Those were the words bellowed out from the audience by Greater Hornby Residents’ Association chairman Marc Duff after a decision was made to further delay the $37.5 million Hornby mega-facility.
At its meeting last week, the Halswell-Hornby-Riccarton Community Board voted against several steps crucial to allowing work on the new Hornby Library, Service Centre and South West Pool to go ahead.
Only city councillor Anne Galloway and board chairman Mike Mora voted for the eastern end of Kyle Park to be the location of the planned Hornby mega-facility and for city council staff to begin the design process.
Deputy chairwoman Helen Broughton and board member Catherine Chu voted against the changes, while Debbie Mora and Ross McFarlane either voted against or abstained. They were called out online on the Greater Hornby Residents’ Association
Facebook page last week.
City councillors Vicki Buck and Jimmy Chen and board member Natalie Bryden were absent.
The recommendations are required to go to the city council on September 12 for final approval.
Mr Mora said the decisions will likely be overturned at city council, and he has received indications the board is at risk of being “shut completely” out of the process.
But he would not say where the indications had come from.
In retaliation to the decision, association member Mark Peters has started a petition calling for the city council to vote against the board’s recommendations and for the design of the facility to proceed with “urgency”.
A large Hornby contingent is likely to be present at the city council meeting next month.
Mr Peters told Western News last week the association is planning to march on the city council to show its “support” and “dismay” at the process going off-track on Tuesday.
“I certainly believe council will see the error of their actions and I am pretty sure they will put them back on track. We are rallying to reassure that happens,” he said.
Association treasurer Ross Houliston said voting against the changes was expressing “no vote of confidence” in city council staff and engineers.
The delays come down to the ongoing debate over whether the facility should be built on Kyle Park, a former landfill.
However, the board recently approved the reclassification and changes to be made to the Kyle Park management plan to allow for the facility to be built on the land.
City council staff began landfill gas testing in April to provide the information needed to mitigate any issues with gas in the design of the facility. The testing will go for 12 months.
It means the report will not be available until April next year when the construction of the facility was proposed to start.
But extensive geo technical and contamination testing in 2018 confirmed Kyle Park could be built on safely.
Mr Mora said the results of the gas testing will only determine what membrane should be put under the building to stop any gas issues.
“There is no need, in my opinion, to hold the project up for a year just to get the gas results.”
At the meeting, Mrs Broughton said she is concerned she has not had any written assurance from city council engineers that the testing is “reasonable” and there is confidence it could begin building in April.
“I hope I am wrong. I do hope this works and it doesn’t have the problems I foresee,” she said.
Ms Mora said she is concerned the board is short of information. She said the community should not have to compromise on what it wants because the facility is being built on a landfill.
The board did agree to recommend that if additional funding becomes available, facilities desired by the community within the building will be prioritised in the design.
The board also approved city council staff report on options the disposal of the current Hornby Library.
Miss Chu said she would like to see the gas testing reports first before construction starts.
“You do your due diligence first before you build, you wouldn’t build and do your due diligence at the same time,” she said.
Miss Chu said if she knew the true extent of the contamination she would be happy to consider the recommendations.
“It is a $37.5 million project so we have got to get everything right. The last thing we would want for us to build on that site and have issues come up we hadn’t realised before.”
Mr McFarlane said his decision was made based on the proposed features for the facility being “sub optimal”.
He previously voted against the reclassification along side Ms Mora.
At the meeting, Cr Galloway also argued many facilities have been built on landfills and it would be unhelpful to suggest the correct work had not been done.