Avanzar Consulting News December 2024
Christmas Holiday Closedown
Our Avanzar Consulting offices in both Christchurch and Timaru will be closed over the Christmas and New Year break, with all our staff looking forward to a bit of time for relaxation, and spending time with friends and family. Our offices will be closed from the 20th December 2024, with staff back in the office starting from the 13th January. If you require any urgent planning or traffic engineering advice during that time, please contact us on info@avanzar.co.nz and one of us will be in touch as soon as we can.
2024 In Review!
We’ve had a busy year at Avanzar Consulting, with some long-term projects reaching their conclusions, and plenty of new and exciting projects to work on. A couple of our favourites are discussed below:
Timaru Theatre Royal and Museum Redevelopment, Stafford Street, Timaru
We have been the planners for this development project since its inception and have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity and challenge of being part of the design team for such a special couple of heritage buildings. This ‘shovel ready’ project involved the renovation and restoration of the Timaru Theatre Royal, and the construction of a modern museum building, incorporating the façade of another listed heritage building known as the old Criterion Hotel on Stafford Street in Timaru. Our planners were heavily involved in the project, giving advice on planning strategy and assessment, and preparing the necessary resource consents to allow the development to proceed. Being involved in the restoration of a heritage building is always satisfying. Sadly, at the final hurdle, the Council made the decision to abandon the plans due to increasing costs. All is not lost though – the Timaru District Council is now considering new options for a theatre, and the prospect of the old Theatre Royal being restored is looking promising.
New Hindu Temple Development, Hasketts Road, Templeton
We were delighted to be asked to be involved with the design and development of the first non-affiliated Hindu Temple in the South Island on the outskirts of Christchurch and have recently obtained resource consent for this project. The project included the construction of a temple and cultural centre for the Pillaiyar Kovil Trust, and the final development will be a beautiful traditionally styled building set into a garden setting. We were honoured to be entrusted with working on this project, and for one of our planners in particular, Tanmayi Pagadala, it was a special and unique opportunity to be involved in the development of a temple for her faith. We look forward to the local Hindu community being able to use and enjoy the development once it is constructed.
Consents Processing
Another aspect of our work involved the occasional processing of resource consents on behalf of local Councils. We enjoy this work, as it gives us an interesting look at working on the ‘other side of the fence’ and allows us to form good working relationships with Council staff. Our work in this field has been varied over the past couple of years, with our team processing numerous rural consents, including consents for the Barkers Factory redevelopment near Geraldine, numerous rural subdivision and land use consents, consents for frost fans, farm buildings, livestock sheds, rural contracting yards and for an expansion to a silica quarry. Our consent processing work has also included a variety of urban resource consents, including the Timaru ‘Christmas Star’ which is a public art/lighting installation in Caroline Bay, as well as numerous subdivision and land use consents for a range of other activities.
American Planning Conference
Two of our planners, Mary Clay and Laura Gilmour, are excited to be travelling to the United States in late March 2025, to attend the American Planning Association Conference in Denver! Their attendance at this premier, international conference event, will allow Mary and Laura to be inspired by innovative content, and discover cutting edge planning strategies, and emerging trends in the world of urban and regional planning. Being exposed to new best practices in a range of planning fields, learning about technical solutions to common planning issues, and being part of a conference in which 5000+ attendees are expected, will be a fantastic experience.
Denver, like Christchurch, is located on a plain with a strong agricultural economy, and is adjacent to the spectacular Rocky Mountains, in which activities including farming, tourism and mining occur. In essence, Denver faces similar challenges to the Canterbury region, but on a supersized scale when compared to the South Island situation.
Mary and Laura plan to visit innovative commercial precincts and town centres to understand the features that make these successful, and to visit a range of new housing developments to allow us to assist our clients with new ideas and solutions. Colorado is also an immensely popular tourism destination, and we plan to visit some key destinations to view new developments and occur that the environment is protected while allowing sensible development.
Laura and Mary will arrive in Denver in late March to attend the full conference, and plan to stay for an extra week to do a road trip together exploring some of the amazing scenery and all that Denver and surrounds offers. We may even fit in a bit of shopping!
Keep your eyes on our Avanzar Facebook and LinkedIn pages where we will share some of the highlights of our trip! We are grateful to our boss – Antoni, for providing this amazing and generous opportunity.
Transport Planning News
Antoni has had a busy year in the field of traffic and transportation engineering. He has continued to prepare plenty of ITA’s (integrated transport assessments), for a range of our clients, and, despite the prevalence of EV’s, has worked on a high number of service station applications this year. He has particularly enjoyed working on commercial and residential developments around Wanaka and Central Otago but continues to work on projects across the Country – in Otago, Canterbury and Marlborough, as well as the occasional project in the North Island. As well as his usual assessment and expert evidence work, he too has been involved in the processing world, providing traffic expertise into the processing of resource consents for Councils.
Staff updates
Mayce Bates
We recently welcomed Mayce Bates to our Christchurch Planning Team. Mayce has some seven years of planning consultancy experience and is familiar with both regional planning and town planning in the Canterbury region. Mayce grew up in Otago, went to Otago University for her planning qualifications, and now lives in Christchurch with her husband, young labrador and a couple of horses. Mayce has fitted well into our team and has a wide range of resource management planning skills, which is a great help with our busy and increasing workload.
Tanmayi Pagadala
We are sad to be losing Tanmayi Pagadala from our Christchurch Planning Team at the end of the year. Tanmayi’s parents moved to Australia a couple of years ago, and she is now heading across the ditch to experience life over there. We actively tried to discourage her with stories of snakes, sharks and spiders, but she has a new job at a planning consultancy in Canberra – they are lucky to have her. Tanmayi started at Avanzar Consulting as a graduate, straight from Lincoln University, and she has been a pleasure to work with and an asset to our team. We hope that she loves her ‘overseas experience’ and comes back to New Zealand in the future. We would certainly be happy to have her back in our office any day!
Laura Gilmour
Laura has been extra busy this year, undertaking some SIT courses in Environmental Management and passed them all with flying colours! She will continue her part time study next year.
How she manages to fit everything in, we have no idea!
Merry Christmas!
As we wrap up another year, we want to take this opportunity to thank you for your business throughout 2024. It’s been a privilege to support your projects and help shape communities across the South Island. Looking ahead to 2025, we remain committed to delivering innovative, practical, and tailored planning solutions to meet your needs. From all of us at Avanzar Consulting, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to working with you again in the New Year.