Eighteen members of the public attended the meeting to hear the board agree to hand over the Pioneer Park pavilion to the Central Cultural Centre Trust, which leases the building, and to raise an internal loan of $95,000 to give the trust.
During its estimates meeting earlier this year, the board resolved to cut the $9500 it paid annually to the trust. The trust maintains the pavilion but the Central Otago District Council owns the facility.
The pavilion was partly funded from Blossom Festival funds and catered for sports played in the park, but is rarely used nowadays. When the trust built the Central Stories museum and art gallery in Pioneer Park six years ago the council insisted the pavilion be retained and incorporated into that complex.
"With the benefit of hindsight, it is questionable whether the decision to retain the pavilion was in fact the correct one," council property officer Brian Taylor told the board.
The presence of the building created a significant design challenge for the trust when building the museum and reportedly also contributed to additional construction costs, through needing to modify an existing structure rather that starting with a clean foundation, he said.
"The pavilion is no longer needed for sporting groups, nor is it appropriate for alternate use in its existing state," he said.
The trust plans to renovate the pavilion into a lecture theatre, cinema, technology room and toilets. The project, estimated to cost up to $600,000, is a joint venture between the trust, the Alexandra Museum Board, which runs Central Stories and Central Cinema, the group which wants to establish a cinema in the town.
Mr Taylor said there was a request from the trust for the annual grant of $9500 to be capitalised over the next 10 years to a lump sum of $95,000, to go towards the cinema project.
It was time for the ownership of the pavilion to be sorted out, he said. It was a liability to ratepayers and it was time to "unload" the facility.
The $200,000 "book value" of the building was "patently ridiculous".
Trustee Russell Ibbotson wrote to the board pointing out the annual grant of $9500 was to reimburse the trust for the costs associated with the pavilion.
There was a contractual obligation for the council as the owner, to continue to meet the costs of the pavilion.
"Regardless of any recent resolution that may have been passed by the community board, the board cannot simply walk away from its clear-cut legal responsibilities as an owner of the asset," Mr Ibbotson said.
Council chief executive Phil Melhopt said the internal loan of $95,000 to the trust could be done without any extra burden on ratepayers.
