Tauranga City councillors' insistence on a commercial return from former ratepayers' assets came back to bite them this week, when not-for-profit organisation YMCA complained of being undercut and squeezed out of venues.

Tauranga YMCA general manager Calum Davie says the community is suffering as a result of the council's direction that Bay Venues Ltd (BVL) should be commercially aggressive.

Arataki Community Centre. Photo: File.

BVL is a council-controlled organisation responsible for operating community-funded halls and facilities. Ownership of the halls and facilities was handed to them in November 2014.

Their 2014/15 statement of intent is to aggressively grow commercial revenue, and grow commercial revenue by 30 per cent by 2017.

'BVL are carrying out their strategic intent well,” says Calum at this week's council meeting, 'however, the impact it is having on community organisations is significant.

'While profits are the focus, greater community services are suffering as a result – especially charitable organisations such as YMCA Tauranga and our ability to continue to use BVL facilities to deliver our community-focused programmes.

'Increasing venue hire costs and other operational overheads have forced us to increase our prices. We have a benevolent ‘duty of care' to remain price-competitive for our target market.

'However, we cannot compete with BayKids, operated by BVL, when their overhead costs are lower than ours.”

Calum insists it's an approach that creates the strong impression that BVL is manufacturing an unfair competitive advantage in the after-school care market, which does not represent a level playing field.

Prices presented to councillors show the commercial after-school care programmes and YMCA prices are similar, and in the region of $18 -$18.50 an hour.

BVL's price is $15 an hour for its after school programme, held in a hall that ratepayers paid for and that BVL now owns.

Calum also claimed that the attitude of BVL staff and some Arataki Community Centre users towards teenagers attending the centre's youth programme is 'hostile”, forcing the teens to use the back door of the venue to avoid them.

The Ministry of Social Development-funded Arataki Youth Programme engages the area's young people in meaningful activities, with the intention of modifying behaviour and preventing offending.

Callum says the aim was to create a youth zone at Arataki, where young people felt free to talk, felt comfortable, act like teenagers and learn often absent social skills.

It's been a difficult contract to implement for many different reasons, says Calum, but they have streamlined a lot of the planning and seen a massive growth in numbers.

Problems with the venue were confirmed in a survey of participants.

'BVL staff and other users of the community centre have made them feel unwelcome because they don't fit, and that's a concern to us,” says Callum.

'Whether it's true or not, that's their perception. I'm just here as the messenger.

'They are also considered to be a nuisance, and have resorted to using the back door to avoid any kind of conflict with staff or other users.

'We feel that's a real shame. We are trying to give them a sense of community inclusion, and it's pushing them further away and alienating them in the very suburb they reside in.”

There are also issues at the Papamoa Community Centre, where a successful active lifestyles, fitness, and socialising programme - elder aerobics - has been shunted out of the larger room in favour of a customer prepared to pay more.

The YMCA recently established an elder volunteer coordinator within the Papamoa programme, connecting participants into volunteering pathways with organisations such as Alzheimer's NZ, Diabetes NZ, and the Arthritis Foundation, with whom the YMCA has collaborative relationships.

'We've had a long standing booking at Papamoa Community Centre in the largest room, which is required because of the large number of participants,” says Calum.

'But we've been shunted to a smaller room because there is a higher-paying commercial client.

'Once again, from our perspective, we are having to consider putting on additional classes because the rooms are smaller, which means our overheads then increase.

'Ironically, we are paying more money back to the venue hire and we are paying staff for that extra time as well.

'It calls into question whether it's actually feasible for the future. We cannot afford to keep working with increasing hireage rates. Senior citizens deserve better than that.

'Management have been unapologetic and frank about the profit-driven aspirations of the centre.

'We've received an indication from this site manager that they are changing their focus to a commercial educational facility, which is likely to come at the expense of the community.”

Calum spoke during the public forum, however there was no discussion by city council.

But the complaint will be checked out, promises Mayor Stuart Crosby.

'We will hear BVL's side of the story, then engage with them if there are any issues that need to be addressed,” says Stuart after the meeting.

'I suspect there will be others. It's not a new issue – I've had concerns on that related to me before across the spectrum of activities.

'This is quite a specific one. The difference is they are also running programmes. BVL have similar programmes at slightly lower rates.”

The Arataki Community Centre has just won a national award for service, so he doubts the complaint about BVL staff will prove to be the case.

The Papamoa Community centre does have different sized rooms available.

'There are big rooms and smaller rooms, so it might be more viable to use a smaller room and put another group in a bigger room. That's a commercial decision.

'These are all issues we need to engage with BVL on.”