Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull talked to about 80 people in Coronation Hall about the proposed spending, including $30,000 seed funding to the Taieri Community Facilities Trust.
Trust member Teresa Christie said the community needed to make a submission on the draft annual plan to ensure the trust got the seed funding needed to create a plan and strategy for a redevelopment of a pool facility in Mosgiel.
''It's time to pull together to make a big splash and to make a ripple throughout Taieri.''
She encouraged the audience to apply to join the trust and to float as many ideas as possible on ways to fund the redevelopment.
A man in the audience told Mr Cull it was ''abysmal'' the pool redevelopment had been talked about for six years and the council had not acted. He said it needed to provide more than the $30,000 seed funding.
Mr Cull said the council was committed to not take on any more debt but, if the community signalled it wanted a new pool, the council could help financially.
''I don't think anybody expects that this community is going to pay for the whole thing. We've just got to find innovative ways to do it and part of this process will be around balancing aspirations and timeframes with the reality of raising money.''
Another man in the audience said Mosgiel was a ''rich little town'' and the council's draft annual plan was mostly funding Dunedin projects.
Mosgiel ratepayers deserved more funding of Mosgiel projects in the draft annual plan.
Mr Cull said Mosgiel ratepayers were not subsidising the rest of the city ''And nor is the rest of the city subsidising Mosgiel.''
Council infrastructure and networks manager Tony Avery said the council had already investigated a range of cost structures for a pool redevelopment.
The cheapest option was $2.2 million to upgrade the Mosgiel pool and the dearest
$15 million for a new building with multiple pools and spa.
