Local leaders share their hopes for Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty in 2026. Photo / Andrew Warner
From easing cost-of-living pressures to building healthier, more resilient communities, Bay of Plenty leaders have high hopes for their region. Reporter Annabel Reid finds out what is on the leaders’ wish lists for the New Year.
Mahé Drysdale says 2026 is about pushing the city closer to its full potential and cementing Tauranga as “the best city in New Zealand”.
Drysdale says the council will focus on unlocking more affordable housing, easing transport issues, lifting environmental outcomes and delivering services the community can rely on.
Growth could not come at the cost of affordability, he said, stressing the need to ensure everything the council did delivered “great value for money” for ratepayers.
Top of the to-do list next year would be an annual plan aimed at keeping rate increases as low as possible and, “fingers crossed”, sealing a long-anticipated regional deal.
The year ahead was to bring “both opportunities and challenges” for James Denyer as he expected “a lot of change ahead in the local government sector”.
Denyer was looking forward to agreeing to the regional deal with the Government and said the council approved the terms “in principle” just before Christmas and hoped it would include some “great wins” for the district.
Jan Tinetti said her hope for Tauranga in 2026 was a city where everyone felt “valued, heard, and supported” as part of a “thriving” community.
She said the focus “must remain” firmly on easing the cost of daily life, improving access to quality housing, education and healthcare, and strengthening the connections that brought people together.
“By putting people at the heart of every decision, we can build a fairer, more compassionate Tauranga for all,” she said.
“What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.”
With 2026 being an election year, Todd Muller said it was perhaps “too much” to ask for a year of “less toxicity”, “more tolerance”, and “some reflection of where we find ourselves as a community and nation”.
Muller said he had “real excitement” about what a regional deal could deliver for the city, establishing a “genuine partnership where we can plan together how to grow and build this region”.
Training to be an orthopaedic surgeon while competing as an athlete has shown Kyla Matenga the power “backing yourself” and “doing hard things”.
Matenga hoped to see a community that valued health, ambition, and people – especially women – “not shrinking themselves”.
Her priority was to help create an environment where people felt supported to aim high, stay active, and “believe they can belong in spaces that once felt out of reach”.
Tom Rutherford’s focus for 2026 was on fixing the basics while building for the future.
Rutherford said that meant easing cost-of-living pressures, backing local businesses, strengthening community safety, lifting education outcomes and delivering the infrastructure the Bay needed, including better roads and more housing.
Improving access to healthcare was a “key priority”, Rutherford said, pointing to the delivery of a new 24/7 urgent care service and expanded after-hours care funded in this year’s Budget, so families could access timely healthcare closer to home.
Matt Cowley said he hoped Tauranga’s communities – particularly businesses – would step up and embrace the “huge waves of change” ahead.
Cowley said the city could not rely on government alone to shape its future and instead needed to take the lead itself.
With the world throwing constant change at New Zealand, Cowley said the focus had to be on “controlling our controllables” and how communities responded to external pressures, calling for an empowered mindset to build a resilient and self-determined future.
“Sometimes walking into the fire brings the greatest opportunities,” he said.
Liz Davies said her first hope was for everyone to have what they needed to “live with dignity”, including a secure home, food in the pantry and the ability to cover basic living costs.
Her second hope was for community organisations to be better valued and recognised for their deep commitment to helping the community thrive, standing alongside whānau facing challenges and “helping weave the social fabric that holds us all together”.
Davies said people, community and the environment needed to be prioritised in everything that was done.
Matemoana McDonald said local government was heading into 2026 amid a period of “significant change”.
She said change could be positive when managed well, with the council’s focus on ensuring strong community outcomes for the Bay of Plenty, regardless of what lay ahead.
McDonald said the council would work closely with its people and partners, including iwi and hapū, so their voices would help shape the future.
Together, she said, those partnerships could create lasting benefits for both current communities and generations to come.
Sonya Korohina said while a year could be defined by big milestones – such as reopening Toi Tauranga Art Gallery – it was often the small moments that mattered most.
She shared a recent encounter with two young girls who regularly fundraised in the community and knocked on her door, this time simply to say thank you, bringing baked gingerbread people - one with a “slightly burnt, but extra tasty” arm.
Korohina said her hope for 2026 was to see more acts of reciprocity across the city.
Those “small moments” of kindness and generosity played a powerful role in strengthening the city’s humanity and overall wellbeing, she said.
Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.