Finance Minister Paula Cox yesterday presented $12,000 to the six successful applicants to earn passage through to the second round of the Economic Empowerment Zone design competition.

The competition was seeking entries for idea to establish various major and minor gateways throughout the EEZ area of northeast Hamilton, including the major gateway at the junction of Court and Victoria Streets.

It also sought plans for redesigning the major entrance into the zone from Till's Hill and its connection to Pembroke Park and beyond.

Ms Cox said yesterday: "The submissions were innovative, creative, and incredibly diverse and did not make the task of the competition jury easy."

Winners in the Gateways Competition were: interior architecture undergraduate Nina Cotterill, landscape designer Heather Young and investment broker Michael Ferreira.

In the Till's Hill Competition, the three to go through to phase two were Dennis Bean Sr. and Jr., described as interested members of the public; The Studio Ltd. represented by Jeremy Crockett, a chartered architect, and SHY Architecture represented by Simon Hodgson, partner and senior architect.

"Often-times, design is used as a tool and catalyst for positive change in neighbourhoods, not just physically, but also it helps to shape and/or alter our perceptions about the environment," Ms Cox said. "All of the submissions received represented a vision of change that was exciting and timely and they certainly got the attention of our distinguished judging panel."

Erica Smith, competition adviser and EEZ project leader said the entries had been "quite diverse, extremely innovative, and very creative".

Ms Smith added: "The actual submissions will not be made public as yet as they are still works in progress which will evolve over this next stage. We want to have a teaser for the public to come to the final presentation at the end of stage two.

"Competitors moving through will receive $4,000 each, half of which will be given now and the other half will be presented upon the submission of the required items for stage two. The winning designers at the end of stage two will receive an additional $3,000 for a total of $7,000 in prize money for those top designs.

"Competitors will have 6 weeks to evolve, refine and fine tune their design concepts further terminating in a presentation to the competition jury and the public in late March/early April.

"Jury members will account for 50 percent of the scoring with the public/EEZ stakeholders accounting for the other 50 percent. This will ensure that EEZ constituents have a say in the final outcome. The final submissions will also be on exhibition at the conclusion in the zone."