Manager rewarded for smart future thinking

A surprised Craig Batchelar, an architect of the trendsetting Western Bay SmartGrowth plan, has been presented with a distinguished service award by New Zealand Planning Institute (NZPI).
Mr Batchelar, Tauranga office manager with Boffa Miskell, thought he was going to a World Town Planning Day celebration at the Tauranga Club.
Instead, the drinks were on Mr Batchelar - not the late Professor Carlos Maria della Paolera of Buenos Aires University fame - after he received his award from NZPI president, Jane Douglas. "I knew something was up when I saw my two children there. I thought 'what the heck are they doing at a function like this'," he said.
The institute hands out one or two similar awards a year.
World Town Planning Day was founded in 1949 by Professor Paolera to advance public and professional interest in planning - and it has been celebrated every year since in 30 countries.
Mr Batchelar's highlight was being the technical director of SmartGrowth between 2000 and 2004 - a plan that was developed between Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty District councils, Bay of Plenty Regional Council and tangata whenua to sustainably manage the next 20 to 50 years.
SmartGrowth involved land use, transport and infrastructure planning and how it fitted in with the natural resources.
"It was a rare opportunity to be involved with some really long term thinking and it was well resourced to get the job done," said Mr Batchelar. The strategy was now integrated into regional and district plans.
"SmartGrowth warmed the relationships between councils, iwi and transport agencies - they weren't collaborating as well as they should have been and it has now lasted a decade.
"The planning was as much a political and social process as technical," he said.
Mr Batchelar said one of the big decisions of SmartGrowth was to reject urbanisation around Tauranga Harbour up to Katikati. "We didn't want to impact the natural environment of the harbour including run-off and cultural sites."
Mr Batchelar, a NZPI member since 1988, was the first person to come up with figures on people arriving in the Western Bay on a weekly basis.
In 2000, he calculated that 100 people arrived and 50 left in a week. Now, 10 years later the figures have been updated to 135 people arriving from other places and 66 leaving.
SmartGrowth has forecast that the population of Western Bay will increase to 198,000 by 2021 and 286,000 by 2051 - after being 130,000 in 2001.
Mr Batchelar expected a major review by SmartGrowth following next year's Census. "We did the original forecast using the best information and it does need to be checked and updated. If you look back over the past 50 years the growth in the region has been consistent, averaging 15 per cent between Census periods - or three per cent a year.
"You have to be courageous and take a long term view," Mr Batchelar said.
He first worked for Ministry of Works and Development in Wellington and Hamilton, and has lived in Tauranga for 20 years.
He was consents manager and group manager environmental services at Tauranga City Council for more than 10 years, then moved into consulting after SmartGrowth in 2004, and joined Boffa Miskell in 2008.
Mr Batchelar managed the Tauranga District Plan which won a national award in 1997 for being the first one in the country to be put together under the new Resource Management Act.