Wanaka businessman Mike Saunders has called for the
Queenstown Lakes District Council to stop revisiting
alternative sites for sports facilities and show some
leadership by choosing the combined showgrounds and camping
reserve.
Mr Saunders chaired the now-defunct Wanaka sports facilities
working party, which was appointed by the council in 1998 to
investigate sites with the purpose of "resolving the future
arrangements for sporting facilities".
The showgrounds and camping ground recreation reserve was the
working party's first choice in 2008 but the Wanaka Community
Board asked QLDC community services general manager Paul
Wilson to investigate other sites.
Mr Wilson did that and last week recommended the council go
with the working party's first choice of the town reserve.
However, the council resolved to have another, closer look at
greenfield options in a triangle of mostly bare land between
Ballantyne Rd, Riverbank Rd and State Highway 84, and to find
out if there were any willing vendors.
No timeframe has been set for that investigation. It could
take about two months.
Mr Saunders said yesterday Wanaka Community Board chairman
Lyal Cocks seemed to be leading the charge for a change of
site but it was time to show leadership and "just make a
decision". He was questioning whether the working party
members should have ever bothered investigating.
One way or another, building new sports facilities would
impose more costs on ratepayers. But buying a greenfields
site unnecessarily could force ratepayers to pay more than
they needed to, he said.
"If I were a landowner there [in the greenfields] with the
development that's been proposed, and I had my home there, I
would be putting a good price on it," Mr Saunders said.
He said a sports stadium in an empty paddock on the outskirts
of town would "sit there for 20 years like a white elephant"
and struggle to attract users or make any income.
Mr Saunders is also the chairman of Lakes Leisure, a
council-owned company that oversees the district's
recreational facilities, such as swimming pools and halls.
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