Our Place faces the axe
Council to vote on slashing services as coronavirus cuts into revenue
Tauranga City Council is set to decide today whether to permanently shut down CBD container village Our Place in a bid to slash spending after a Covid-19 revenue hit.
The council’s executive has recommended ditching or reducing funding for 11 services in total, in a bid to trim operating expenses.
It was part of a package of proposed cuts — also covering staffing and capital costs — that would bring the average rates rise down to 4.9 per cent from the previous drafted 7.6 per cent.
Staff also recommended putting parking machines at boat ramps — at a cost of $50,000-$100,000 — in the hope of collecting an extra $100,000 in revenue next year, and $400,000 a year thereafter.
Most services would only be gone temporarily, but staff have proposed permanently defunding Our Place, the tropical display house in Robbins Park, hanging baskets in the city centre and Tauranga’s public New
Year’s Eve celebrations.
Our Place is run by Chris and Rachelle Duffy of Little Big Events. They lease the Willow St site of the demolished council office building for $1 a year.
They pay operating costs — including leasing containers — and collect rent from tenants, mostly hospitality and retail shops.
Since opening in August 2018, Our Place has struggled to become selfsustaining and has received funding top-ups from the council, which frustrated some other CBD businesses who saw the village as competition.
The council has spent $537,000 on the site since the council building was demolished in 2017, including preparations for the village. Of that, $120,000 was in grants or operating subsidies for Our Place. Ten of the 30 containers available for tenants are leased, with 20 vacancies.
Our Place’s lease with the council is due to expire on July 9, and a council spokesperson said it had been working with the business and tenants on future options.
But with finances tightened postpandemic, council staff are now recommending it be closed permanently due to the risk that it will need future funding, according to a staff report prepared for the meeting.
A temporary closure was said to be too expensive, mostly due to the roughly $200,000 a year cost to lease the containers from Royal Wolf.
If the village closed, tenants would have to relocate, but other opportunities to use the space could open up.
Chris Duffy told the Bay of Plenty Times he and Rachelle had personally contributed more than $200,000 to the project. He said whatever the council decided would be the right decision for the project given the current situation.
The Our Place model relied on reaching a particular occupancy rate to be sustainable.
“We acknowledge that the retail environment, in particular, is a challenging space to be in and this component has unfortunately put pressure on the project.”
He said they were looking at other “sustainable and responsible” options to continue building Our Place as a “point of connection, with a shared commitment to creating a community ecosystem of people and skills and resources”.
Three Our Place tenants told the Bay of Plenty Times they wanted the