RSA land deal turns sour for members
Promised clubrooms for RSA members scrapped in $10m deal
An already controversial deal to sell an Auckland RSA’s prime inner city land to supermarket chain Foodstuffs for about $10 million has been downscaled to no longer include new clubrooms for veterans and members.
The decision has hugely upset Pt Chevalier RSA members, with allegations of a lack of financial transparency about how RSA management decided to abandon the new clubroom project.
The sale of the Pt Chevalier RSA site on Great North Rd last year had been part of a plan to build a New World supermarket, which would incorporate a facility for a new RSA club on top of it, along with parking and commercial office space.
The RSA has been in a dire financial state for years and a vote by members to sell a 4000sq m block of land it owns on Great North Rd was conducted on May 15, 2022.
The block was valued by Auckland Council at $6.1 million in June 2021 but it is understood to have been independently valued much higher — close to $10 million.
However, it has emerged that in late September this year around 100 Pt Chev RSA members were called to a special meeting to vote on whether to opt out of the new clubroom deal.
It is understood that Point Chev RSA management said the club would end up in debt after the club rooms were built above the New World supermarket and that the project should be abandoned. Instead, the club would just receive money directly for the sale.
After the meeting one of the Point Chev committee members quit, citing a lack of transparency over the proceedings.
“That’s all we knew, that we’d be cashless by the time we got to the new build, and we’ll probably end up owing money,” one RSA member said.
“No clarity, and during the special meeting it felt like it was a vote under duress.”
RSA national director, Murray Hobson, confirmed to the Herald clubrooms would not be built on top of the New World.
“The clubrooms aren’t going ahead because members made that decision.
“Commercially, the hospitality business didn’t stack up.”
Foodstuffs spokesperson Emma Wooster confirmed to the Herald the RSA had decided against the initial plan to build the new clubrooms.
Foodstuffs would not provide detail of whether they had now increased their payment to the RSA for the land given the construction costs of the new clubrooms would no longer be needed.
“While the details of the financial agreement are confidential an equitable outcome has been agreed between Point Chevalier RSA and Foodstuffs North Island.”
However, a second Point Chev RSA member who is familiar with the details of the decision to pull out of the new clubrooms was highly critical of the lack of transparency from Hobson
and other RSA management, saying members did not know how much they were going to be left with.
“We’re closing the doors and that’s the end of the Point Chev RSA. It’s gone.
“The land’s gone, everything is gone.
“So, New World’s going ahead with their project. It’s just that we won’t have our Point Chev RSA on top like we were initially going to have.
Hobson was also not prepared to comment on the financial arrangements of the new deal and disputed there was any controversy to the initial sale of the Great North Rd site.
Point Chev RSA president Neville Swan claimed last year he was “kept in the dark”.
“Meetings were actually held behind my back pretty much,” Swan claimed in 2022.
Swan, was concerned the value of the new RSA clubrooms Foodstuffs was building was nowhere near equal to the land value.
“There is a discrepancy as far as I’m concerned where the value of the land is worth $12 million,” Swan claimed.
“I was not happy with that either. Murray Hobson – I pulled him up a couple of times, because I was the president.
“I said, ‘You obviously don’t need a president, you’re quite happy running it yourself’ so I have just resigned. My vice-president then lasted two months [as the new president].”
Hobson disputed all the allegations levelled at him.
“It is not true the members were told during the meeting that if they did not agree to sell the land to Foodstuffs for the new development the club would be liquidated,” Hobson said.
“I was asked how long the RSA could remain open and trading if the members decided not to proceed with the development and I replied in my opinion it could be as short as two weeks if there was no improvement in patronage. Although this may have been hard for the members, who have made these allegations, to hear, in my opinion, it was a truthful response.”
Hobson also denied financial records hadn’t been kept at the Point Chev RSA and says the club suffered a ransomware attack in October 2021 which caused them to lose an “account package database”.