Council slated over cost of 'plastic waka' proposal

The $31,000 spent to decide that the Rugby World Cup's Waka Maori had no future on Tauranga's downtown waterfront has been slammed as a waste of money.

Terry Scott, the owner of The Strand building which houses Macau restaurant, was commenting on the bills racked up by Tauranga City Council and its commercial arm Bay Venues.

Ratepayers funded the $17,000 council investigation, which used planning consultants Boffa Miskell while Bay Venues spent $14,000 employing O'Connor Sinclair to do the business case and feasibility study.

The project to revitalise the downtown by Waka Maori becoming a cultural, technology and innovation pavilion was dropped following criticism of the 75-m long waka's proposed location on the Northern Strand carpark.

The less intrusive option of putting it on a pier so it jutted out into the harbour was rejected as too expensive.

Mr Scott said it has been a waste of money. "I don't believe it was ever a goer.

"It was blocking The Strand's crown jewel, the view of the harbour. The loss of carparks was a big thing as well." He believed they should have surveyed businesses and the public before embarking on the studies.

Councillor Rick Curach was disappointed that councillors were not engaged in the project at an earlier stage. It would have allowed the views of business and building owners to be canvassed before launching into an investigation.

Mayor Stuart Crosby said the project was initiated by other parties and not the council. The council became involved because it was on council land and he believed the right course had been going through a process of due diligence.

"The money was well spent to make sure that the right decision was made."

Mr Crosby said projects on the waterfront were not only about The Strand. "There is a wider audience, it is not only about the building owners and businesses."

Bay Venues chief executive Gary Dawson said the $14,000 came out of the business development budget and not the council's operating grant.

The company was brought into the investigation because it would have ended up managing Waka Maori, dubbed the plastic waka.

Mr Dawson said the study by Boffa Miskell showed that Waka Maori would not have stacked up as a conference/events centre on the waterfront because of the infrastructure it would have needed. However, it did see potential to use the waka as an exhibition centre to tell the story of Tauranga or to showcase innovations.

Council projects manager Tony Bodger said the council's role in the investigation involved him and Boffa Miskell talking to building and business owners on getting the project consented and whether they could get consent for other locations such as Dive Crescent, Coronation Park and Baypark. The work included putting Waka Maori on a pier.

"Each of these different locations came with different issues ... we realised there was not a suitable location that they could easily enter into a resource consent process."

Size and location were the things that would have made getting consent very difficult because Waka Maori was 75m long, 12m wide and 5m high at its lowest point, he said.

The scheme was promoted by Tuskany brand manager Sally Cooke.