About the Project

The Huttcity.com project has been set up to assist Hutt City businesses and community groups with establishing a presence on the Internet. This service is part of the Council's commitment to fostering a progressive and sustainable business community, and supporting community groups and organisations.

The Council's e-business Strategy seeks to improve choice and efficiency in the delivery of Council Services, and support the economic and social development of Hutt City communities. A key factor in achieving these goals will be increasing the use of online activites, as a way to communicate and do business locally, nationally and internationally. This project supports these goals by aiding the development of an informed community that is equipped to participate in e-business.

Surveys indicate the main barriers to using new technologies are cost, a lack of knowledge and understanding, and access to a computer. This project helps Hutt City businesses and organisations to break through the entry barrier to establishing an on line presence. Each hosted site is allocated 50MB of space, each page in their site branded as their own, with a unique URL; www.huttcity.com/businessname.

Site content can be easily modified by the site owners themselves utilising the huttcity.com editing software that allows password-protected access to their own site. Content management ensures the pages can be easily updated regularly so that information remains current.

Huttcity.com is intended to nurture the future development of businesses own websites, and to provide a permanent home for not-for-profit and community websites. While there are few limitations on the size and complexity of sites hosted on huttcity.com, this project is designed to bridge the gap between businesses not currently established on the Internet and those businesses which are ready to invest in the development of their own Internet site. As huttcity.com hosted businesses become more comfortable with managing their Internet business it is expected they will seek to develop their own website. In effect huttcity.com will become a catalyst for further web development by these businesses.

Council believes that Hutt City businesses have innovative and quality products and services to offer locally, nationally and internationally. Our community groups and organisations need a place where they can have an online voice, and a permanent home. The Internet is a great opportunity to showcase the City's talented community. Establishing Hutt City as a vibrant online community with wired businesses is a key initiative in the drive to ongoing economic sustainability and social growth for the City.

Download the Agency Leaders presentation (21/03/2007)