UPDATED: 1.55pm. Tauranga City Council have today confirmed they will move forward with the sale of the former Mount Maunganui Borough Council site.

The council originally decided to sell the land in July following a public consultation process. Today's decision confirms the intent and authorises CEO Garry Poole to make the transaction.

Council will meet this afternoon to confirm details of the sale. Photo: File.

Mayor Stuart Crosby says the successful buyer is to be named later this week, after the unsuccessful have been notified.

Two councillors did not support the evote, with Councillor Bev Edlin abstaining and Catherine Stewart voted against, saying the decison was not just about today's ratepayers, but for those in the future.

The decision is to proceed with the sale of 8,100m2 of the 1.6ha area of land at 384 to 410 Maunganui Road.

Following opposition during the public consultation process, council agreed to retain the Mount Library and Plunket pre-school at the northern end of the block.

It is also keeping the greenspace currently used every month by the Little Big Markets. However, the new owner will be given the option of buying the greenspace, so the public use land will be adjacent to the library and the Plunket centre.

There is no information available regarding who will pay demolition costs to remove the 2540m2 former Mount Maunganui Borough Council buildings, which have been leased by Zespri since 1992.

Zespri's original lease expires in November 2017, but was extended for two years to 2019.

The land is being sold as Zespri look to expand their headquarters, and offered to buy the land which triggered the prublic process.

Zespri pays $525,000 in rent each year, plus GST and outgoings.

Under the heading Strategic Context, the agenda states the sale will assist in the managment of the city's debt.

There is no mention in the agenda regarding the Ombudsman's investigation in to the public consutltation, after council refused to provide any indication to ratepayer Stephen Bird about how debt management would occur.

He asked council to release the withheld information about the amount of debt expected to be removed by the sale, which was given as the reason for it.

After a local government official information act request was refused, he made a formal complaint.

'They had a report that said this was the highest and best use, and I asked them what effect it would have on rates and debt reduction,” says Stephen. 'I would like to see that.

'They are earning a certain amount of money off that land, and its generating income. They turned it down, saying it was confidential because they were going to sell the land.

'When council ultimately rejected the views of over 80 per cent of the submitters and decided to sell this land, I felt that I had just taken an unwitting role in some kind of stage managed performance.

'The whole process seemed false – it seemed to me that council had not met its obligations to honestly consult with the community.”

Stephen was among 196 submitters on the sale process, most of whom were opposed to council's plan to sell the land.

The Ombudsman assessed his complaint, agreed that there is substance to it, and has allocated an investigating officer to look into it.

The agenda for today's meeting states the marketing campaign from September 22 to October 1 resulted in multiple offers on the property being received.

Attachment A of the report DC318 is to remain in confidential to enable council to carry out commercial activity without prejudice.

Another confidential resolution is to be transferred from confidential when the sale process is complete.