A long-comatose museum awaits
‘‘The tone of submissions changed after the museum was closed.’’ That’s a phrase that pops up a couple of times in the Invercargill City Council’s summary of public submissions on its long term plan.
The unexpected earthquake-risk closure of the Southland Museum and Art Gallery happened part-way through the consultation process and prompted many calls for it to reopen immediately. What the council discerned more clearly was a public cry for an opening ‘‘as soon as possible’’ which is not exactly the same thing.
Certainly the council has reprioritised and now it can arguably be said that museum spending is being fast-tracked, provided we are careful with our definition of ‘‘fast’’.
The council wants us to understand that, yes, you can close a museum soooooo fast, but you can only reopen it so fast. It takes years of purposeful but plodding progress apart from some little outpost activity in the meantime.
Redevelopment spending of $9.5 million which is already in the planning books, albeit rather distantly, is being brought forward from way, way out there in 2027/28 to just way out, starting 2021/22. And that’s money that was envisaged to be spent redeveloping a fully operational museum, not reviving one that will have been largely comatose for years. It’s a galling call for those persuaded by the view expressed by a cluster of local professionals that the latest legislation not only permits, but rather expects, continued public use of buildings in the museum’s state – the status of which is itself still proving contentious,
This is just one of some very big calls the council is lining up to make, not the least of which is a rates increase – and please hold your applause until the end – of a smidge under 5 per cent for the coming year.
Here’s where we might remember that the previous year’s increase was 3.9 per cent which for the owner of a $215,000 house equated to an extra $75 a year. So yeow.
The museum strife hasn’t meant the council has gone foetal in the face of other new projects. Anderson House, another earthquake-risk closure, will still be strengthened and a new tenant found; the Arts and Creativity Centre and Living Dinosaurs Experience all hold their places in the planning books though an additional pool for Splash Palace has been pushed a few further years back.
And – this one, at least, is an unassailably disciplined decision for all its utter lack of glamour – a backup water supply, should the city need one in a disaster, is still planned, albeit starting only in 2025/26 because that’s how long proper planning will take. Wouldn’t want to do anything hasty.