A report to the council from property manager Renee Julius asks councillors, at their May 10 meeting, to approve a budget of $900,000 and to direct council chief executive Michael Ross to lease the 1883 building to the Ministry of Justice.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said despite delays in securing an estimate for the work, he was pleased the "three bottom lines" that he outlined in April last year when the council took possession of the building had been maintained.
At the time he said his priorities were: "wanting to retain services here in Oamaru; wanting to ensure the building remains an important building in our main street, and be utilised; and that there is no net cost to ratepayers".
However, at the time he said he hoped court services would return to the building in nine to 12 months.
"It’s taken a long time to get here, but we’ve been focused on our three bottom lines and we’re happy we’ve got here and we’ve achieved those," Mr Kircher said yesterday.
"They [the Ministry of Justice] were closing the courthouse on the basis of a report that said it was going to cost $6million to strengthen properly. We’re spending a fraction of that and that’s based on a more detailed report that’s been peer-reviewed. So we’ve got a lot of confidence, obviously, in our numbers."
Mrs Julius said funding the work on the category 1 heritage building from the Oamaru Endowment reserve would give "a much better return than what we’re currently getting from the interest for it sitting in the bank doing nothing".
After the courthouse was identified as requiring earthquake strengthening it was closed in November 2011. The Government’s initial estimate for the work required to reopen it — between $5million and $6million — was questioned locally.
An independent report commissioned by Oamaru lawyer Bill Dean put the cost of strengthening the building to a new-building standard closer to $350,000.
A 2013 ministry estimate of up to $2million, still seemed to put the work out of reach. The ministry said it was a cost too high for a court that operated less than a day a week on average.
Oamaru’s criminal court was briefly transferred to Timaru for several months when the courthouse closed, before it transferred in March 2012 to the Oamaru Opera House.
In August 2014, it was relocated to a "porta-court" borrowed from Christchurch and situated in Humber St, where it remains.
In August last year, Mr Ross said the minimum 10-year-lease with the ministry for court services would be based on the cost of upgrading the building, was expected to cover council spending on the work, and was "pretty much all agreed to".
The report to the council estimates the earthquake strengthening to cost $400,000 and other work including upgrades to ventilation, fire compliance work, heating, improving accessibility and all other work to cost $500,000.
