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The Hamilton City Council has narrowly moved to reserve $ 3.57 million in its long-term plan to demolish Founders Theater and create a multipurpose park in its place.
The decision, at a council meeting on Tuesday, consolidates the park as the organization’s preference and thus prevents attempts by a philanthropic trust to retain the building as a city hall.
However, a mysterious nomination by Heritage New Zealand to include the Founders on the New Zealand Heritage List threatens to derail efforts to determine the final fate of the missing facility.
The request has baffled both councilors and staff who, if they choose to give it credit, face a long wait for Heritage NZ’s decision.
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Council executive director Richard Briggs received a letter from the Crown entity on November 27, a week after the council held hearings for the public to express their views on the future of the Tristram St theater, which has been closed since the beginning of 2016.
Correspondence reported that Heritage NZ had received an application on November 16 to nominate the theater for consideration for entering the heritage list as a Category 2 Historic Site.
The decision to accept the nomination will be made early next year and, if accepted for consideration, the process could take up to a year or more.
But it is unknown who submitted the nomination, at least for now. The council has asked and, apparently, Heritage NZ is taking legal advice before deciding whether they can release that information.
Tom Lee / Stuff
Councilmember Dave Macpherson: “[Heritage NZ] move with the speed of a 100-year-old Galapagos tortoise. “
At Tuesday’s meeting, Council Member Dave Macpherson described the Heritage NZ app as “a red herring” and predicted that the organization would “move at the speed of a 100-year-old Galapagos tortoise” before making a decision.
The council meeting was in fact an opening act for two days of long-term plan discussions, starting Wednesday, in which the theater will likely be subject to further debate.
The council has sought public comment on the future of the Founders three times, and the most recent round of consultation shows strong support for playing it.
The council received five hundred and five submissions, and 84 percent of the participants favored the option of eliminating the theater and creating a multipurpose park.
Tom Lee / Stuff
Tuesday’s meeting will almost certainly not be the last time the Hamilton City Council will discuss the fate of the Founders Theater.
However, the Theater of the Impossible Trust (TOTI) philanthropic arts group has been lobbying councilors to restore and repurpose Founders as an arts, culture, music and heritage center.
Those efforts were promoted by Cr Martin Gallagher, who proposed an amendment that would allow the council to effectively award the $ 3.57 million earmarked for the community park to the trust.
That money would become the city council’s contribution to the restoration of “an incredibly significant building” and would be “cost neutral.”
“The quanta remain the same,” he said.
Gallagher was supported by Macpherson and his fellow counselors Kesh Naidoo-Rauf, Maxine van Oosten, Ewan Wilson, and Angela O’Leary.
On the other side of the table were Mayor Paula Southgate, Deputy Mayor Geoff Taylor and Councilmen Mark Bunting, Rob Pascoe, Sarah Thomson, Margaret Forsyth and Ryan Hamilton, and the larger numbers prevailed.
Southgate stressed that due to the immense financial pressures on the council, the $ 3.57 million for the multipurpose park may not outlive the number of long-term plans.
“We just don’t have the money to put the icing on the cake in this one.”
One by one, each of the politicians presented their rationale for the park or for maintaining the building.
“People have spoken. It is time for us to listen, ”stated Forsyth.
Macpherson argued that it would be six and a half months before the council needed to make a final decision on the fate of the Founders, and all options should be kept open.
Hamilton urged colleagues not to forget about the soon-to-be-built Waikato Regional Theater, warning that Founders, which had been assessed as a health and safety risk and was no longer fit for purpose, was possibly the company. much riskier.
Founders, which opened in 1962, is also prone to earthquakes. Estimates for restoration have ranged from $ 12 million to $ 20 million.
The proposed design for the new multipurpose park includes different areas for holding events, playing games and enjoying nature. It is part of a plan to open the West Town Belt, a 54ha stretch of green space that stretches from Lake Rotoroa (Lake Hamilton) to the Waikato River.
