Porirua’s Cobham Court is named after Viscount Cobham, a former New Zealand Governor-General.
Photo: LDR/SUPPLIED
Future newly built streets in Porirua are going to get their names under a new five-subject citywide guideline instead of suburb-specific conventions.
The Porirua City Council’s Te Puna Kōrero committee agreed on Thursday to abandon its 20-year-old policy which names streets, reserves, public facilities and council-owned buildings after the theme allocated to its location – English counties and Royal Navy ships at Cannons Creek; Scottish rivers at Papakowhai.
In its place will be five citywide subjects significant to Ngāti Toa and local communities; “significant features” associated with location or the wider city; historical events or people; or “noteworthy members of the community” but avoiding those living or recently deceased.
The council ran an online survey to collect feedback and discussed the proposals with Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira.
In 2022, the council renamed Calliope Crescent at Cannons Creek, which was named after a 26-gun frigate which took Te Rauparaha to Auckland after he was arrested from his pā near Porirua in 1846. It was renamed Matahourua Crescent, after the waka of Polynesian navigator Kupe.
Councillor Moira Lawler said it was important that the city’s geography reflected its identity and history. “Our streets in Pukerua Bay are largely te Reo street names and I think it actually has an impact on the community. It has an impact on children as they learn te Reo names.”
Mayor Anita Baker and councillor Geoff Hayward agreed with the policy not recommending naming new streets after living people or recently deceased, the latter using disgraced former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and prolific sex offender Jimmy Savile as potentially poor examples.
“Naming is not just administrative processing,” Hayward said. “It is cultural, it’s emotional. It can both empower and isolate.”
Porirua’s parks have a separate naming convention while council facilities have no naming guidelines.
A quarter of existing street names reflect mana whenua and 0.1% represent Pacific communities, while 75% reflect settler history, a presentation at a 2024 council briefing read.
Having a new naming policy did not mean a free-for-all to rename places. The paper for Thursday’s meeting said all renaming requests would need a case, such as correcting misspellings or changing a name that was “considered offensive or has fallen into disrepute”.
But the council would consider each case individually. Councillors still have the final say on approving any name changes.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.