Long Term Plan Amendment April 2022 Adding in a City Centre Precinct See Tauranga City Website for full details and publication called It’s Time
Comments by concerned residents, send your comments to the Commissioners.
To see a full costing and breakdown by Sustainable BOP click on https://sustainablebop.nz/more-details-emerge-around-proposed-tauranga-civic-redevelopment-plan/
May 2022 See below for misrepresentation of the community submissions to the scheme.
Of the 628 people who responded to the council during the consultation, 450 (72 per cent) supported the preferred option compared to 128 (20 per cent) who supported the second option. Fifty people (8 per cent) chose "no option".
Another 549 submitters provided feedback without choosing an option. This included 419 in support of a Tauranga Ratepayers' Alliance submission rejecting both options for redevelopment.
And how did the residents submissions actually vote. Not as is reported above by BOP Times. The Commissioners only gave two options to choose from, both without any community input. They did not offer Option 3 which is not either of these combinations or lets do something better.
So the actual voting was
Number of submitters = 1177 ( 628 chose either option 1 or 2 and 549 submitters chose no option or option 3)
% who chose option 1 = 38%
% who chose option 2 = 11%
% who chose option 3 or no option = 51%
And the Commissioner chose Option 1 saying 72% voted for it. Is this another example of Commissioners ignoring community input and screwing the outcome. YES!!!!
Dear Anne (Tolley Head Commissioner)
There is no appropriate provision in your Its time ..... for sound consultation or discussion on this poorly conceived unwanted and unauthorised proposal. You have stated that consultation has taken place with community groups, who are these groups ? What about the ratepayers having an input. Tauranga does not require either of the 2 options you present in various promotional fabrications. It's not the Commissioners mandate or role to be addressing the vacant tenancies of property in central Tauranga or provide a civic precinct. leave the private sector to invest in opportunities commercially not have rate payer funds squandered on unimportant development over a priority to attend to far greater issues such as roading (and more). The proposed expenditure of $303 million is a wild guess at your option 1 ( your preferred option) and will do nothing to entice people into the city centre. This matter must be put on hold or removed altogether until the city has its infrastructure in order and democracy restored. In addition to this the Commissioners have publicly stated they intend to use funding for this civic precinct from the Crown bribe in regard to the 3 waters so called reform. This is an absolute admittance the Commissioners support the 3 waters reform and is totally against the wishes of Tauranga rate payers, as has been the case in the majority of Councils throughout New Zealand. Please put your Its time .... away, and establish what is a common sense administration and democratic approach to your temporary roles.
I see this proposed Long Term Plan Amendment nothing but an extravagant use of ratepayers funds and an egotistical boost to four people who have no right or mandate whatsoever to bring these changes into our downtown area. Any spending of this scale should be, if at all, the role of a democratically elected council and mayor.
Regards
R S
The redevelopment of the city centre is an opportunity to make the residents of Tauranga feel proud and involved. We all agree the regeneration of Tauranga downtown is required. But the residents have not been invited into the design process nor do they have any buy in to the two options presented. Yet they are being asked choose between Option 1 or Option 2 and on this “marble count” TCC will make the final decision.
PRRA has no opinion as there may be a better design. This would be Option 3 -- a non-binding architectural competition to develop a design for the whole of downtown which would inspire the community. The community deserves better than the rehashed plans currently being presented. The current schemes are watered down 10 year old plans which may now be irrelevant.
The plans as presented are not indicative of the community’s wishes. The concept of a downtown museum was comprehensively rejected in a referendum recently. There is no business case available/offered for a museum and as such an informed judgement is not possible. The library business case is not robust.
A museum may be better placed at historic Gate Pa or Papamoa, if the community decides it now wants a museum. But the community has not been asked again.
Separating the Council Chambers (now to be included in the new whare) from the Council building and staff (in Devonport Rd) is very inefficient and without any merit.
The costs of this project are founded on conceptual sketches and not based on any detailed design. We all expect a major blowout of the publicised cost and once again the ratepayers will be required to pick up the tab. Fancy funding does not hide the evergrowing debt. At what point/cost does it become unaffordable.
Rushing a major city centre redevelopment in such a piecemeal way in order to tick a box is not sensible progress or providing the most satisfying solution. The downtown development is larger than this token city centre precinct. Slow down and create an inspiring and functional downtown.
PRRA April 2022
Dear Ms Tolley,
I refer to the proposal currently on the table and known as "It's Time".
As a ratepayer of some forty plus years in Tauranga, I totally REJECT both of your proposals, which are currently out for public consultation. You and the other three commissioners have been charged by Minister Mahuta to get the city back on track for the ratepayers of Tauranga. Council's website comments, "The Commissioners have been appointed to make good decisions on behalf of the city and its residents". You are caretakers of Tauranga City, and as such, you have a moral obligation to the ratepayers of Tauranga to act with absolute prudence. I don't believe for one minute, that your proposal to spend $303.4 million of ratepayers money is prudent. As Commissioners, you need to sort out infrastructure (and roading is a biggie) issues and the likes around Tauranga, BEFORE you contemplate the grandiose idea of your proposal, "It's Time".
From the information the I could find on Google, the debt of our city sat at $550 million in 2020, and rising to $839 million in 2023. Your preferred option at $303.4 million, would then take the cities debt to well over $1 billion dollars. If I were a betting man, I would put money on the fact that the $303.4 million pet project of yours, would balloon out well past that figure. Now is not the time in the current financial climate, to spend $303.4 million of ratepayer money, assuming that the project came in on budget. You have absolutely NO mandate from the ratepayers of Tauranga to squander ... yes, I use the word squander, this massive amount of our money. I would like to see democracy returned to Tauranga this October, and not in July 2024 as Minister Mahuta has forced on the ratepayers of Tauranga.
I totally reject your two proposals, as I did with the Three Waters proposal, which is now being FORCED, on the ratepayers of New Zealand.
Regards,
R St.