operating traffic speed of 30km or less – that’s the speed where mistakes are rarely fatal. What does that look like? The designers will know and if they don’t they should be fired. Narrower crossing distances; chicanes (great way to incorporate green infrastructure and trees and seating!); narrowed sight-lines (trees! sculpture!) so no-one driving feels inclined to zoom. Reduced trafficked lanes (rori iti on the larger roads!), with properly wide and friendly footpaths. Threshold treatments, humps, modal filters, all the things we know very well are the natural ways to slow us down when driving, and make streets nicer for people. The beauty of all this “restriction” on driving is how much it frees us up for making everything else appealing. Streets become hospitable for kids to walk, scoot, bike to school safely, using the road not the footpath. Older people and those with impairments can walk and wheelchair safely. Teens coming home from town of an evening can scoot or bike home, safely. Popping down to the shops or for a coffee or to the train becomes a pleasure to do on foot, or on a scooter or bike. And you’re moving in a legitimate way – seeing and being seen, not stuck off in the bush on a “recreational” track like what they’ve described. The ordinary streets and roads are walkable, bikeable, scootable, mobility-scootable, and perfectly driveable, equally safe and useable in all weathers and anytime of day or night. Used to be a big, fast road. Now, kids bike to school and old people can chill out on it. (Mark Kerrison) (And in case you’re worried about firetrucks / rubbish trucks / buses, recall that on even Wellington City’s far more winding, narrower hilly streets everyone gets their rubbish collected and fires fought just fine. On public transport, smaller buses, like those that community transport operators use, are the way of the future for less densely-populated areas like this). Don’t build the through and loop roads. You don’t need signs like this when the only people who bother to drive in are those who live there, or who are visiting friends, because you just have to drive out again the way you came. When it’s the place you live, you’re invested in not being a dick far more than if you’re just out for a drive – or worse, out for a bit of a boyrace hoon on a massive loop route through a whole place. So just don’t build those big connector roads that enable people to drive easily from one residential area to the next, especially the ones up in the hilltops (section C) that just say “come for a hoon!” Instead, connect the living spaces heavily with bikeable, walkable, scootable, disability-friendly streets and lanes, and as much as possible, only one way in and out for cars from each living area. II: Make local logical and easy Plimmerton is a true village, with a great little centre (including a train station!) but Plimmerton Farm is ultimately a damn big area. The way to go is to enable people to get the basics of life – like school, groceries, a coffee – with a little local trip on foot, bike or scooter – it’s more of a bother to get in the car. Right now though, it needs two changes: 1. Provide for a second centre “Bumping into” spaces are known to be crucial to a feeling of neighbourhood, and in the (initial) absence of third places (worship places, community hall, sports club, cafe/pub, a supermarket is a vital social centre. Yet the north end of Plimmerton Farm is currently a deadzone for anything except residential. What things will probably look like under current layout. Like in Edwards Scissorhands without the interest of a castle. There’s no provision for a place to do your household groceries, so people will drive to Mana New World – more car trips – and less opportunity to bump into people who live nearby. (There’ll be no school in Plimmerton Farm for a while, because Ministry of Education isn’t allowed by the Education Act to build a school somewhere until there’s a certain population density of kids to fill it. A shitty Catch-22 for developments which is hopefully going to be fixed … sometime. Just another reason to make walking, biking and scooting really kid-friendly, as extra dropoff traffic for kids going to St Theresa’s, Plimmerton School, Paremata and Pukerua Bay schools will be a nightmare.) So they should provide for an additional centre in the north, including a groceries place of some kind. 2. Intensify within walking distance of Plimmerton proper. We should intensify properly, with lots of medium and even some high density (6 storeys of nicely laid-out density done well!) in the area that’s within a 5-minute walk of Plimmerton Village. The more people can live and work with access to all its many amenities, and its rail station (10 min to Porirua, 30 min to Wellington), the better. But there’s not enough density provided for there. Plimmerton Railway station: buzzing in 1916 and has only got bigger. (Photo: Pātaka Porirua Museum) So they should add another zone – E – of higher density in that 5-minute walking catchment of Plimmerton Village. What could it look like? A good example is 3333 Main, Vancouver . Submission tips On the site they ask you to fill in a Word or PDF form, saying which specific bit of the gazillion proposals you are talking about and the specific changes you want. This is a BS way to treat the vast majority of people submitting: normal non-professionals, just regular people who care about good development and liveable places. So just don’t worry about that. In those question 6 column boxes just put “Transport” and “Layout”. It’s the professional planners’ job to figure out specifically how to change a planning document. Just be specific enough that they know what you want to see. The text above is worth copying and pasting – it’ll be enough. And don’t forget the Friends of Taupo Swamp and Catchment advice is essential – definitely go read and use. That’s all you really need – just go submit! But if you’re keen to know more reasons why they should be doing this better, here’s some… Get it right, now Once this plan change is through, traditional developers like Gillies like to whack in all the infrastructure – hello, massive earthworks. And yet the place will take decades to fill with actual people – those hearts and minds and wallets. (Note even before COVID, Porirua’s growth rate was 0.1% per year. Yep, one tenth of one percent.) And extra pressure’s on to do this better because all these things are features of the next one to three years: the One Network Road Classification (sets the design specs for roads of different types) is being updated right now to be more people-friendly in the specs for roads in residential and centre areas, so designs like Plimmerton Farm’s will soon be Officially Bad Practice Sales and riding of e-bikes and e-scooters are going through the roof, continuing through and beyond COVID – this shows no signs of slowing, and prices are dropping. E-power flattens the hills of Plimmerton Farm and makes wheely active travel a breeze for the middle-class people who’ll be living here, if the streets and roads are hospitablePlimmerton Railway Station (on the most popular Wellington train line) is being upgraded to be a terminus station – i.e. better servicesThe Wellington Regional Growth Framework is setting a bunch of directions for councils on how to grow well, including well-known but often well-ignored issues like intensifying around public transport hubs Councils will soon be required to do to a bunch of a bunch of international good practice including get rid of many minimum parking requirements (in the news lately), and to upzone (enable intensification) of landuse in the walking catchment of public transport hubs. (5 min walk = approx 400 metres, 10 min = 800m).Bad trends we need to stop: Porirua’s really high car-dependency (we own cars a lot and drive a lot) is continuing, due to car-dependent urban form [PDF]– despite nice words in council’s strategic intentions.People living outside Wellington City are mostly to blame for our region’s 14% increase in emissions from transport in just 10 years. OK go submit now – and share with anyone who you think might care!
      • Accepted from Talk Wellington posts by feedreader
      • Tagged as:
      • paremata
      • porirua
      • transmission-gully
      • sculpture
      • government
      • parking
      • design
      • covid-19
      • law
      • planning
      • wellington
      • education
      • developments
      • sport
      • buses
      • coffee
      • zoo
      • people
      • Porirua, Wellington Region, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Op niord 12122022
      • Operation Details Date/Time:  Mon, 12/12/2022 - 09:15 - 21:00 Operation Type:  CG Operation (good samaritan) People Assisted:  1 Total Volunteer Hours:  58 NIORD, 12 metre yacht reported gearbox failure while near Maori Bay Pelorous Sound DO made contact and monitored the yacht as it sailed back to Mana. TAR went out to bring it over the bar and into the marina and berth   Momitorinmg by IMT = 10 hrs Operation:                      =3 hrs Vessel Details Length:  10.00m Resources Attendees:  dfranks Jason Hall espi NZ Tuatara Trevor Farmer CRV's Used:  Te Awarua Rescue
      • Accepted from Coastguard Mana news by feedreader
      • Tagged as:
      • tuatara
      • -41.076488, 174.811878


    • Five years on the Peak
      • Five years ago {Makara} Peak was a a bit of a wreck. There was 8km of service road and a whole lot of gorse and barberry. The Council were thinking of letting mountainbikers move in and develop tracks, but this was a pretty radical idea at the time.<p> Since then, over 15 km of track have been built and about 14,000 seedlings planted. To celebrate, we'll be having a barbecue at the planting on Sunday. There'll even be some beer and cake (and some chocolate biscuits of course).
      • Automatically tagged as:
      • cycling
      • makara
      • mountain-biking
      • Makara Peak Summit Viewing Deck, Ridgeline, Karori West, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6012, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Host a student with EF Foundation
      • EF Foundation has exciting opportunities for families to work with us as a volunteer host family for one of our international high school students. The students are aged between 15 and 18. They'll be arriving in NZ in July and they're here for a year. We've got students from Brazil, Germany, Japan, just to name a few countries. We'd love to hear from anyone who's interested, even if they're only able to host for the first couple of months as an arrival family. For more details, or to apply, contact Alyson on 0800 259 433.
      • Tagged as:
      • education

    • Board of Trustees Election Results
      • Amesbury School Board of Trustees Election 14 May 2012Parent Representative Results Candidate Name Number of Votes John Bunting 24 Steve Dunbar 36 Roger Ellis 29 Kelly Harlen WITHDRAWN Melinda Jones 15 Simon Law 22 Nigel Schofield Matthews 17 Lorraine Walmsley 31 David Waters 39 I hereby declare the following duly elected; John Bunting Steve Dunbar Roger Ellis Lorraine Walmsley David Waters Staff Representative Result As there was only one candidate for the available position, I hereby declare Angela Johnston elected as the staff representative on the Amesbury School Board of Trustees Gail GreensladeReturning Officer 
      • Accepted from Amesbury Drive School feed
      • Automatically tagged as:
      • johnsonville

    • Flare sighting off Mana Island
      • Operation Details Date/Time:  Tue, 15/06/2010 - 19:45 - 21:50 Operation Type:  SAROP Cat 1 People Assisted:  0 A Pan Pan message from Maritime Radio was heard on VHF channel 16 on Tuesday night while both of the Coastguard Mana rescue boats were already out on the water training. Resources Attendees:  Carolyn Jameson Chris Darch Gary Spence Grant Porter Jimmy Trist Mark Presling Matt Morris-Jenkins Paul Craven Peter Francis Peter Tse Roger.Waite Roy Quinn tfarmer CRV's Used:  CRV Pelorus CRV Trust Porirua Rescue read more
      • Tagged as:
      • porirua
      • -41.056314, 174.81102


    • Airport Flyer - More Arrivals and Departures from January 2013
      • NZ Bus today announced changes that will further improve their already highly successful Airport Flyer service in Wellington. From 14 January 2013, there will be a significant increase in frequency with the Airport Flyer bus departing Wellington Airport every 10 minutes during peak times to Wellington train station and back instead of the current 15 minutes. In addition to the new 10 minute peak frequency to and from the Airport and Wellington Station, all Airport Flyer buses will travel via Cobham Drive which will further enhance the reliability of this quality service.
      • Submitted by tonytw1
      • Tagged as:
      • buses
      • airport
      • Wellington International Airport, Coutts Street, Rongotai, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6023, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)


    • Tow in of Yacht Tetega
      • Operation Details Date/Time:  Wed, 22/07/2015 - 12:30 - 15:30 Operation Type:  CG Operation (good samaritan) People Assisted:  4 Total Volunteer Hours:  12 Tetega experienced overheating of engine off reef on leeds to Porirua Harbour.  Drifted to Tea Gardens.  Took in tow to back inside reef, some lee of strong southerly.  Rafted up and took over bar into Mana Marina against breast works.  Outgoing tide with 20 knot gusting 25 knot south easterly. Vessel Details Length:  14.00m Resources Attendees:  Ben Ryan Neil Cornwell Peter Feely Trevor Burgess CRV's Used:  CRV Pelorus
      • Accepted from Coastguard Mana news
      • Tagged as:
      • porirua
      • -41.069399, 174.842262



3631 - 3660 of 10000


Matching websites

    • Creative Mouse Design
      • A design company with over 15 years experience in the field. Our expertise includes brand identity and development, web design, exhibitions, photography and much, much more.
      • Tagged as:
      • design

    • Evans Bay Intermediate
      • Evans Bay Intermediate is the only specialist provider of Education for Years 7 and 8 in the Eastern Suburbs. The school was opened in 1964 and has a roll of approximately 450 students. It caters for students in the Seatoun, Miramar, Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay areas with an ethnic mix of approximately 60% European, 12.5% Maori, 15% Asian, 9.5% Pacific Island.
      • Tagged as:
      • primary
      • kilbirnie

    • The Jackson Street Programme
      • Jackson Street is a heritage icon, combining an eclectic mix of old buildings with funky cafés and boutique shopping. The retail strip boasts a huge variety of specialty shops, cafés, bars and restaurants that supply a wide range of ethnic foods, great coffee and goods not available anywhere else. The majority of shops are run by the owners, so the service is second to none!
      • Tagged as:
      • retail
      • petone

    • Boulcott Street Bistro
      • Our doors opened in 1991, since then we have been serving Wellingtonians innovative, modern food as well as some classics such as Lamb Shanks, Fillet Bearnaise and Creme Brulee. Reservations are accepted for lunch only. Dinner is casual dining so just come along and you will feel more than welcome.
      • Tagged as:
      • restaurants-and-bars

    • Learn English NZ
      • Learn English NZ - Learn to speak and write English with homestay English tuition. Intensive one-to-one teaching for 10-15 hours per week. Stay in the seaside home of native English speaking, fully qualified teachers and combine learning and sightseeing
      • Tagged as:
      • education

    • The life and times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor
      • ‘The life and times of James Walter Chapman-Taylor’ enables us to enter into the life and times of a man, a family, a society, and ways of thinking and acting different to, yet not so distant from, our own. We enter the world of an architect, who is also an artist; builder, craftsman; a theosophist, an astrologer, a photographer, a furniture maker.
      • Tagged as:
      • heritage-buildings
      • art

    • East by West Ferry
      • Experience the best of Wellington with a cruise out on the city's harbour ferry service. Up to 15 return scheduled sailings daily between Queens Wharf/Matiu Somes Island/Days Bay. Additionally in the weekends our new round Harbour Explorer Tours include stops at Petone, Seatoun, Days Bay, Matiu Somes Island & Queens Wharf.
      • Tagged as:
      • ferry

    • Sarah Free
      • I started this site as a forum to discuss all sorts of things related to urban Wellington living, and so it will continue. I hope at least some people are finding it interesting and/or useful!
      • Submitted by tonytw1
      • Tagged as:
      • people

    • Lower Hutt Amateur Athletic Club
      • The Lower Hutt Amateur Athletic Club (LHAAC) caters for children aged 7-15 years. The 2006-07 season runs from 25th October to 15th March. Club nights offer a mixture of competition and coaching to enable children to gain the necessary skills to participate in a variety of running, jumping and throwing events. The club meets at the Hutt Recreation Ground on Wednesday nights from 6.00pm-7.30pm.
      • Tagged as:
      • hutt-valley
      • athletics

    • A City for People
      • Decades of inaction have meant house prices are out of control, while old rental properties rot out from underneath us. A whole generation of people are at risk of being forced out from the central city into new suburbs sprawling north, spending hours every day in traffic jams. We believe the Spatial Plan will allow Wellington to plan for the future so that new generations of Wellingtonians can share the city we love, and have a chance to live in a home that is affordable, accessible, healthy and warm.
      • Submitted by tonytw1
      • Tagged as:
      • draft-spatial-plan
      • housing
      • lobby-groups

    • Yellow Fever
      • Supporters of Wellington Phoenix FC. We dig our football. We think its brilliant Wellington has the A-League franchise. We know Wellington has a great football community and we know the city will get behind the team. So will we - and we'll have a bit of a lark along the way.
      • Tagged as:
      • soccer

    • Masala Restaurant
      • Masala Indian Restaurant welcomes you to join us in central Wellington for the ultimate Indian dining experience.Our comfortable lounge style setting and warm atmosphere will ensure you a great night out on the Courtney Place Strip. We have a large restaurant so we can easily cater for both big group bookings or dinner for two.
      • Tagged as:
      • restaurants

    • The Street City Church
      • We're a group of everyday people who are trying to become the kind of church described in the Bible, where teaching is relevant, worship is real and lived-out everyday, friendships are honest, prayer is constant and compassionate care is given to those in need.
      • Tagged as:
      • religious-groups

    • Wakefield Hospital
      • Wakefield Hospital is the largest private hospital in the Wellington region. It is located in the suburb of Newtown and along with Bowen Hospital is owned and operated by parent company Wakefield Health Ltd.
      • Tagged as:
      • hospital
      • newtown

    • Our Bar
      • New Zealand’s capital city now has a fantastic new gay bar - ‘Our Bar’, is opening in October. With a warm and inviting atmosphere it is unparalleled in the community. Our Bar is not an average pub; it is a bar with great food, great people, great staff and an even greater heart.
      • Tagged as:
      • lgbt
      • cuba-street
      • bars

    • Glenside - the halfway
      • Glenside is a suburb located between Wellington and Porirua, centrally located at the southern end of New Zealand's North Island. It is mainly rural zoned and is between the neighbouring communities of Johnsonville and Tawa on the old Porirua Road. Hills, streams and rural landscape characterise the area. The resident population is 336
      • Tagged as:
      • wcn-hosted
      • porirua
      • johnsonville
      • community-groups
      • tawa

Latest Newsitems

The latest newslog items.