Mayor plans freeze on library spending
Nelson’s new mayor wants to axe the proposed new library, citing the high cost of flood recovery, but he still needs councillors’ support to have the project iced.
The newly elected Nelson City Council will meet tomorrow, and the first significant item on the agenda is mayor Nick Smith’s proposal to can the new library, which is included in his first mayor’s report.
Smith’s proposal was to incur no further expenditure on the new library ‘‘pending further direction from this council’’, and to begin the process to consider removing the project from the long term plan.
The U-turn was, in part, justified by the unexpected new financial challenges imposed by
August’s flood and landslides, increased inflation, and interest rates.
‘‘Business confidence surveys have fallen sharply in the last year to the lowest levels since the Global Financial Crisis.
‘‘This is not an environment in which the community is likely to have an appetite for such large expenditure on this project,’’ he said in his report.
‘‘The council, since the library development project was proposed, also now has additional costs of between $40 million and $60 million to fix infrastructure from the devastating August weather event ... the bulk of this will need to be funded from rates.
‘‘This calls into question council expenditure on a project of this size.’’
The library was intended to be a city centre revitalisation lynchpin, but it attracted criticism both for its cost and location next to the tidal part of the Maitai River.
Smith said last year and this year to date $651,879 so far had been spent on the project.
Smith proposed to focus on repairing the Elma Turner Library, pending the structural detailed seismic assessment for the building.
The previous council was told the repair bill for the library, which is earthquake prone due to heavy ceiling tiles, could be in the realm of $2.5 million.
Smith said in his report that there was ‘‘significant opposition’’ to the new library.
However, Richard Brudvik-Linder, a high school teacher and convener of a civic organisation focused on making Nelson and Te Tauihu a more prosperous place, said he was not so sure that that was true. ‘‘Part of the problem is people’s notions of what a library is, those preconceived notions are out of date,’’ he said.
‘‘Why has Blenheim, with half the population, spent $20-25 million on theirs, but people [in Nelson] reject something that’s for double the population and for double the price?’’
Brudvik-Linder said the library was much more than what people were imagining with the title, and in fact the project was an investment in the city that would boost quality of life and the economy, especially when linked to the proposed nearby science precinct.