Building community will be a focus of two major planned Hamilton developments.
The Perry Group’s Te Awa Lakes, on the city’s northern outskirts, will feature about 1000 homes, and extensive amenity for the wider community.
That is set to include a 10ha aqua adventure park, Perry Group chair Simon Perry said at a Hamilton event organised by The Icehouse, and held before the Covid-19 restrictions were in place.
Commissioners in March approved a private plan change allowing Te Awa Lakes to go ahead. Perry, who also chairs the Brian Perry Charitable Trust, said they hope to get support from other trusts and ensure that the wider community can access the facilities on an affordable basis.
Water safety is likely to be part of the offering, along with swimming, cycling and adventure playgrounds.
Union Square in central Hamilton will also be about building community, Fosters chief executive Leonard Gardner said at the event, billed as Business in the Community.
Five office blocks are planned for the 1.1 hectare site which ultimately has the capacity to have 2500 people across 30,000 sq m.
“Hopefully that concentration of people is going to enliven space, it’s going to flow out from this area to the surrounding shops,” Gardner said. “People are going to be walking down to the river, and enjoying each other’s company.
“There’s the business part, which is building buildings, developing projects, but for Fosters the exciting part is the community it’s going to create,” he said.
“What we have learned at Fosters is, being in the construction game, we have more opportunity than most to create places where communities can thrive.”
Fosters has backed that ethos with money. Gardner said the Fosters purpose of great communities through strong foundations saw them giving each staff member $500 annually to donate to the community of their own choosing, while the group’s shareholders had also set aside 20 percent of their shares into a trust for the benefit of the community.
That has given them the ability to support organisations long term. “You can’t solve it all but you can make a bit of a contribution and a difference to certain things. In terms of our wider community support we try to make larger sums where we can make a bit of a difference and then leave our individuals to support those smaller things within their communities.”
Also presenting at the event, held at Waikato Stadium, was The Icehouse head of growth Liz Wotherspoon.
Her not-for-profit organisation assists SMEs around New Zealand with knowledge, connection and investment. It has worked with more than 5000 owner-managers and entrepreneurs since it started in 2001.
“From the very beginning, we’ve been driven by the philosophy of three circles. And those three circles are: the business, you in the business, and you,” Wotherspoon said.
She said an “aha” moment came last year when an alumnus was talking about the focus he had on his community. It was time, she said, for a fourth circle, which would be “you in the community”.
“This is about acknowledging and celebrating just how much is being done by owner-managers and owner-managed businesses in terms of the communities that they give back to.”
Perry spoke about the ways in which the charitable trust supports the Waikato community, including the Te Awa cycleway, which should be complete in about 18 months.
“Cycling is something that can span all demographics, all communities, and it joins communities together. So the idea of Te Awa from Ngāruawāhia through to Karapiro is that you are joining the dots of these communities.”
He also highlighted the Perry Outdoor Education Trust, which works with low decile schools across Waikato to give children opportunities to experience the outdoors and build confidence.
In their presentations, both Perry and Gardner spoke about making a conscious decision to keep their focus on Waikato, and they also talked about the value of looking long-term.
“We’ve really refocused the trust in the last decade around the next generation and the generation beyond that, and trying to support youth is a key thing,” Perry said.
Gardner said doing things well has a long-term benefit. “As a community and businesses, we should start thinking intergenerationally, not just of ourselves but what we are building for the future.”
Gardner referred to Taitua Arboretum’s late co-founder, John Mortimer, who had provided Momentum Waikato with a quote from Nelson Henderson: “The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
“For me that’s a pretty cool way to sum up what our responsibility is as a business community – to invest in our community to plant trees for the future,” Gardner said.
