Whangārei to get $48m civic centre - but no more public consultation

Whangārei District Council has voted to go ahead with a $48 million new civic centre - costing $10m more than the original plan - on the old RSA site in Rust Ave.

Whangārei ratepayers will get an upsized $48 million new civic centre – without the public having a say on the extra cost.

Whangārei District councillors yesterday voted to go ahead with a bigger building - without any public consultation on the increased cost and size.

They chose to go with a 7000sq m civic centre - in so doing committing ratepayers to spend $10m more than initially budgeted for a smaller $38m 5500sq m civic centre settled on just 20 months ago.

"The decision [we've made today] is one we have made to ensure a facility that's future-proofed for the next 50 years," WDC Mayor Sheryl Mai said.

Councillors voted 10 to three - with one abstention - in favour of the upsized civic centre. Mai and councillors Greg Innes (deputy mayor), Gavin Benney, Ken Couper, Tricia Cutforth, Nick Connop, Shelley Deeming, Anna Murphy, Carol Peters and Greg Martin voted to go ahead with the building upsize.

Councillors Vince Cocurullo, Jayne Golightly and Phil Halse voted against, with Simon Reid abstaining.

They debated the issue for 57 minutes in an intense, vociferous and sometimes heated debate that at one stage saw a councillor's voice crack with emotion. All spoke up except for Golightly who voted against the upsize. She later said she had not voted in favour of the bigger centre because her ratepayers would not expect her to make a decision to proceed without having enough information at hand. She couldn't do so without being able to see a design for the building.

Mai said, as was common local government practice, the size of the civic centre budget had to be established before design and work contract negotiations could follow.

She said public consultation was not required for deciding on the extra $10m budget spend for an upsized civic centre.

Mai said proposed changes to boost the civic centre scope would lead to increased costs, but they fell below the threshold for being an issue of enough significance under council's significance and engagement policy to trigger the need for further public consultation before a decision was made. An issue needed to trigger two or more of the significance assessment criteria to be deemed significant and therefore needing to go out to public consultation.

Lack of a building design drawing emerged as perhaps the major point of contention – among opponents and proponents alike - during councillors' decision-making debate.

Alan Adcock, WDC general manager corporate, said a design could now be put together.

This would be available by June.

He said it had not been possible to develop a civic centre design for the project to date because key recent developments enabling critical aspects of final decision-making on building size had not been fully dealt with until as recently as last year.

Mai moved the civic centre scope and budget review agenda item. It was seconded by Deeming, one of two councillors on the council civic centre working party.

"The public expects council to be forward planning - 30 to 50 to 100 years into the future," Deeming said.

Murphy spoke strongly in favour of the building upsize.

"I support increasing the budget to see us going forward," Murphy said.

But Halse said he was voting against the proposal.

"There is no plan, no specs and no hope."