Winner of:
Excellence in Placemaking Award

It’s Flaxmere’s Time

It’s Flaxmere’s Time is both a revitalisation programme for Hastings District’s lowest socioeconomic community and a means for building trust and engagement between the people of Flaxmere and the Council. The programme is an amalgam of housing development, parks development, expanded health, wellbeing, sporting opportunities and social services expansion. 

The Judges said: Hastings has actively harnessed the skills, expertise and resources of a wide range of partners both in Government, in the community and the community itself not least to create trust and a sense of pride in the community. The multifaceted approach focussed largely on people and human networks, not just building things. This is the very definition of local placemaking and makes Hastings a worthy winner of this, the inaugural placemaking award. 

See more award winning entries

Excellence in Community Engagement

Whirinaki Managed Retreat

In Whirinaki, Te Hikutū Hapū, supported by Northland Regional Council, led a proactive, hapū-driven managed retreat to address severe flood risk. Using mātauranga Māori and the PARA framework, the community
Award Year: 2026
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Excellence in Environmental Leadership
Supreme Award

Pathways to the Sea Strategy – Ngā Rerenga ki te Moana

Waikato Regional Council’s Ngā Rerenga ki te Moana Strategy improves safe fish passage through flood infrastructure, especially pump stations that harm native tuna. Based on six years of research with
Award Year: 2026
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Excellence in Organisation and People Development

Great Workplaces

This initiative emerged from a staff survey taken during the first 2020 COVID-19 lockdown where 83 per cent of staff reported their productivity was the same or better working at
Award Year: 2022
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