KEY POINTS:
Ratepayers are to be asked what they want first in Albany - a swimming pool or a library?
The consultation move was decided yesterday after a drawn out and grumpy debate, which was the North Shore City Council's first stab - in public - at drafting a city spending plan for the next 15 years.
The project was listed in the City Plan to start this year and be ready before the Rugby World Cup in 2011 for use by visiting teams. But the new council under Mayor Andrew Williams called for a review of the old council's preference for building the complex at North Harbour Stadium rather than at Massey University.
The council studied the fresh review in confidential session last month and accepted its recommendation that the stadium's proposal was the better of the two. Yesterday, budget proposals suggested the $14 million project be delayed until 2018-19 because priority should go to upgrading existing leisure assets.
But councillor Grant Gillon said the cost was excessive and should drop to $10 million. He said the project should come forward by three years.
Callum Blair agreed, saying that Queenstown's new pool was $10 million with costs at $4113 per square metre compared with the estimate for Albany of $7300 per square metre.
Mr Williams said the council was not building the pool at the stadium to cater for World Cup teams. "Building it for a team that's here for three weeks is certainly nonsense; this city runs on long-term community needs. We can build one cheaper than $14 million without the bells and whistles. It will be a swimming pool not a Disneyland."
But Lisa Whyte said an aquatic centre for the city's growing north had been talked about for years and would have started a year ago "if people had not interfered with the process".
Chris Darby said the council spent more than a million dollars getting advice because it sought to reject expert advice that it did not like.
"Albany growth will go through the roof by 2021 and we can't allow our social infrastructure to lag behind."
Margaret Miles said a new $23 million Albany library was scheduled for construction from 2013, though the council had renewed a lease on the existing Albany village library to 2019.
She said this project should be swapped with the pool and start in 2018.
Mr Williams successfully moved that the question of which project should have priority go out for public consultation in March as part of the draft city plan process.
"We are saying, which one in the next five years ... and I'd say, most would want a pool."
