Selected residents will be invited to join a steering group that will feed into plans for the replacement building, after the original was badly damaged by fire in February and eventually torn down.
During Thursday’s community board meeting, elected members agreed to recommend to council up to four external stakeholders to be voted into the group.
The Roxburgh Entertainment Centre Improvement and Promotions committee, the Roxburgh Musical Society, and the Roxburgh Brass Band, alongside the community board itself, have been identified as the likely candidates for the job.
In a report presented at the meeting, Central Otago District Council property and facilities officer Bex Snape said the steering group would "provide advice" and "be a helpful sounding board" throughout the project.
Community board chairman Norman Dalley said the aim of the group would be to "capture and collate" the community’s input.
Board member Gill Booth warned council staff they ran the risk of Roxburgh residents feeling alienated from the project if it was seen to be too council-led, rather than community-led.
"Then, people don’t view it as theirs," she said.
"People from the community, they want to be involved in the rebuild."
Speaking in favour of the steering group approach — also adopted by the council in Cromwell during the planning for a replacement of the town’s war memorial hall — property and facilities manager Garreth Robinson said it was not practical to have "150 people around the table" trying to make decisions.
In an attempt to reassure community board members about the process moving forward, Mr Robinson said there were "some very clever people out there".
He said there were those with professional experience designing and building similar facilities that the council would seek to engage with at different stages.
In their report, council staff acknowledged how invested residents were in the project.
"The rebuild has had a high level of community interest and has attracted a large amount of inquiry and media attention," Ms Snape said.
At the end of March, locals organised their own drive-in movie fundraiser at the Roxburgh Rugby Club grounds in support of the rebuild.
Mr Robinson said discussions around insurance payouts were close to being concluded, with no questions yet answered as to what started the Waitangi Day blaze.
"Unfortunately, the fire was so devastating, they couldn’t find any cause," Mr Robinson said.
By Kim Bowden
