Upper Hutt
Upper Hutt is a city in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area.
History
Upper Hutt is in an area originally known as Orongomai and that of the river was Heretaunga. The first residents of the area were Māori of the Ngāi Tara iwi. Various other iwi controlled the area in the years before 1840, and by the time the first colonial settlers arrived the area was part of the Te Āti awa rohe.Orongomai Marae is to the south of the modern city centre.
In 1839, the English colonising company, The New Zealand Company made a purchase from Māori chiefs of about 160,000 acres of land in the Wellington region including Upper Hutt. The Hutt Valley is named after one of the founders of this company. Dealings from the New Zealand Company and following that, the Crown, with local Māori regarding the land in Upper Hutt were flawed including not transacting with all the iwi that had claims on the land. Disputes arose and there were skirmishes and warfare in the Hutt Valley in 1846 between troops under Governor George Grey and Māori including chiefs Te Rauparaha, Te Rangihaeata, Te Mamaku and iwi including Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Rangatahi, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi.
Richard Barton, who settled at Trentham in 1841 in the area now known as Trentham Memorial Park, was the first European resident. Barton subsequently subdivided his land and set aside a large area that was turned into parkland. James Brown settled in the area that became the Upper Hutt town in 1848.
Having divided the land into 100 acre block, the settlers set about clearing the land of its indigenous forest and turning it into farmland. Sawmillers milled larger trees, such as Totara, for building materials and burned off the remaining scrub and underbrush.
File:Upper Hutt Blockhouse2.JPG|thumb|left|Upper Hutt Blockhouse was built as part of a stockade in 1860, during the New Zealand Wars.Alarmed by unrest in Taranaki and sightings of local Māori bearing arms, settlers in the Hutt Valley lobbied for the construction of fortifications in Upper and Lower Hutt. The government and the military responded by constructing 2 stockades in the Hutt Valley in 1860. While the stockade in Upper Hutt was manned for 6 months, the threat of hostilities soon passed and neither installation ever saw hostile action.
The railway line from Wellington reached Upper Hutt on 1 February 1876. The line was extended to Kaitoke at the top end of the valley, reaching there on 1 January 1878. The line continued over the Remutaka Ranges to Featherston in the Wairarapa as a Fell railway, opening on 12 October 1878.
By the beginning of March 1914, the area of Upper Hutt controlled by the Upper Hutt Town Board had its own water supply. The supply capacity was increased when the Birchville Dam was built in 1930.
On the evening of 28 March 1914, fire broke out at the Benge and Pratt store in Main Street. An explosion killed 8 of the volunteers fighting the fire and destroyed the building.
For many years, Upper Hutt was a rural service town, supporting the surrounding rural farming and forestry community. Serious urbanisation of the upper Hutt Valley only started around the 1920s, but from the late 1940s onwards, Upper Hutt's population exploded as people moved from the crowded hustle and bustle of inner-city Wellington into a more secluded yet sprawling Hutt Valley. In 1950, Trentham Memorial Park was created with an area of almost 50 hectares.
Upper Hutt continued to grow in population and became a city within the Wellington metropolitan area on 2 May 1966 after the Government Statistician certified that the population had reached 20 000, allowing the Town Clerk to make an application for city status.
On 9 April 1976, Upper Hutt became the first area in New Zealand to implement subscriber toll dialling, allowing telephone subscribers to make national calls without operator assistance.
Residential subdivision in areas such as Clouston Park, Maoribank, Tōtara Park and Kingsley Heights continued into the 1980s.
In February 1979 Muhammed Ali came to New Zealand, staying at Upper Hutt.
Historic places
There are twelve historic sites within Upper Hutt included on the Heritage New Zealand list of historic places, including four Category 1 sites, seven Category 2 sites, and one historic area. The historic area, the Remutaka Incline Rail Trail, crosses into part of neighbouring South Wairarapa District.Geography
The Upper Hutt city centre lies approximately 26 km north-east of Wellington. While the main areas of urban development lie along the Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River valley floor, the city extends to the top of the Remutaka Pass to the north-east and into the Akatarawa Valley and rough hill-country of the Akatarawa ranges to the north and north-west, almost reaching the Kāpiti Coast close to Paekākāriki.Upper Hutt is in the bed of an ancient river flood plain and as such was prone to flooding. In the 1970s and 1980s, a stop bank was built alongside the eastern side of the river from northern Upper Hutt to the mouth of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River in Lower Hutt to prevent further flooding. Centred on the upper valley of Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River, which flows north-east to south-west on its way to Wellington harbour, the flat land widens briefly into a 2500-m-wide floodplain between the Remutaka and Akatarawa Ranges before constricting nine kilometres further downstream at the Taitā Gorge, which separates Upper Hutt from its neighbour, Lower Hutt. The city's main urban area spreads over this plain. A smaller flood plain lies upstream, above the Kaitoke Gorge, but has experienced little urban development.
Climate
Upper Hutt has a temperate climate however due to its sheltered valley location, it generally tends to be warmer than inner city Wellington in the summer and much colder in the winter. It is not uncommon in summer for temperatures to reach the high-20s Celsius, and in winter, the temperature to drop to as low as −5 °C with regular and often heavy frost. Snow generally doesn't fall below 300 m, but in 2011 Upper Hutt sea level snow occurred twice, as part of 2011 New Zealand snowstorms. On 25 July and again between 14 and 16 August, which was the heaviest blizzard in Upper Hutt since 1976 and came as a great novelty to residents. Upper Hutt receives about 1400 mm of rain per year. At 17.5 °C on average, February is the warmest month, while July is the coldest at 8.5 °C.Government
Local government
Upper Hutt City Council administers the city with its surrounding rural areas, parks and reserves. Its area is 540 km2, the third-largest area of city council in New Zealand, after Dunedin and Auckland. New Zealand local authorities with a large land area are usually termed districts, but Upper Hutt maintains its status as a city largely because of its high degree of urbanisation.Upper Hutt was originally administered by the Hutt County Council, which was constituted in 1877. The Town Board was proclaimed on 24 April 1908. Upper Hutt became a Borough on 26 February 1926 and a City on 2 May 1966. On 1 April 1973, the Rimutaka Riding of Hutt County was added to the city. When the Hutt County Council was abolished on 1 November 1988, the city took over administration of the Heretaunga/Pinehaven ward, which was incorporated into the city on 1 November 1989 when the Heretaunga/Pinehaven Community Council was abolished.
Parliamentary representation
Today, Upper Hutt City falls entirely within the boundaries of the Remutaka electorate, currently held by Labour's Chris Hipkins. Upper Hutt was represented by the Heretaunga electorate prior to the introduction of MMP in 1996, when the seat was merged with Eastern Hutt to form Remutaka.Demographics
Upper Hutt City's territory covers and had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km2.Upper Hutt City had a population of 45,759 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 1,779 people since the 2018 census, and an increase of 5,580 people since the 2013 census. There were 22,749 males, 22,803 females and 207 people of other genders in 16,890 dwellings. 3.7% of people identified as LGBTIQ+. The median age was 39.1 years. There were 8,811 people aged under 15 years, 7,728 aged 15 to 29, 21,900 aged 30 to 64, and 7,317 aged 65 or older.
People could identify as more than one ethnicity. The results were 78.4% European ; 16.7% Māori; 6.5% Pasifika; 11.9% Asian; 1.4% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders ; and 2.7% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander". English was spoken by 96.6%, Māori language by 3.4%, Samoan by 1.7% and other languages by 12.7%. No language could be spoken by 2.2%. New Zealand Sign Language was known by 0.6%. The percentage of people born overseas was 23.3, compared with 28.8% nationally.
Religious affiliations were 33.3% Christian, 2.8% Hindu, 0.6% Islam, 0.9% Māori religious beliefs, 0.8% Buddhist, 0.6% New Age, 0.1% Jewish, and 2.1% other religions. People who answered that they had no religion were 52.2%, and 6.8% of people did not answer the census question.
Of those at least 15 years old, 6,804 people had a bachelor's or higher degree, 20,001 had a post-high school certificate or diploma, and 8,130 people exclusively held high school qualifications. The median income was $48,600, compared with $41,500 nationally. 5,823 people earned over $100,000 compared to 12.1% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 20,517 people were employed full-time, 4,293 were part-time, and 942 were unemployed.
Urban area
The urban area of Upper Hutt covers and had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km2.Upper Hutt had a population of 42,903 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 1,602 people since the 2018 census, and an increase of 5,208 people since the 2013 census. There were 21,321 males, 21,393 females and 192 people of other genders in 15,909 dwellings. 3.7% of people identified as LGBTIQ+. The median age was 38.8 years. There were 8,316 people aged under 15 years, 7,275 aged 15 to 29, 20,406 aged 30 to 64, and 6,906 aged 65 or older.
People could identify as more than one ethnicity. The results were 77.3% European ; 17.1% Māori; 6.9% Pasifika; 12.5% Asian; 1.4% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders ; and 2.6% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander". English was spoken by 96.4%, Māori language by 3.5%, Samoan by 1.7% and other languages by 13.0%. No language could be spoken by 2.3%. New Zealand Sign Language was known by 0.6%. The percentage of people born overseas was 23.5, compared with 28.8% nationally.
Religious affiliations were 33.6% Christian, 3.0% Hindu, 0.6% Islam, 0.9% Māori religious beliefs, 0.8% Buddhist, 0.6% New Age, 0.1% Jewish, and 2.1% other religions. People who answered that they had no religion were 51.7%, and 6.7% of people did not answer the census question.
Of those at least 15 years old, 6,321 people had a bachelor's or higher degree, 18,645 had a post-high school certificate or diploma, and 7,761 people exclusively held high school qualifications. The median income was $48,200, compared with $41,500 nationally. 5,262 people earned over $100,000 compared to 12.1% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 19,119 people were employed full-time, 3,945 were part-time, and 915 were unemployed.