Gate Pa School students show a diverse and multicultural school.
Maori and Asian residents are predicted to make up nearly a third of Tauranga's population by 2028.
The city's increasing ethnic diversity and the ageing of the population are key building blocks underpinning the development of the council's vision for the city - the 2018-28 Long Term Plan.
Statistics NewZealand data said the Maori proportion of the population would grow 2 per cent to reach 21 per cent by 2028 - the same increase as the Asian population that would reach 10 per cent. Asians included migrants from the Indian sub-continent.
And Tauranga residents in the 65 plus retirement bracket have been forecasted to make up 23 per cent of the population by 2028 - up 4 per cent on next year's projected proportion of elderly residents.
Responding to the projections, New Zealand China Friendship Society Tauranga branch president John Hodgson said work needed to be done to encourage integration.
Many Chinese people did not integrate into society, and that was a challenge, he said.
''They stick with themselves. The reason for that is complex but, regardless, it's important for us in the future to make a harmonious society by respecting cultures - recognising our differences and our similarities.''
Mr Hodgson said the friendship society focused on exchange programmes between New Zealand and China.
''We just have to make them genuinely welcome to work and make them feel that they are part of our society instead of staying with their own people all of the time.''
Buddy Mikaere, from Te Runanga O Ngai Tamarawaho, said as Treaty settlements came to fruition Maori would become increasingly prominent in the business community.
"I mean the best example is the kiwifruit industry where Maori have become big players, so I am picking that is going to expand into other areas of endeavour."
However, Mr Mikaere said Maori still featured at the lower end of the housing, education, employment and health statistics and if that did not change it was still the "same old, same old".
Retired architect Gerry Hodgson, who has lived in Tauranga for 52 years, said he celebrated the city's increasing diversity.
He corrected others when they expressed disquiet about the number of Asians moving to New Zealand.
''I say, one generation down the track and their children will take on New Zealand values. They will even be marrying New Zealanders from different cultural backgrounds.''
Mr Hodgson, who goes back four generations in New Zealand on his father's side, enjoyed attending cultural festivals and seeing the mixing of cultures. He noted that it started in the 1800s when the first Europeans arrived and started inter-marrying with Maori.
Mr Hodgson, 80, said there were very good reasons why people needed to embrace new arrivals, including refugees from war-torn countries.
On the issue of making Tauranga more age-friendly, Mr Hodgson said medium density developments needed to be made more attractive to entice empty nesters out of their large family homes.
Deputy principal Terry Furmage said the school was bicultural, recognising Maori and Pakeha as the main cultures of New Zealand, but many children from the school came from different cultures.
He said children from India, the Philippines, Nepal, Cook Islands, Australia and all over the world added a "different flavour and colour" to the school.
Multicultural days were rich, with parents and students bringing in food, entertainment, and dancing from their culture to share with the entire school.
Tauranga population forecasts Population 2018: 134,600 Population 2028: 154,900 Increase 65 plus age group: 26,000 (2018) to 36,000 (2028)
Age groups as a proportion of total population 0-14: 20% (2018) to 19% (2028) 15-39: 30% (2018) and 30% (2028) 40-64: 31% (2018) to 28% (2028) 65 plus: 19% (2018) to 23% (2028)
Council strategies for the 10-year plan put environmental issues at the top of the agenda, driven by climate change and responding to new environmental protection standards imposed by central government and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.
The council anticipated that resource consent conditions would become more stringent and was developing an "over-arching environmental strategy" for Tauranga.
Cr Max Mason wanted the strategic direction to reflect how global warming would impact on bio-diversity issues such as changes to plant and insect life. He said the diagram in the report understated the issue of rising sea levels because it was also about storm surges.
Most of the population growth was expected to occur along the city edges, in Papamoa East, Tauriko and Pyes Pa West, with some intensification in the CBD and Mount Maunganui North.
Councillor Catherine Stewart said there was a contradiction between allowing more development at Mount North and the forecast that the sea would rise about 0.3m by 2050 and 1m by 2100.
She was the only councillor to vote against the plan's key assumptions, saying that the focus on deprivation was more a central government than a council issue. "How did it manage to be such a large focus?"
Councillor Kelvin Clout said the council had really good fundamentals to go forward with, saying the last council had struggled to come to terms with a strategic direction.
