Masterton brokerage open for creative ideas

Children engage with Liana’s Parlour of Natural Beauty, a recent project by Liana Stupples in Lower Hutt which brought all the natural goodness of the surrounding environment into a vacant retail space. Image: Dionne Ward

A new programme in Masterton wants to help you realise your urban dreams. Part of the Our Future Masterton programme, the Urban Dream Brokerage is calling for ideas for activities and uses for vacant commercial and public space which explore new ways to use space and give more life to the Masterton CBD. Following workshops held with the community in 2016 and recently through Unicef with school students, the call is for ideas that are innovative and participatory, and speak to different options for changes to the town centre

Proposals are due by the last Friday of every month, starting this month. Ideas may be proposed by a webpage or discussed with Masterton’s recently appointed ‘urban dream broker’ Anneke Wolterbeek (udbmasterton@gmail.com Ph. 027 5664600).

“We’re interested in all innovative ideas that help create a better connected community, strengthen connections between age groups, and recognise and build capability for mana whenua,” says Wolterbeek. “The community has asked for projects that create more shared spaces, strengthen connections between spaces and represent Masterton’s heritage, culture and amazing environment. There is so much potential here. Ideas should operate differently to businesses and activities already in existence - who we want to support by bringing more people to the centre.”

Urban Dream Brokerage is a programme run by public art and urban revitalisation organisation Letting Space, who already run such a model successfully in Wellington, Dunedin and Porirua. The programme will run as a pilot until the end of this year. The brokerage service has facilitated over 70 projects, and has been heralded by property owners, community groups and councils alike nationally. 70% of the 34 properties occupied in Wellington over the last four years have been re-tenanted since the programme began.

Ideas have ranged from a political hair salon, where young people are encouraged to discuss politics, to an ‘Imaginarium’, a playspace for young and old alike who are welcomed to create their own cardboard constructions. There have been illuminated bike parades, fashion recycling workshops, a video game museum and a bicycle library. The latest project in Dunedin Sunroom brings the sun into a vacant shop using projections beamed from solar telescopes around the world.

Local Masterton broker Anneke Wolterbeek is being supported by a local advisory group. “ Lots of strong common ideas have already come through from the workshops” says Wolterbeek, “in terms of a keen desire for changes to CBD spaces and the kind of activities that our Urban Dream Brokerage can help enable”.

A former secretary and committees’ chair for the Rotary club of Masterton, Wolterbeek has been an active member of the EOC team (Wairarapa Emergency Operations Centre) of Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (REMO) and Chair of the Rotary District International Friendship Exchange Committee. Passionate about community development and sustainability, she is treasurer for the Wellington Region Waste Forum, club secretary for the Wairarapa Beekeepers Club and the organiser of the monthly Wairarapa Dogwalk Club. Wolterbeek previously worked for the Greater Wellington Regional Council as a Environmental Policy Advisor in Masterton.

“I enjoy being able to positively influence and improve the physical and social environment of our community in Masterton,” says Anneke, “and have plenty of work and life experience in other parts of the world as well. This job as part of the Our Future Masterton project is special to me: it is a chance to help the community realise creative ideas with business, property owners, Iwi and council that explore vision for the future of Masterton.”

The Urban Dream Brokerage Masterton is part of a wider Our Future Masterton programme, which is being run by Letting Space in partnership with the Toi Aria Design for Public Good programme at Massey University. It is being funded by the Masterton District Council. Following a series of community workshops in 2016, Our Future Masterton is now getting up and running to help enable a citizen driven 50-year vision for the Masterton town centre.

“The nature of our town centre is changing, and this programme recognises that,” says District Council chief executive Pim Borren. “It puts more of the ownership and control of planning for our future in the hands of the full diversity of the people who will inherit it, not just council staff or any particular interest group in Masterton. We very excited to sponsor this project.”

Reports from the 2016 workshops are available to view here on the Masterton District Council website, and a Facebook page is a portal for information about the project. Here the public can keep up to date with updates.

As part of the programme, an interactive hub space is being created by Toi Aria which will allow the public to continue to make contributions, showcase the community’s ideas and visualisations of options for the CBD, including past proposals. The focus is on trialling ideas that lead to a 50 year vision for Masterton that recognises that real substantive changes happen in towns when the community feels enabled to realise their ideas and lead over time. When people are empowered in a community where they can make a difference, a partnership and trust can happen with their local government.

Introducing Anneke Wolterbeek - Masterton Urban Dream Broker

We are excited to announce the appointment of a broker for an Urban Dream Brokerage in Masterton, helping enable the community to trial ideas for the use of space in the CBD.

Anneke Wolterbeek is Masterton-based and will be supported by a both a Masterton advisory group and the teams at Letting Space and Massey University’s Toi Aria, Design for Public Good programme.

A former secretary and committees’ chair for the Rotary club of Masterton, Wolterbeek has been an active member of the EOC team (Wairarapa Emergency Operations Centre) of Wellington Region Emergency Management Office (REMO) and Chair of the Rotary District International Friendship Exchange Committee. Passionate about community development and sustainability, she is treasurer for the Wellington Region Waste Forum, club secretary for the Wairarapa Beekeepers Club and is the organiser of the monthly Wairarapa Dogwalk Club.

Wolterbeek previously worked for the Greater Wellington Regional Council as a Environmental Policy Advisor in Masterton, and prior to that; in policy and resource planning with the New Zealand Transport Agency and Whangarei District Council. She originally hails from the Netherlands where she has worked in natural resource policy planning and advising. She has also held positions within the environmental, agricultural and science fields working with local government, government ministries and universities. She has worked on sustainable housing projects and Community Neighbourhood committees that were concerned with the service and spatial development of a city.

“I enjoy being able to positively influence and improve the physical and social environment of our community in Masterton,” says Anneke, “and have plenty of work and life experience in other parts of the world as well. I am passionate about life in rural New Zealand and the Wairarapa. This job as part of the Our Future Masterton project is special to me: it is a chance to help the community realise creative ideas with business, property owners, Iwi and council that explore vision for the future of Masterton.”

The Urban Dream Brokerage Masterton is part of a wider Our Future Masterton programme. Following a series of community workshops in 2016, Our Future Masterton is now getting up and running to help enable a citizen driven 50-year vision for the Masterton town centre.

“The nature of our town centre is changing, and this programme recognises that,” says District Council chief executive Pim Borren. “It puts more of the ownership and control of planning for our future in the hands of the full diversity of the people who will inherit it, not just council staff or any particular interest group in Masterton. We very excited to sponsor this project.”

“This isn’t a project about making immediate permanent changes in the Masterton centre," says Letting Space's Mark Amery, "rather it provides a space to trial fun, engaging ideas from the public, who best know their town. It’s an open project, gathering past ideas that have been left unrealised together with the new.”

Reports from the 2016 workshops are now available to view here on the Masterton District Council website, and a Facebook page is a portal for information about the project. Here the public can keep up to date with updates.

Urban Dream Brokerage is a programme Letting Space already run successfully in Wellington, Dunedin and Porirua with council, community trust and chamber of commerce support. There will shortly be a call out publicly for ideas. Urban Dream Brokerage brokers the use of vacant commercial space and public space for innovative ideas generated by the community, encouraging the revitalisation of CBDs and testing out new uses for public areas. The Urban Dream Brokerage service has facilitated over 70 projects over three centres, and has been heralded by property owners, community groups and councils alike nationally in helping revive CBDs. 70% of the 34 properties occupied in Wellington city over the last four years have been re-tenanted after activation.

Position available: Urban Dream Brokerage Masterton Broker

Kia ora Masterton,

As part of the Our Future Masterton programme (information below) we are looking to employ a special Masterton-area based person for a part-time short term contract for service, starting late May/early June running potentially until Christmas.  The deadline for applications is 9am, Monday 15th May, 2017. READ ON for the job description.

Advertised Position: Urban Dream Brokerage Masterton Broker

Are you passionate about Masterton’s future? Would you like to contribute by helping enable your fellow citizens to try out events and ideas that help develop a CBD that feels owned by all as a place for all? Do you have strong diverse local networks and feel you can talk to the local community, artists and property owners alike? This is a role to create exciting new opportunities in Masterton, developed by the community helping re-imagine the use of the different spaces and sites around the CBD through public space events and vacant space projects? The broker’s role is to help facilitate these, rather than actually produce them.

Letting Space is looking to contract a self-motivated person to make a real contribution to the revitalisation of Masterton. Through OUR FUTURE MASTERTON the Urban Dream Brokerage service (currently running in Wellington and Dunedin with Letting Space www.urbandreambrokerage.org.nz) the Broker will process applications from creative thinkers with dynamic projects for vacant commercial spaces and public spaces. They will be good at inspiring locals to think outside the box and develop their ideas to their potential, work closely with property owners, council and retailers and negotiate to secure sites and spaces under temporary licensing arrangements. They will promote these projects through a variety of media and community channels.

The broker will be strong at making contacts with business people, community groups, artists and the media. They will be good at spreading the word about this programme. This is a part-time contract for service available on flexible terms for $9000.

Application due: 9am, Monday 15th May, 2017

Interviews: Between 9-5pm, 17th or 18th May (please ensure you are available)

Start work: 6th June, reviewed August, ends by 29th December 2017

Job description

Broker Role

The primary purpose of the role is to successfully coordinate the placement of fresh, unique and creative projects and events into vacant commercial spaces and public spaces within the Masterton town centre.

The secondary purpose will be to advocate and promote these projects, helping lead to the revitalisation of Masterton CBD in the eyes of the community, property and business worlds alike.

Your role will involve:

1. Implementing strategies to maintain buy-in from property owners and to promote the benefits of the brokerage.

2. Developing a marketing strategy with assistance from Letting Space and promoting successfully brokered projects to a wide audience.  

3. Promoting the brokerage to the local community, meeting and discussing criteria with potential applicants, following on from the community workshops this programme has undertaken in 2016, which elicited many ideas for the CBD from locals..

4. Liaising with other key stakeholders such as retailers, Lands Trust, arts, community and business groups, Masterton City Council, Chamber of Commerce and key individual affiliates connected to the property industry.

5. Being part of the Urban Dream Brokerage national team, offering each other support and working closely with both Letting Space and Toi Aria: Design for Public Good, Massey University.

6. Liase with the Urban Dream Brokerage Masterton Advisory group, for advice and leads as needed. This group is made up of a diverse body of 20 or more Masterton based people, with strong networks between them.

5. Research, document and maintain a database of applicants and property owners.

6. Develop and write editorial relating to successful projects, and develop newsletters, social media posts or other informative material.

7. Negotiate License Agreements and Special Conditions with property owners, based on existing templates.

8. Arrange property inspections to assess condition of sites and suitability for their use.

9. Coordinate repair and maintenance works and contribute to Property Risk Management procedures

10. Develop initial relationships with further potential funders/partners of the Brokerage.

11. Maintain excellent relationships with property owners and artists.

12. Contribute to communication of the Our Future Masterton programme with the rest of the team (see below).

Reporting

The Broker will be expected to be able to work independently, but will be briefed and guided by Letting Space Directors / Urban Dream Managers: Sophie Jerram, Mark Amery, Helen Kirlew Smith and contracted through the Wellington Independent Arts Trust (WIAT). Contribution will also be made by programme partners Toi Aria, Massey University, who WIAT have a subcontract with to complete this work.

Contract

This is a position for an Independent contractor for an Initial Period of two months (8 weeks) with the potential to extend for up to a seven month period (29th December 2017).

This is a part-time contract for service available on flexible terms with the number of hours per week to be set ($25-$30 an hour - depending on experience). The position is expected to start on 6th June 2017, but may commence earlier if the broker is available to do so.

Selection Criteria

This position involves being able to work across the community, creative, property and business worlds. The successful applicant may have their principal experience in either of these areas, but in bridging these interests will bring an understanding and appreciation of all of them.

Essential

1. Passion for the renewal and revitalisation of Masterton  and a belief in the important role that community play as agents of change.

2. Excellent verbal, and written and personal communication skills

3. Good thorough documentation skills

4. Good budgeting and project management skills

5. Confident, dynamic, tenacious and self-motivated personal qualities

Important

1. Understanding, knowledge and appreciation of the business, community and property worlds of Masterton

2. Project management/coordination experience

3. Understanding and appreciating of the role public art can play in urban development

4. Experience/background in real estate, creative and property industries or urban development

5. Experience in negotiations

6. Experience with maintenance/building/property service providers

To apply

Please email urbandreambrokerage@gmail.com the following documents:

1. CV – no more than 2 pages

2. Your written response to all the Selection Criteria

In the subject of your email please include the words: Job Application: Broker  [insert your name]

Enquiries

Email as above or phone Sophie Jerram telephone: 029 934 9749 or Mark Amery 027 3566 128

This position is funded with the sponsorship of the Masterton City Council.

INFORMATION ON: OUR FUTURE MASTERTON

AHUTAKI KI MUA MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER

Participate in creating a future Masterton. Through a range of fun activities be part a citizen-led design for Masterton and its CBD. Not just for next year, but for the decades ahead: a legacy to future generations, that young and old contribute to. A collective 50-year vision.

Who are we? We are the Masterton community, but with facilitation and inspiration from an experienced team from Toi Āria: Design for the Public Good, Massey University and Letting Space, an independent public art and urban revitalisation organisation. The programme has been sponsored by Masterton District Council.

The programme includes:

·      Urban Dream Brokerage, calling for innovative new ideas for public and vacant commercial spaces from the community, and then brokering spaces for those that meet the community’s goals as events over 2017. The brokerage has a local broker and diverse local advisory panel.

·      An Our Future Masterton Hub: a hands-on interactive space where you can contribute ideas for the future, comment on others ideas, past and present, and potential areas of physical spatial change in the CBD – through both displays and mini-workshops.

·      Visualisations of potential options for creating new and connected spaces in the Masterton CBD to stimulate further discussion and contribution.

CBDs really flourish through participation and strong leadership from all sectors of the community, not just those perceived most powerful. Following initial citizen contributions in 2016 workshops, our focus is exploring ways to create a well-connected and generous community, strengthen inter-generational connections, and recognise and build capability with tangata whenua. Physically, we have been asked to look to create shared spaces, strengthen connections between spaces, and strengthen connections to Masterton’s heritage and history, and the CBD’s connection to nature.

Get in touch with your ideas and thoughts – they will shape our future Masterton.

ENDS.

Lots of Dunedin and Wellington News

Unstitched. Image: Justin Spiers.

We have a whole host of Autumn news for you which we've gathered into one PDF for you - read on at this link here.

Welcomes

Just before Christmas Urban Dream Broker Tamsin Cooper brought into the world a new human light, Hafwen. Congratulations to Tamsin and her whanau.

While she is on maternity leave we welcome Katrina Thomson to the Broker chair in Dunedin. Katrina is a visual artist living and working in Dunedin with a long-standing involvement in the art community of Dunedin, including collaborative curatorial work with the Anteroom Charitable Arts Trust, work for the Dunedin Midwinter Carnival, and helping out or being helped out with a vast array of her own and her contemporaries’ art projects.

Her own interesting practice incorporates sculpture, objects, installation, sound, performance and uses unconventional spaces to create events or installations. She has been on international residencies in Japan, Iceland and Mexico.

Thomson utilises her sculpture skills for art commissions, and in the past worked at Otago Polytechnic’s workSpace where she sculpted the Dunedin City Council’s artisanal street furniture for the Dunedin Warehouse Precinct, helped build Rachel Rakena’s Haka Peep Show commissioned by the Dunedin City Council and Ngai Tahu, and worked on various interactive exhibits for the Otago Museum, Toitu, and museums in Christchurch and Malaysia.

She loves the process of brainstorming, collaborating with others, and supporting creative activity and is excited to have the opportunity to work with Urban Dream Brokerage and interesting new projects in Dunedin.

With her knowledge and skills we're very lucky to have her with Letting Space for a few months.

Tamsin Cooper Wraps Up the Season From Dunedin

Image from Citizen Stylist. Photo: Justin Spiers

Urban Dream Brokerage Dunedin wrapped up the year with it's most fashionable project Citizen Stylist at 23 Princes St. I'm delighted to have helped broker nine diverse projects this year in Dunedin. These have covered many discipines and touched very different audiences: from a live digital mirror in Wall St Mall to an underground performance installation, and a retro games museum that boasted over 3,600 visitors in just 11 days!

These projects could only have happened with the generous goodwill and spirit of our property owners in Dunedin's CBD, and we would like to extend a huge thank you to David Marsh, Justin Stott, Neville Hall, Tim Buchanan and Sarah Stevenson.

UDB Dunedin also has a wonderfully active advisory panel who together have selected these interesting offerings to grace our streets. Thank you to: Cara Paterson, Josh Thomas, Chanel O'Brien, Peter Christos, Ali Bramwell, Vicki Lenihan, Caro McCaw, Annie Villers and Kirsty Glengarry for your huge effort, constructive opinions and precious time this year!

An enormous thank you to the artists and designers who have given their tremendous talents and trust in UDB to create new experiences in the heart of our city for all to enjoy.

From February - April 2017 we happily introduce Katrina Thomson who will be taking over as broker while I am away on Maternity leave.

As a final sparkling Christmas gift from UDB Dunedin we would like to let you know that we are proud to announce we are the recipients of a grant from the Gigcity Community Fund for two new significant digital commissions for 2017. A call out for submissions will be made in late January 2017.

Need for diversity in our cities says Property Council head

UDB project Retro Games Museum in Dunedin. Image: Justin Spiers.

2016 saw strong economic recovery in cities and towns across New Zealand. But there remain plenty of vacant spaces

Architect, property developer and current President of the Wellington Branch of the Property Council of New Zealand Mike Cole is a welcome member of the Urban Dream Brokerage’s Advisory Board, with a real passion for the city's future.

“Wellington has come a long way from the relatively grey city it was when I arrived in 1982," wrote Mike to us. "Many people have put their heart and souls into making it the creative capital of New Zealand. All of our established companies here, be they in software or theatre, were founded by people passionate about both their particular field and about Wellington.”

"The work of Urban Dream Brokerage creates a win-win for property owners and innovative projects. These vacant properties are often then seen in a new light and leased post-event. Artists have a space for their projects which encourages diversity, a sense of community and public interaction in our cities.”

Urban Dream Brokerage has also been working with property owners, councils and communities in Porirua and Masterton.

"Our town and city centres rely on people being involved to grow their identity and character. As the economy recovers it can be even harder for new ideas to find space," says Mark Amery.

As at the end of 2016, working with 35 property owners, the Urban Dream Brokerage has filled more than 55 vacant spaces with innovative creative projects in Wellington city, Porirua and Dunedin. The majority have led to new tenancies.

“There have been 48 projects in Wellington alone, ranging from a ‘Moodbank’ – a place for Wellingtonians in a disused bank to register their moods – to a community-made giant iceberg, a koha café, an illuminated bike workshop and a “political hair salon”. In Dunedin recently over 3500 people in two weeks went to a Retro Games Museum in George Street, created from one man’s collection that usually fills two houses,” Mr Amery says.

Urban Dream Brokerage brings together commercial property owners with projects. Architect, property developer and current President of the Wellington Branch of the Property Council of New Zealand Mike Cole is a member of the Urban Dream Brokerage’s Advisory Board.

Recent 2016 Urban Dream Brokerage projects include the Lux Festival Light show Glade which attracted more than 5000 visitors to Clyde Quay Wharf, and in November a bold adaptation of a Shakespearean play set in the historic Grand Hall at the Public Trust Building, which has since been taken over by council as an Earthquake Response Centre.

“These uses of vacant space also provides a tangible way for property owners to contribute to the community,” Mr Amery says.