Formerly home to the Queenstown Arts Centre building and Queenstown Playcentre, the former was given six months’ notice in October, 2021, the building would be bowled.
Eventually, the council plans to turn it into part of the cultural and civic centre, but at that time, council indicated in the interim it’d be used for temporary carparking.
Then followed a protracted process of voting to remove the former high school building from its strategic register, consultation with the community, a resolution to instead remove the building, and seeking expressions of interest for its relocation.
It took until June last year for council to formally approve the relocation of the building to Hansen Rd’s Country Lane precinct, but it didn’t actually move till this June — see page 10 for the latest update.
In response to a request under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, a council spokeswoman says they’re "currently preparing designs" and obtaining consent for a ground-level carpark.
"The [facility’s] opening will be aligned with the final stage works of the new ‘Queenstown Town Centre Arterial Stage 1’ road," the response says.
That wouldn’t be till about May next year.
When Mountain Scene put that response to Lewers, he was blunt in his response.
"That, to me, would be unacceptable. I have had meetings once a week, every week, for the last four weeks ... about pushing that forward and actually having something open before Christmas."
He was briefed on Tuesday and will have a follow-up meeting tomorrow before the matter goes to the infrastructure committee this coming Tuesday.
He says the committee will have two options before them — the preferred is to create 73 additional gravel carparks.
"Personally, I’d be pretty disappointed if the direction from the infrastructure committee is to go for less carparks ... I know there are a few trees that need to be [removed] to get this carpark happening, and I’ll be pretty disappointed if less carparks are just to save a couple of trees."
When asked why, in the three years since it first signalled it wanted to use the site for carparking, council’s yet to ask itself permission to do that, Lewers responds: "That is a very good question.
"Obviously, we lost a pretty significant member of the team in that time [the late Pete Hansby] and in that transition period I’d say it didn’t get the focus it should have."
While he points out staff are balancing many projects, "I take on board the consenting — that should have been well and truly squared away and sorted".
