Council offered RSA’s CBD site
Continued from page 1...
Businessman Gary Traveller says Taupo District Council should give up its lakefront land for the benefit of the Taupo District.
‘‘The council should go out saying, ‘we’ve got this piece of land for sale’, and ask, ’if you do buy it, what’re you going to do with it?’
‘‘The company that comes here with the best idea that will help Taupo develop, get the option to purchase the land,’’ Traveller said.
‘‘You can actually incentivise the whole structure to get businesses into Taupo.’’
Traveller and business partner John Wade, who owns local building firm Wade Construction, say they can give Taupo District Council a new purpose-built council building in town – should they wish to take up the offer.
The pair has negotiated the exclusive right to make the first offer on 67 Horomatangi St – land currently owned by the Taupo RSA Trust – for the purpose of a new council building.
Wade said the council could choose to either purchase a unit title and own a share of the proposed building, or just lease offices in the building, he said. ‘‘That’s up to them,’’ he said. ‘‘If they bought it, it would be unit title scenario, so like you’ve got with the apartment blocks along the waterfront where you can buy a freehold apartment.’’
The council might be wiser to rent the office building, rather than buy it, Wade said.
‘‘By leasing it, they can walk away or downsize easily.’’
‘‘If there is an issue down the track with asbestos, or some other building product that’s been used, that’s not their problem.
‘‘That’s our responsibility to deal with.’’
Traveller said leasing the building allowed the council to future-proof its operations.
‘‘In 20 years time, they might not be employing a couple of hundred people because everything has been farmed out – it’s all being done by robots and on the internet. So you don’t need a huge council building,’’ he said.
‘‘In 20 years time, they can say, ‘our needs are completely different than they were 20 years ago. Thanks so much, we can now move to another building that suits our new needs’.
‘‘But if they own it, they’ve got to go through the same process they’ve gone through.’’
The council will consider all the submissions on June 15.