Population explosion tests Rolleston

Saturday, 13 May 2023

Residents in the rapidly growing town of Rolleston have shorter commutes since the Southern motorway opened. (First published March 2021)

Two decades ago, Rolleston’s population was 3230. Now it is 28,000 – and still growing fast. Keiller MacDuff explores how the “town of the future” became one of the fastest growing areas in New Zealand.

The population of a town on the outskirts of Christchurch grew last year by more than those of Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin combined.

Famously touted as the “town of the future”, Rolleston is now one of the fastest growing spots in the country.

It’s the biggest town in the Selwyn district, which has one of the country’s strongest economies – its gross domestic product grew by 7% in 2020/21, compared to a national average of 4.2%, according to the district council.

In 2021, Rolleston gained three times as many new residents as Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, according to Stats NZ population estimates.

Last year, while those main centres lost a combined 12,300 residents, Rolleston gained 2330.

Its population last year was an estimated 28,000, almost nine times what it was 20 years ago, when 3230 people lived there.

Rolleston has grown rapidly over the last two decades, and shows not sign of abating.

Moneel Pratap, chairperson of the Rolleston Residents Association, said he believes the town’s infrastructure is keeping up with its rapid expansion, though he would like more investment in local roading such as pedestrian crossings and traffic lights, and more public transport.

He said the community has mixed opinions on the town’s swift expansion.

“Some people love the growth, and the new shops and facilities, but other people don’t like how busy it’s getting.”

Families drive demand

Mike Blackburn, author of the Canterbury Construction Report, said the whole district had been “going gangbusters since the earthquakes”, with comparative growth in Christchurch and Waimakariri tailing off in 2014, whereas Selwyn had kept at the same level before ramping up again in 2018.

“There have been problems with land development – essentially, we've been building houses at a faster rate than we've been making land available,” Blackburn said.

He is also unconvinced Selwyn’s adoption of medium density residential standards will assist, when there is “no demand whatsoever for any form of multi-unit dwelling development”.

Blackburn said Selwyn has greater levels of population growth because “that’s where the demand for new housing for families is,” and while there was little relative difference between section prices in Christchurch and Selwyn, they remain attractive to people moving from other parts of New Zealand and looking for a lifestyle option.

While Blackburn believes the construction industry is staring into the maw of a recession, levels of demand mean Selwyn may be spared.

Rolleston College is expanding to cope with the increase in school-age children in the Selwyn town.

“Three or four of the larger group home builders in Selwyn are telling me that sales have still been strong and that they've got plenty of forward work, where I'm not seeing that same level of confidence in Christchurch or in Waimakariri.”

During the 2021/22 financial year, Selwyn District Council issued about 820 new dwelling consents for Rolleston.

Former Selwyn district councillor Mark Alexander moved to nearby Burnham in the mid-1990s, when Rolleston had “four streets and a population of about 1000.”

“There was a school, a garage, a reserve, a hall, the old block of shops, the fire station.”

While the rate of growth is partly down to statistics – “if you start from a low population base, it doesn't take much growth to be the highest percentage” – Alexander said the consistent growth was down to Rolleston’s appeal to young families.

“It starts to generate a self-fulfilling prophecy – because of the preponderance of young families, council builds facilities for them … the aquatic centre, the sports centre, new reserves and parks.

“You get new schools, which attracts more families, which means more schools.”

And while people from Christchurch have “always thought Rolleston was a million miles away”, it is only 25km – and the Southern Motorway has brought it “five minutes closer”.

The town is facing the same challenges as the rest of the country, but Alexander said he thinks they are “still better off”, with “the best of both worlds – close to a large metropolitan centre but with access to all the good things in the country”.

“The only thing that’s constant in Selwyn is change.”

Stephanie Fong moved to Rolleston with her family as a 12-year-old, living across the road from an expanse of rural land that now hosts a supermarket and mall.

Fong commutes to her job at the University of Canterbury and tries to use public transport when she can, which she described as “lacking”, with the buses she tends to use standing room only.

Former Rolleston resident Michelle Jones has lived in the town most of her life, and says the rate of change is so swift she’s seen marked changes in the few months she’s been away.

“It's definitely a salty feeling when you hear the 86 to Darfield has a double-decker. Why don't we have one for the fastest growing place in the country?”

She shared others’ concerns about primary care provision – “for 20,000-odd people, two doctors’ clinics is not enough”, but said despite the extent of the sprawl, being able to see the stars at night means the town still feels “a little rural”.

Long-time Rolleston resident Michelle Jones, who is home for a family celebration after moving to Wales at the start of the year, said the change is so fast that the town has altered again in the months since she left.

She moved to Rolleston as a teenager, and remembers much of the town’s shopping area as “pretty much just paddocks”.

She’s pleased with the town centre development, though she is concerned about other services keeping up with the rising population, such as GPs and dentists.

Cliff and Marian Parkin take their dog Ziggy for a walk around their neighbourhood. Marian says the couple are not coping with the town’s rapid growth, and want to move away.

“We still don't have any Ministry of Social Development [office] out here. I think with the rise of more and more people renting, and retired people, they need to access those services in their own community.”

Retiree Marian Parkin moved to Rolleston in 2000 “when it was all paddocks” to get away from the rat-race, but said she and her husband would consider moving elsewhere, flustered by the expansive growth.

“We’re not really coping with it. There's just too many kids, too many cats, too many dogs, too many everything. It’s just everywhere all the time – we came out here for quiet, and it's not quiet any more.”

Crossing the road while on her daily dog walk can entail a long wait at most times of the day, she said, and calls for help to find a GP are common on the community facebook page.

“We don't think the infrastructure is coping with all the people. You can tell by the way they're so quickly building on to the schools.”

Parkin said if they could afford it, the couple would like to move a bit further out, away from “all the madness”.

“It’s just a bit much for old people.”

Leap of faith

Named for Canterbury’s last superintendent, William Rolleston, the area once part of the massive Springs Station sheep run was carved up for subdivision in the 1860s, already at an important junction of railway lines.

Rolleston School opened in 1893 and remained the town’s only school until Clearview Primary opened in 2010. Today, there are nine primary schools and one high school.

The area’s dry, stony soil spared it from much of the damage wrought by the Christchurch earthquakes, despite the proximity to the epicentre of the September 2010 quake, while also ensuring most residential rezoning was not affecting high quality farmland, with subdivisions fast-tracked by the government using post-quake powers.

The opening of a New World supermarket in 2002 was considered a leap of faith at a time when the population hovered around 2500 and was only expected to reach 4500.

The township is soon to be served by a third supermarket, with Foodstuffs given resource consent to open a 8100m² Pak’nSave, creating 260 more jobs, in September 2022. Construction has yet to start.

Richard Tait, manager of Harcourts Rolleston, pictured outside the building that will house the company’s new expanded office.

Rumours of an imminent Costco are yet to be confirmed.

The Selwyn Aquatic Centre, which opened in 2013 and underwent a major expansion in 2021, gets around 28,500 visits a month. The Selwyn Sports Centre, opened in 2021, receives more than 40,000.

The $22.2 million civic centre Te Ara Ātea – housing a library, community and performance facilities, and a sensory garden – opened in 2022.

A commercial development well under way beside Te Ara Ātea will include, shops, restaurants and the new Harcourts office.

Business is pumping, Harcourts branch manager Richard Tait says, with the new office set to double its space.

Te Ara Ātea, which opened in 2022, houses a library, community and performance facilities, a sensory garden and more, and is part of the rapidly developing Rolleston town centre.

Tait, who has lived in Rolleston for 17 years, says people are moving there from around the country, and it is a popular destination for families priced out of the Auckland market in particular.

The town’s success has been “based on good planning and setting up infrastructure ahead of time”, says Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton, one of the country’s youngest when he was first elected in 2016.

Creating jobs for people to work near where they live has “bred its own success”, and the council-owned Izone, one of New Zealand’s largest industrial subdivisions, is Rolleston’s manufacturing, logistics and commercial drawcard.

First conceived in 2000, the 188-hectare Izone was bolstered by investments from Lyttelton and Tauranga ports based on Rolleston’s strategic location on railway lines, and alongside other commercial and retail developments.

Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton says creating jobs for people to work near where they live has “bred its own success”.

Employees now come in the other direction, commuting from Christchurch to Rolleston to work, Broughton says.

“There's a lot that can be done and achieved right here, rather than having to travel for it.”

In 2015, developers the Carter Group launched plans to turn 22ha across the road from Izone into the IPort business park, an inland port.

An aerial view of four plots of land that the Carter Group is hoping to develop in Rolleston.

Rival ports set up their own bases – Port of Tauranga established Metroport on Izone land, while Lyttelton Port bought 27ha within IPort. More than 90% of Canterbury’s exports now go through Rolleston.

In late 2022, the Selwyn council gave the Carter Group the go-ahead to rezone another 98ha of rural land, increasing the amount of industrial-zoned land in Rolleston by about a quarter.

The same developers announced plans for the South Island’s biggest bulk shopping centre, The Station, to be built inside the business park.

While there will be some greenfield development in the future, Broughton says the rate of development in recent years can’t continue.

What had been expected to take 30 years to develop happened in more like 13 years, he said.

“We need to think about the preservation and protection of our good farmland, and what that contributes to the economy, GDP as well as jobs.”

Selwyn’s post-earthquake growth was expected, but the anticipated slowdown as houses were repaired and rebuilt in Christchurch never occurred, Broughton says.

Like many councils, Selwyn is struggling to keep process consent applications for new homes within statutory time limits, and Broughton admitted the council is “behind where we would want to be”.

He wants to see more public transport, and noted the Greater Christchurch Partnership – a voluntary coalition of local government, mana whenua and government agencies – is working on mass rapid transit solutions.

Inter-regional passenger rail doesn’t look like a viable possibility, Broughton said, but he acknowledged opinions differ.

“I live in Darfield, and I think some sort of service that connects rail through Rolleston into [Christchurch] seems to make sense. And I know people that live in Ashburton and Timaru also think that there's a rail option there.”