How Council can move a languishing urban regeneration project forward (with only a little bit of money)

This methodology for urban regeneration projects offers a flexible, collaborative, and iterative advisory approach. It's designed to leverage existing foundational work, even if completed in silos, and provides a clear pathway to advance projects that may have stalled due to funding constraints or the inherent inflexibility of traditional local government processes in enabling comprehensive regeneration.

This outlined methodology is designed to be highly accessible and cost-effective, enabling organizations to leverage existing internal resources and staff. Crucially, it operates within established decision-making processes, ensuring compliance and smooth integration. Presented at a high level, these steps provide actionable advice for navigating the complexities of urban regeneration and renewal, particularly within established areas, to achieve successful implementation.

This approach is structured around several key phases, acknowledging that much of the work will overlap, and may already exist, rather than being strictly sequential:

1. Establishment: This initial phase is crucial for building strong working relationships with key decision-makers and stakeholders. It involves understanding the project context, confirming the scope, and defining what success looks like. Key activities include kick-off workshops, establishing project governance, determining a baseline for subsequent steps, and initiating a comprehensive engagement strategy.
2. Investigation: This phase centers on a critical review of existing masterplans or strategic documents, particularly their assumptions regarding land values and overall viability in the current market. It seeks to clarify whether further master planning will be public or market-led and acknowledges that prior assumptions may need revisiting due to evolving conditions. Preliminary due diligence will be conducted to establish achievable outcomes, connecting the regeneration project with wider developments in the area. A draft engagement plan, including key messages, will also be developed.
3. Early Engagement: This involves immediate engagement with Māori partners (Iwi/Mana Whenua) and other crucial steering groups. It also includes initial market sounding to gauge interest once the strategic intent and decision frameworks are confirmed. This early engagement is critical for securing social license and managing expectations, particularly given potential "project fatigue" among the community and stakeholders.
4. Develop a Precinct Delivery (Outline) Plan: This phase focuses on clarifying the project's fit within central, regional, and local strategies and priorities. It includes options development, assessing scenarios like public sector-led versus private sector/market-led approaches, and initial commercial assessments and costings. A blueprint will be created to define the public sector's role and the intended space for the private sector, identifying co-investment and risk-sharing models. The methodology acknowledges that funding for public realm and capital works may not be solely achievable through increased land values and that traditional business case approaches may not suffice for complex regeneration.
5. Implementation (and Partnerships) Plan Development: The team will work alongside the relevant authorities to develop an implementation plan that articulates the ongoing work required to deliver the agree upon programme, potentially including a high-level commercial and financial strategy (if enough information exists, or there is the funding to support this at this stage in the process).
6. Revised Project Delivery Plan: The culmination of the advisory services will be the development of a revised project plan based on the insights and strategies developed throughout the preceding phases, providing a clear roadmap for the future.

Throughout these phases, the methodology emphasises several core principles:

• Collaboration: A strong emphasis is placed on working alongside project staff and stakeholders, fostering capability building and knowledge transfer to ensure enduring outcomes and sustainable development.
• Adaptability: The approach acknowledges that urban development is not linear and requires flexibility to navigate political cycles, local government processes, and evolving market conditions.
• Holistic View: The methodology integrates commercial advisory, project delivery, engagement with diverse groups, and an understanding of other critical industries such as the civic, arts, cultural, and creative industries, as an example. It aims to marry ambition with on-the-ground realities, using an evidence-based approach to ensure comprehensive solutions.
• Risk Mitigation: Various market, macroeconomic, process, and budget risks are identified, with proposed mitigation strategies such as comprehensive cost planning, risk workshops, value engineering, and strategic procurement to safeguard the project's success.
• Authentic Engagement: There is a commitment to authentic engagement with Māori partners and the wider community, ensuring their inclusion and placing tangata whenua and the creative arts and cultural sectors at the center of the program's design and delivery.

The overall methodology reflects a practical, experienced-based approach to complex urban regeneration, aiming to provide the necessary confidence, certainty, and clarity needed to successfully design and implement a defensible programme of work that will help to deliver the regeneration outcomes, which are so often sought but very rarely delivered.