The National Business Review
Council ignores protests, approves
controversial Whangarei land sale
Jazial Crossley | Friday October 30 2009 - 07:54am
Defying
public outcry, Whangarei District Council is going ahead with its controversial
plan to sell one of the city’s largest parks to a property developer in order
to build retail space for retailers which have not yet been named.
In June, the
council announced that it wanted to sell 5.8ha Okara
Park which the Old Boys’ Rugby Football Club has called home for generations to
BWH Properties, a subsidiary of Bernard Hill’s Hill
Construction.
There were 87
submissions received from locals, 54 of which were opposed and only 30
supported it, with three neutral.
Despite the
majority of submissions from the public rejecting the move, council is ignoring
the pleas of its ratepayers and plans to complete the sale.
Council is
keeping mum on the tenants who have reportedly signed agreements to tenant the
site once it is built but mayor Stan Semenoff said
the names were “major retailers not seen here before”.
The park is
located between Okara Drive and Port Rd. The council
has said it will relocate the Old Boys’ Rugby Football Club to a new home where
facilities are of similar standard – Whangarei Boys High School is a
possibility but discussions are not complete.
The $20
million BWH Properties is paying is reportedly twice
the market value.
The council’s
chief executive Mark Simpson said that it decided against retaining the land as
a sports field because it was not heavily used, and that it didn’t think
building its own development on the would be an “appropriate” way to spend
ratepayers funds.
Some of the
submissions received cited concern that the retail proposed would draw consumer
dollars away from the existing retail in the city.
Mr Simpson brushed that off as something which would be dealt with during
the resource consent process.