Community feedback is being sought on the council proposal to sell land at the Historic Village to The Tauranga Energy consumer Trust to build a community hub.
Open days with councillors and council staff will be held at the Village this Thursday from 9am to 12pm and Monday, January 18, from 3pm to 7pm.
The proposed TECT community hub.
Council will also have a stall at the Lions Markets at the Historic Village on Sunday, January 17 from 8am to 1pm for people to share views on the proposal which councillors approved in principle on November 25.
'The open days and market stall are a great chance for community members to have their say and ask questions,” says Mayor Stuart Crosby.
'I encourage everyone to come along, have a chat and find out everything they need to know about Council's proposal.
'If you can't make it to any of the open days, there are lots of other ways to tell us what you think: you can send us an email, give us a call, fill out one of our online feedback forms, get in touch through Facebook, or simply drop into the Historic Village office to have a chat.”
The 4790m2 site is mainly undeveloped green space at the upper part of the Historic Village. It's used occasionally for events and is available for the public to access and use.
The community hub concept involves creating a shared working space for community organisations. The concept allows for flexible spaces including meeting rooms; support from wrap-around services such as business advice and marketing; and opportunities for community organisations to collaborate with each other.
It would be designed to complement existing Village community facilities and activities. The proposal includes on-site car parking.
You can read more about the proposal here.
Feedback closes 5pm on Sunday, January 31.
8 comments
Asset Sales
Posted on 13-01-2016 13:14 | By Conzar
Welcome to 2016 which is the year of asset sales. Private ownership over the public good is the rule of this year where the capitalist win and the common people lose.
Community Ownership
Posted on 13-01-2016 14:04 | By Ron
Conzar, TECT is owned by 60,000 members of the community. It is a not for profit trust that distributes tens of millions of dollars into the community every year. Much more than the City Council. The community hub is about providing a "home" and services to community organisations. I can't see how your point is valid?
@ Ron
Posted on 13-01-2016 17:19 | By Crash test dummies
Sure sounds great, but as usual the sale will not be a clean one, it will be a giveaway leaving TCC ratepayers millions in debt and no land. This will be a repeat of many a cunning deal as done before.
TECH Ownership
Posted on 13-01-2016 20:28 | By Conzar
Are you actually saying that all 60,000 run the company or sorry "trust"? If Trust was run by our community than there is ZERO need to sell it. But alas, the Trust is private by very definition. There is NO REASON TO SELL LAND to private interests. If anything, the city council should 'rent' it if they really want something like that. But the city council is in it for the money (cash grab).
agree with Ron
Posted on 13-01-2016 20:52 | By rosscoo
Other 2 comments irrelevant as Tect is made up of community and could ease pressure from ratepayers it might slow council down from rate increases.
Too much unanswered, that doesn't make sence
Posted on 13-01-2016 21:35 | By Murray.Guy
I wonder why the need to purchase the land. This is a first, I believe, for TECT. Allegedly championing an initiative plus owning it. A lease, gift the building (on acceptable terms) to the community. A rather obvious way forward assuming there is no hidden agenda,information being help back. TECT say 'they will meet all costs, pay the market value, etc.' If that is the case and their motivation is to purely to add value, so as to NOT erode scarce land at the Historic Village, which includes the need for parking, why not purchase land directly opposite, perhaps extra for 'Village Parking'? Certainly less complicated and intrusive. aside from the above, the 'new hub' is to house many of the existing organisations which implies a loss of tenants and income to the Village. Is this another devious undermining of the Village by TCC senior staff & Mayor?
A gigantic leap....
Posted on 14-01-2016 07:51 | By Jimmy Ehu
in imagination and lateral thinking, but it would have been so easy to put the new police station on this site, and have a "slipway" built to access/egress the "expressway", imagine all emergency services in the one place, the land now occupied by the police station could have been used for a multi cultural facility and housed many community organisations, also maybe an attraction if done properly for visitors to our waterfront, maybe also a new Council building and parking, but hell no!!!!, we have multitudes of council employees with degrees in city planning who only think inside a cardboard box!!!!, guess that's why they work for such a "dumbed down" organisation at our cities detriment!!!, I would have thought a few around the TECT board table had more smarts and imagination, agh but hindsite is a wonderful thing, also also also, will "Sir Des" be compensated??
What did you do Murray?
Posted on 17-01-2016 18:07 | By Councillorwatch
Murray, when you were a councillor for all those years how much council funding did you ever vote for to go to the Historic Village? Looks to me as though TECT is acting while you and council dilly-dallied for many many years. This won't solve all the problems but it might just improve the lot of the average tenant. Sadly the village is built on a swamp and even more sadly many people today don't seem interested in this sort of attraction as times have changed.
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