Million-dollar dilemma

GOOD THINGS COST: The town hub is a golden egg but it needs more cash from the residents.

A million dollars is all that remains for Martinborough to get its town hub, which the community will have to make up.

South Wairarapa District Council yesterday passed a resolution to ask the Martinborough community whether they would accept a rates increase in order to build the Waihinga Centre.

The project aims to strengthen, refurbish and extend the historic Martinborough Town Hall to become a multi-purpose centre, housing the library, Plunket rooms, a toy library, iSite, cafe, theatre and exhibition centre.

The council wants to impose a targeted rate - which could apply either to the urban area, which has a population of around 1470, or the wider Martinborough electoral ward, with a population of 2550, according to the electoral roll.

The estimated $1,101,000 shortfall takes into account the sale of community services made redundant by the creation of the town hub and the sale of council land.

Land sales include Pain Farm, the existing library and the Wharekaka Reserve.

Mayor Adrienne Staples said there had been strong support by the Martinborough community to get the $6.4 million project to its current stage.

"Given the amount of support that the Martinborough community have already given us, we do have to give them the opportunity to say they are either behind it 100 per cent or it can't continue in its current form."

Some $1.4 million of the centre's funding had been pledged by individual members of the public and local businesses. "There is not one community project that I have seen that has raised money to the extent that this Martinborough project has raised funding," said Mrs Staples.

Councillor Brian Jephson said he was aware of a lot of people initially against the project who now wanted to contribute to it.

"A lot of them can't write a cheque out for $1000 but they might be quite happy to have a bit tagged on to their rates."

Chief executive Paul Crimp said a decision would be likely within two months as to whether to continue to fund the project. He said the targeted rate would start from July 1 next year. Before then, there would be a significant amount of fundraising, which could reduce the proposed rate.

If the wider community was not prepared to put up the balance of the funds, the project would not move forward in its current form.

In that case, the council assets would remain unsold.

The proposal was challenged by the Featherston Residents and Ratepayers Association, which had asked for public speaking time.

Chairwoman Sue Fox urged the council to abandon the project and spend more on infrastructure, such as wastewater treatment across the South Wairarapa district.

Mr Crimp said if the project was abandoned the sales would not take place, therefore the money would not be there.

"The key thing is we are not asking Featherston or Greytown to pay for it, it's the Martinborough people who are going to directly benefit from it.

"If the project does not go ahead, it will not free up money to be put towards other projects," said Mr Crimp.

"We're giving the public another chance to really have their input in [the Waihinga Centre] because, as it sits at the moment, it can't go ahead in its current form."