As your residents’ association, we want to focus on what matters most to you. Our 2025 Community survey is your chance to:
Share your vision for our bay’s future
Help guide where we focus our energy and support you
Jump into our survey and tell us what you care about most. Whether it’s our gorgeous beach, local businesses, infrastructure, or community events and spaces – your ideas will guide our work!
Hop online, take a few minutes to share your thoughts:
As a result of the amazing generosity of our community, please join us for the blessing and opening of our Tapu Te Ranga Island Bay community pātaka kai! We’ll start outside Island Bay Library for the blessing, then head over to Island Bay Community Centre for kai and coffee. We’ll be sharing waiata together – you might like to practice “Purea Nei” beforehand! If you’re able, we’d love you to bring some kai to share at the morning tea or to help stock our new pātaka. But please know that you’re also welcome exactly as you are – nau mai, haere mai. Kai that is suitable for the pātaka:
Fruit, vegetables, and eggs
Tinned, bottled, and dried goods (unopened packaging)
Bread and baked goods from registered businesses (less than 2 days old)
Seedlings and seeds
This pātaka is a place where we can all share from our kitchens and gardens with each other. Everyone is welcome to give, and everyone is welcome to take. The pātaka kai is an initiative of Island Bay Residents’ Association together with Wellington City Council.
Our community is coming together to build a pātaka kai (community pantry) outside the Island Bay library – where we can share from our kitchens and gardens with each other. It will be a beautiful space of sharing and connection.
Thanks to generous donations from Bunnings ($250) and the Island Bay Library ($250), we have already built the box for the kai. We want to raise the remaining $589 for building materials for the roof, legs and door. We also hope to raise up to $2000 to help compensate our amazing builder, Joseph Nicholls of SmallProjects.nz who is making a significant time investment to design and build the pātaka. So far it is looking gorgeous!
The pātaka is a joint project between the Island Bay Residents’ Association and Wellington City Council. Once built, the Island Bay Community Centre team will help us all keep the pātaka clean.
Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi. With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive.
Use of funds
Initial funds will be spent on materials to complete the build of the pātaka kai, with the rest of the funds contributing to the significant time investment by our builder – Joseph of SmallProjects.nz.
From Brennan and the WCC team: Wellington City Council have now finished the works (Island Bay village upgrades – Projects – Wellington City Council) in the main shopping area for both the safety improvements to the bike lane, and the public space upgrades. Following the traffic resolution, design workshops, and Love the Bay Objectives, council developed and delivered the project within in the defined programme and budget set in the 2021-2031 Long-term Plan.
The outcomes strengthen the identity and distinctive character of Island Bay village, improve safety and accessibility, provide more attractive and functional spaces for activity, resurface footpaths, improve the lighting, upgrades stormwater infrastructure to accommodate changes in road and footpath levels, increases planting area, completes the north/south separated bike lane (1.6kms), and addresses the turnover of cars with increased restricted parking.
The new pedestrian priority crossings and updated footpath space in most areas allow for a clear and level access path, particularly against the buildings. This also gives more space for businesses to spill out onto the footpath with tables and chairs, as visible with Blue Belle Café, and Floyd’s Café. The clear path gives blind/low-vision and mobility impaired pedestrians unobstructed access to the business entrances and edge detection. Similarly, the raised edge in highly pedestrian areas stops prams, wheelchairs, and canes from entering the planter bed.
This project provided new native street trees, increasing tree canopy coverage for the neighbourhood, and were planted in a way that means roots won’t damage footpaths or roads.
Sprinkled throughout the upgrades, there are small references or stories to Island Bay’s environment, history, and culture. These include two new murals by local artists, awa signage identifying the original location of the Paekawakawa stream, images of boats in the harbour etched into the sides of rubbish bins, original tram tracks donated from the Wellington Tram Museum, literary quotes from local authors or notable people, inclusion of Te Reo Māori, coastal vegetation and rocks, and soon to come– playful characterised native fauna near the library and images for the bus shelter.
There will be a small blessing for the interpretation work, with an invite to relevant stakeholders. To celebrate the close of the major works, Council has been advised that the business owner for White Room Gallery will be leading a business run event in the coming weeks.
Council would like to thank the working group and community for the feedback provided at meetings, who advised on project priorities, objectives, and targeted changes to the public space. Council also wishes to thank you for your patience and for supporting your suburb.
IBRA must ensure its constitution is compliant with new legislation or cease to exist
The Incorporated Societies Act 2022 (the Act) requires all incorporated societies to adopt a constitution that is compliant with the Act by 5 April 2026. Failure to do so means that IBRA will cease to exist on that date.
Why we recommend that IBRA develop a new constitution
Work to update the constitution in accordance with the requirements of the Act has found that the multiple changes are needed and mean that it is more practical to use the ‘Constitution Builder’ on the Incorporated Societies website https://is-register.companiesoffice.govt.nz/ to develop a new constitution that is compliant with the Act.
What is involved in developing a new constitution?
Some new clauses are mandatory, and others are recommended. The Committee will need to agree process issues, that are unlikely to be controversial, but will require consideration (e.g. number of committee members, regularity of AGM and other meetings).
Opportunity
More importantly, the new constitution presents IBRA with an opportunity to:
update the ‘purposes’ section of its existing constitution to ensure that it is fit for purpose,
incorporate the existing code of conduct into the recommended section on ‘protocol’.
If you have any feedback on this draft, please send by email to Islandbayres@gmail.com by the 10th September.
A final version will be circulated after the review period and presented at the AGM for voting. To pass this new constitution 2/3 of all who vote must vote in favour for it to be accepted.
islandbay.org 