Town Hall

In our Long-Term Plan consultation we asked the community what they thought we should do with our current Town Hall.

Of 722 submitters responded to the questions related to the Town Hall:

• 51 per cent (368) supported demolishing the Town Hall and Municipal Building and not replacing them.
• 46 per cent (332) supported demolishing the Town Hall and Municipal Buildings and building a new Town Hall on the current Town Hall site, including retaining the Municipal Building façade (this was the Council’s preferred option)
• 3 per cent (22) supported demolishing the Town Hall and building a new Town Hall on the site, and retaining and refurbishing the existing Municipal Building, including façade.

A total of 699 people responded to the question of whether to keep the façade. Of these:

• 52 per cent (362) did not want to keep the façade
• 48 per cent (337) wanted the façade retained.

Elected members heard from 89 people who chose to present their views in person, this was followed by deliberations where it was decided to demolish the buildings on the Town Hall site (including the façade) and commit to building a new community facility costing no more than $25m.

This is the motion that was passed by elected members:

Build the new Town Hall

• Demolish the Town Hall and Municipal Buildings and build a new Town Hall on the current Town Hall site including a multi-purpose space for performances or functions, as outlined in the preferred option but do not retain the Municipal Building façade, at a budget of no more than $25 million (including contingency) to be included in years 1 to 4 of the LTP.
• Direct officers to proceed to demolish the Town Hall and Municipal Buildings and with detailed design for the new Town Hall.
• Direct officers to proceed with a fixed price tender process for the build for no more than the remaining budget.

The first step is to demolish the buildings on the site. Demolition is a 'discretionary activity' which means that it requires a Resource Consent under the Wairarapa Combined District Plan.

A consultant planner has been appointed to assess and lodge the application on behalf of the Council.

The application process will be undertaken by an independent consultant who will also make a recommendation to the Council on whether it will be publicly notified. If the consent is publicly notified, submissions will be made to an independent commissioner.

Under the District Plan the building has local heritage significance but doesn't have a national heritage significance listing.

A Heritage Architect is preparing a report regarding the heritage value of the building to demonstrate whether there are appropriate heritage values to consider.

We don’t know yet.

We will salvage as much material as we can from the building.

Elected members have set a limit of $25m for the total cost of the project.

For big projects like this we ‘loan fund’ the cost and spread it out over many years. This is because the facility will be used by the community for many years so the cost should be shared by everyone including future residents.

There will also be lots of fundraising activities to raise more money for the project.

Elected Members – they made the decision to go ahead with the project and will continue to be the decision makers.

Architects – we are in the process of tendering for the architect. Submissions close on 24 July.

Council Staff - will be managing the project.

Fundraisers - Bob Francis has put his hand up to lead the fundraising efforts.