An expanded village centre is the public choice for the location of a proposed Welcome Bay supermarket, according to public consultation figures gathered by the Tauranga City Council.
With a choice of three council owned sites; Owens Reserve near the Welcome Bay School, or somewhere on the highly prized Waipuna Park - the people's choice is the Waitaha Reserve adjacent to the existing village centre.
The Waitaha Reserve is the choice of 56.3 per cent of those polled, Owens Park 25.3 per cent, and 18.4 per cent want a supermarket on Waipuna Park.
Of those surveyed, 65 per cent want a supermarket in Welcome Bay.
The survey results and the next steps for the council will be discussed at the Community and Culture Committee meeting on Tuesday.
City Development manager Dean Williams' report says the reasons why people made their choices include common themes.
They are against the use of green space/reserve land (77 per cent), they don't see a requirement for a supermarket in the area (30 per cent), with 20 per cent of them being against the council involvement in a commercial business.
'It has become clear through this early engagement that there is majority support for investigating further a potential supermarket development in Welcome Bay upon Council owned land,” says Dean's report.
However, there have been responses that, while supporting the potential development, say they prefer redeveloping the existing centre, before considering Council owned land. Waipuna Park is the least preferred site of the three feasible locations.
Council staff are expected to continue the analysis of the Waitaha and Owens Park sites.
Waitaha Reserve presents issues in potential reconfiguration or relocation of amenity uses and community facilities. Owens Park is a challenging site for development, and is underutilised due to its drainage issues.
Once sufficient material is obtained, the community will be engaged regarding how a potential development could occur and what the impact will be on existing facilities and amenity uses, along with how that impact can be managed to ensure no loss of existing service provision and usage.
5 comments
Of course - the survey guaranteed this result
Posted on 06-07-2017 13:11 | By Mr J
This was the only option presented to Welcome Bay residents really - they could lose some of the great facility at Waipuna Park, have a Full Supermarket at Waitaha Reserve, or a scaled down supermarket at Owens Park (because it's not a very big site...). Of course most people will want the full version at the site of the council and the supermarket owners preferred site. Owens Park certainly looks to have a larger footprint than the full service New World at The Mount. Presumably the council will relocate the community services to Owens Park and the ratepayer will foot the bill for the drainage and associated problems there, I'll be interested to see the outcome.
Agreed Mr J
Posted on 06-07-2017 17:33 | By Blasta
There's no like button so am agreeing with Mr J
Usual story !
Posted on 06-07-2017 21:04 | By The Caveman
Council surveys, SCREWED with loaded questions to get the answer that the council has already decided that it wants to meet its pre-dertermend decisions. The bottom line is that the COUNCIL (read - employees) had decided that they were going to flog off Waitaha Reserve for a supermarket LONG before they ever went public on the "idea" of using a bit of PUBLIC reserve for a supermarket.AND, use the OIA to ask the question - has the Council already done a deal with one of the supermarket chains? I suspect that there are already design plans for the supermarket on Waitaha Reserve - with one of the big two supermarket chains.
Bulldoze the existing shops
Posted on 06-07-2017 22:08 | By Tgaboy
They always feel outdated, dirty and unsafe to me. Build a fresh complex. Welcome bay needs a facelift like that.
why get rid of green space?
Posted on 12-07-2017 14:49 | By mark23
Tauranga is slowly getting rid of any green space for yet more food areas. why don't we have the old green belt, reserves should not be dug up for commercial interests when people need some outdoor areas and kids to play especially as it is so easy to order on line shopping or go to the many already available supermarkets in the city.
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