Sustainable Communities

Council searching for Green Street

New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast District Council has announced a competition to find Kāpiti’s Greenest Street. Commencing in October, the competition is being touted as an opportunity for neighbours to get together to reduce their environmental footprint, become more self-sufficient and make their street an even better place to live.

Stacey Gasson, Sustainable Communities Coordinator, says “Many of us think we already live in the best street in Kapiti, but which of us could also be the greenest?
Don’t be intimidated if you think you’re only a pale shade of mint at present – this competition will show how green streets can be grown in the most normal circumstances if we’ve got some vision and support”.

Council assistance will be available throughout the competition as streets implement their good green ideas. The council offers advice and support with environmentally friendly gardening, energy saving at home, ride-sharing, walking school buses, restoring and protecting local environments, community projects, water use, recycling, waste minimisation and more. Staff can also help streets find some of the other great green resources and funding that are out there.

By the time the competition closes in June 2011, not only will all competing streets have experienced local fame, had fun, made friends and created more sustainable homes and gardens for themselves, but one street will be awarded $3000 to share between the school, charity and neighbourhood project of their choice.

Jake Roos, Climate Change Advisor, acknowledges that the idea of being judged might be a little scary, but says, “Environmental footprinting is a great tool for getting an idea how sustainable our lifestyles are and recognising the areas where the biggest wins can be made. But being there’s more to being green than an individual’s choices – it’s about being part of a strong local community too. This is your street’s opportunity to show Kāpiti what can be done when friends and neighbours work together”. The rest of Kāpiti will be able to follow the streets on their journey via the Council website, media updates and at the Sustainable Home and Garden Show in March 2011.

Interested streets are encouraged to start plotting over cups of tea as soon as possible – registrations of interest will be taken from mid-August 2010. Five streets from across the district will be selected to participate.

Register your interest at sustainable.communities@kapiticoast.govt.nz or phone 04, 296 4700

Competition Rules and Entry Form

Introduction

Kāpiti Coast’s Greenest Street Competition 2010/11 is intended to enthuse and assist groups of neighbours to work together, make friends and have fun while they go on a journey as a community to reduce their environmental footprint, be more self-sufficient and enhance the place where they live. The competition is being run by Kāpiti Coast District Council.

Prize

The competition participants from the winning street will receive win a cash prize that will be split 3 ways – one third to a charity of their choice, one third to a local school, and one third free choice for the street to spend communally. The amount of prize money will depend partly on sponsorship, but as a minimum it will be NZ$3,000.

Who can enter

Any grouping of ten or more households in the same locality (in a built up area this is defined as where no property is more than 50 metres from at least one other in the group, but can be further for rural communities), can register interest. If the households in the grouping are located on more than one street but meet the locality requirement they will still be considered. We will consider groups with less than 10 households or spaced further apart if
enough groups that meet these criteria cannot be found.

Registering interest

Registrations of interest will be taken starting mid August 2010. The deadline for registrations of interest will be 8 September 2010. A street will need to show they have their community on board and have held at least one meeting, demonstrating support and a basic level of organisation. Acceptable evidence are the names, addresses and signatures for each of the participating households, and the minutes of the meeting. They will also need to
answer the questions on the entry form.

From the registrations of interest, up to five streets (or groups) will be chosen by council officers to participate fully in the competition. The criteria for this selection will be based partly on answers given on the entry form, which seek to learn about the group’s capabilities and motivation, and partly on the basis of having a good spread of participating groups from across the district. The decision of the Council in this regard will be final and no further
discussion or correspondence will be entered into.

Competition launch

Council officers will help organise a launch event for each street in early summer where a street’s current state and resources and will be reviewed, and the participants will do ‘environmental footprint’ questionnaires (http://www.myfootprint.org/en/) to gauge their current impact on the environment.

Ongoing support

Over the course of the competition the streets/groups will have access to assistance from council experts and others on how they can reduce their footprints and how their ideas for the street itself can be made into reality. The Council will seek to provide assistance equitably between the streets/groups, while at the same time being responsive to reasonable requests for help. Expert assistance on gardening, water conservation, energy conservation, travel planning, bio-diversity, surface water management, waste and recycling will be available.

Promotion

The streets will be encouraged to use free web resources (e.g. Facebook, YouTube) to promote what they are doing and this material will be linked from a competition webpage. A high public profile will be kept up through a variety of other media including press releases, magazine articles. The Council’s annual Sustainable Home and Garden Show on 26-27 March 2011 will be another opportunity for the streets/groups to showcase what they are
doing.

Judging panel

The judging panel will be five people, a combination of councillors, council officers, and other trusted and well known public figures. The judging panel will be announced over the course of the competition.

The final weekend

There will be a second environmental footprinting round at the end of the competition to measure improvement.  On the final weekend of the competition (sometime in June or July 2011) the judges will tour each of the streets on Saturday. On the next day (Sunday) there will be a final ‘wrap’ event in the form of a family-friendly party in the afternoon where the streets will make their final presentation (their choice as to the format they use), the judges will make a final decision and the winning street will be announced. They will have the title of ‘Kāpiti Coast’s Greenest Street 2011’

Judging criteria

The Streets will be judged based on • 30% the percentage they reduce their collective environmental footprint; • 30% the absolute size of their average footprint at the end of the competition; 30% what they achieve as a community – how well they have worked together,  involved people and made the most of their skills and resources; the streets final presentation at the wrap event is the final opportunity to improve their score in this area.
10% points for ‘green’ actions people have done within their individual households not covered by the footprint questionnaire.

The judges’ decision will be final and no further discussion will be entered into.

Participant’s obligations

By agreeing to take part in the competition, the participants (i.e. all members of each group) agree to complete environmental footprint questionnaires as honestly and accurately as possible at the beginning of the competition and at the end, in a timely fashion.

Representatives (being some or all) of each grouping will:
• Co-operate with the Council to organise a launch event where the street and participating households will be briefly toured by the competition organisers.
• Liaise with council officers regularly (once every 1-2 months) to keep them informed of their progress and help promote the competition to the wider public.
• Attend the Sustainable Home and Garden Show on 26-27 March 2011 again to promote the competition. The exact form of the competition’s presence at the show is to be determined, but the streets/groups are likely to be given the choice of how to use the event to promote sustainability and what they are doing.
• Co-operate with the judging panel to arrange a visit by them to the street/locality at the end of the competition.
• Attend the closing event of the competition and make a final presentation (open format) about their group’s journey through the competition to the judges and assembled audience. This will be held sometime in June or July 2011.

If the groups/participants fail to meet these obligations, the competition organisers reserve the right to disqualify them.

Contacts:
Jake Roos
Senior Advisor Climate Change and Energy

Te Kaitohutohu Matua Pūtaiao
DDI: 04 2964846, Fax: 04 2964830
jaker@kapiticoast.govt.nz

Stacey Gasson
Sustainable Neighbourhoods Coordinator
DDI: 04 296 4700
sustainable.communities@kapiticoast.govt.nz
www.kapiticoast.govt.nz