Councillor urges end to visitor centre plan
The Kāpiti Coast District Council is set to vote on whether to continue with the plan for a visitor centre at Paraparaumu Beach at a meeting on Thursday.
Districtwide councillor Liz Koh filed a notice of motion last Friday, moving to order the chief executive to ‘‘withdraw all resource consent applications relating to the project’’ and instruct staff members and contractors to ‘‘cease all work’’ on Te Uruhi/Kāpiti Gateway.
‘‘The business case has never been convincing and cost overruns have been huge, causing significant reputation damage,’’ Koh wrote.
‘‘Over the recent election period . . . there was no discernible support. This motion allows [the] council to draw a line under the project, repair relationships with the public and move on.’’
The controversial development, which was first approved in March last year despite a 3000-strong petition against it, was to build a visitor centre at Paraparaumu Beach to house biosecurity screening facilities for visitors to Kāpiti Island. However, its price tag has blown out from $4.46 million to $7.75m because of construction price rises and supply chain issues.
Koh’s motion is backed by four other councillors – Martin Halliday, Glen Cooper, Nigel Wilson and Jocelyn Prvanov. Some councillors who haven’t supported the motion, including Shelly Warwick and Kathy Spiers, ran on halting the project during this year’s local elections.
Koh said the motion was put forward on behalf of the community because the spiralling cost was the primary problem.
‘‘It’s pretty clear to me that the project, as it stands, has very little support,’’ Koh said. ‘‘The project is on life support and somebody needs to be brave enough to pull the plug on it instead of dragging it out. What else could you do with close to $8m? We have other priorities such as a new library at Waikanae.’’ Although almost half of the council supported putting the motion on the floor, Koh won’t comment on its chances. ‘‘We’ll just have to see on the day how the debate goes,’’ she said. Mayor Janet Holborow said she was aware that some councillors wanted to ‘‘deal with’’ Te Uruhi as soon as possible. ‘‘I’m also aware that some other councillors want more information before making a final call . . . We’ll see what the discussion brings.’’