Wellington’s mayoral candidate’s daring plan to join Cuba St

Tory Whanau has promised to plant one million indigenous trees and make almost the entire Cuba street pedestrian if she is elected Wellington’s mayor in the upcoming local elections.

Whanau, a green-backed independent candidate, announced her full policies on Thursday in an event at Prefab Hall in Wellington in a campaign she hopes will see her overcome two big-name contenders.

Incumbent Andy Foster, who has been on the council since 1992, is expected to announce his re-election, but has remained discouraged about his intentions, while Paul Eagle, who left the council after seven years to run the MP for Rongotai be, returned in local politics this week with plans to run.

Lesser-known candidates Ray Chung, Barbara McKenzie and Ellen Blake have all confirmed they are going to make a play for the post.

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Whanau said her top priority, should she win the post, was to fix Wellington’s problem-ridden three waters – storm, drink and waste. Her nature policy includes a plan to plant one million indigenous trees in the Wellington region in the next decade and the establishment of nurseries to help. She undertook to make Cuba Street pedestrian from Wakefield Street in the north to Karo Dr in the south.

There is a policy to “daylight” streams that are now part of the underground stormwater system and to introduce bonuses to developers who build with such as roof gardens, green walls or water recycling initiatives.

She supported the government’s preferred option for Let’s Get Wellington Moving – light rail from the city to Island Bay and a second tunnel through Mt Victoria – but wanted the light rail to be expanded. “Safe cycling and more buses are great,” she said. She has spoken before about how making the city safe – a thorny issue for the current council – will be a priority.

Whanau, along with whakapapa to Pakakohi, was born and bred in Cannons Creek, then Taranaki, before returning to Wellington for university and a career in the financial sector, before joining the Green Party behind the scenes. She acknowledged that people saw her as an “angry liberal”, but insisted she was “pragmatic” and capable of bridging the political divide.

Should she win, she will inherit a city where debt and interest rates are high, the pipes break after years of neglect, and divisions within the council are as severe as they were in memory.

“I was driven enough to get us out of the mess,” she said.

At the policy launch on Thursday, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson preceded Whanau’s own speech, saying Wellington “deserves” her leadership and fresh values. “Tory is boss,” she said to applause. “She is very overqualified for this job.” She described Whanau as “fast” and as someone who could bring the “cool” factor back to both Wellington and local politics.

“You can clap your hands if you want,” Whanau later said after announcing her policies to a crowd of at least 100.

Tory Whanau’s full policy:

• Light rail from Central Station to the hospital and then on to Island Bay as the first phase of the delivery of Let’s Get Wellington Moving.
• Better community involvement.
• Enables the delivery of more than 20,000 homes along this corridor to be a mix of social housing and affordable housing.
• Daylight the Waitangi Stream and create new parks and playgrounds along the river, with pedestrian and cycling connections.
• Create more green space in our urban areas.
• Accelerate the redevelopment of Wellington’s roads and make Cuba St.
• Deploy a program to plant a million new native trees and shrubs in Wellington over the next decade.
• Restore natural beauty and habitat of our city through daylight streams.
• Try using low-traffic neighborhoods in our suburban areas.
• Development bonuses by the district are planned to encourage better housing.
• Support safety through better street design, including emergency call boxes throughout the central city, and turn back alleys into lively roads.
• Fund community organizations dedicated to reducing alcohol and drug harm, along with those that provide mental health services.
• Supports community organizations to establish safe, supervised environments for drug testing and use, to reduce the risk of accidental overdose. Drug test sites will also be funded to provide medicines that prevent opioid overdose, to ensure that they are freely available within Wellington.
• Provide funding and training for community safety ambassadors.
• More bus priority lanes.
• Accelerate a comprehensive connected bicycle network.
• Try community storage facilities for bikes.
• Champion light rail from the railway station through an urban revival corridor from the waterfront to the hospital and then to Island Bay.
• Maintain momentum on existing work to reduce speeds near schools, provide better pedestrian connections and improve the accessibility of our streets.
• Advocates for free public transport.
• Deploy a comprehensive network of EV fast chargers throughout the city.
• Promote redevelopment that creates vibrant streets and communities by adopting the alternative standards endorsed by the Coalition for More Homes.
• Provide more mixed use zoning.
• Seek opportunities to collaborate with Kainga Ora on housing redevelopment
• Ensure that council housing tenants have warm dry affordable homes.