Our story

In 2015, Wellington City Council supported ‘workerBe Oasis Incorporated Society’ with a license to use the public park site at 5 Hospital Road. ‘workerBe Oasis’ created an Urban Farm at 5 Hospital Road, which sold produce to cafes and restaurants and donated up to 50% of its total produce to community groups in need. The produce was distributed predominantly through a partnership with Kaibosh, a food rescue organisation.

Around the same time, ‘Kaicycle’ (formerly a separate community-composting initiative based in Aro Valley) was looking for new management and a site to expand to. In 2016, Kaicycle (composting), while maintaining a separate business model, came under the umbrella of ‘workerBe Oasis Incorporated Society’, and moved to 5 Hospital Road. Several of our current and former members participated in WCC’s Low Carbon Challenge accelerator programme in 2016 to grow this composting initiative. In 2018 ‘workerBe oasis Incorporated Society’ changed its name to ‘Kaicycle Incorporated Society’, and continued to operate both the composting and the urban farm alongside each other, but as two distinct parts of the project.

In 2020, Kaicycle Urban Farm began a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, signalling a shift from the farm’s previous produce distribution models of donations and wholesale sales to hospitality. The CSA model has enabled Kaicycle Urban Farm to hire a larger farm team that increases our capacity to invest more in community engagement, workshops, education, and volunteers. These have always been essential components of the Urban Farm since its inception as ‘workerBe Oasis’.

Site history

Land

The flattish land surrounding Pukeahu was known as Huriwhenua. This stretched up to where Newtown is now. The area from the harbour to the south coast was once wooded, with tall trees including pukatea, tōtara, northern rātā, rimu, kohekohe, tawa, hīnau, mānuka and many other species. Many paths ran through this area, and Māori from the earliest settlements cleared much of the land for gardens.

The land around Pukeahu to the north and south was covered in gardens. The Basin Reserve was once a lake and a good source of mahinga kai such as eels, watercress and kōura (crayfish). This lake was known as Hauwai.

The farm site sits on top of a piped creek, so the farm site would've been a creek bed and banks. The farm sits under the shadow of Te Ranga-a-Hiwi, the ridgeline running north-south, on the east of the farm.

Mana whenua

We acknowledge the mana whenua of this land, past and present; Te Āti Awa most recently, stretching back to the the many hapū of Kurahaupo waka descent.

Colonisation

In 1839, Pākehā settlers arrived in Te Whanganui a Tara. From 1872-1910 the land just to the north of the farm was Mout View Lunatic Assymlum. From 1876 the first Newtown Hospital was built, just to the south.