Putting people at the heart of a new neighbourhood development
Fletcher Living · 2024–2025
Engagement strategy · Stakeholder mapping · Strategic communications · Issues management · Project delivery
The project and my mahi at a glance
The Hill: 358 homes across 6.2 hectares
Identified and mapped 100+ stakeholders to inform engagement and communications
20+ developments subsequently adopted the engagement framework and tools
One system created to connect stakeholder intelligence, communications, issues management, and development delivery.
The challenge: Building for the future while looking after the community
After years in the making, Fletcher Living’s The Hill is a 358-home masterplanned community development across 6.2 hectares of the former Ellerslie Racecourse. Located within the established communities of Remuera and Ellerslie, the development combines apartments, standalone homes, retirement living, and more.
As construction progressed, Fletcher Living needed to balance the demands of a complex, multi-year development programme with its ambition to create an enduring and thriving neighbourhood.
The stakeholder environment was as diverse as it was significant. Construction and consenting issues ranged from noise, dust, and vibration to traffic, parking, safety, access and potential property concerns.
Fletcher Living needed an engagement approach that could anticipate and mitigate issues, maintain relationships with residents and businesses, engage appropriately with mana whenua and other stakeholders, and provide project teams with a clear and consistent way to manage stakeholder communications and engagement.
My role and approach: Human-led strategy, stakeholder engagement, and delivery
I was brought in to strengthen Fletcher Living’s stakeholder engagement approach, working across strategy and delivery. I started by gathering insights from project teams and stakeholders to understand the operating environment, identify risks, and clarify engagement priorities. From there, I designed the overarching stakeholder engagement and communications strategy and translated it into practical systems, plans, and communications that teams could meaningfully use.
I developed crisis protocols, key messages, communications plans, website and newsletter content, approvals, stakeholder materials and reactive responses, while advising the team on sensitive stakeholder and media issues.
Rather than treating communications as an afterthought, I designed a system to identify stakeholder impact early and understand who was affected and the extent of their influence. I then determined the appropriate mitigation and engagement response and used stakeholder intelligence to continually adapt the approach.
The impact: Moving from reactive communications to building organisational capability that can scale
The work helped shift stakeholder engagement from a largely reactive communications function towards a structured approach that combined development progress. It established clearer accountability, escalation, and approval pathways; formalised the identification and prioritisation of stakeholders; and created mechanisms to communicate construction impacts earlier and to respond consistently when issues emerged.
Importantly, the work extended beyond The Hill. The framework, tools, and processes developed through the project created an accessible, repeatable approach to stakeholder engagement that was subsequently adopted across 20+ Fletcher Living developments.
Rather than producing a strategy that sat separately from delivery, the work created practical organisational capability — giving teams a system they could use, adapt and scale across different development environments.