The sites for two of Tasman’s future community hubs have now been selected.
The villages of Tapawera and Wakefield are slated to get new community facilities, but their locations had been up for debate.
Last Thursday, Tasman District Council confirmed both locations, providing both projects the ability to undertake more detailed design work. Tapawera’s hub has now been earmarked for a site north of Maitai Crescent.
It was one of three empty council reserve sites that had been considered after due diligence raised the likelihood of higher costs with the original council plan, which was to purchase and demolishing an existing community centre on a fourth site.
The chosen site is expected to be the cheapest of the three reserve locations to develop.
Phoebe Quinlivan, communications and hub coordinator at Tapawera Connect, was “really pleased” with the chosen site’s central location within the village.
“It means that community members walking across to the Four Square… will have to walk past the hub, and hopefully that will get a nice prompt for engagement in the hub.”
Councillor Christeen Mackenzie said providing certainty of the Tapawera hub’s location would catalyse progress on the facility.
“It enables the community now to do their fundraising and get the thing built.”
The community needs to raise $900,000 to contribute to the facility, $510,000 of which has already been given by the Department of Internal Affairs.
The Wakefield hub had always been assumed to be built on the Wakefield Recreation Reserve, but a proposal from a private landowner to build the hub on the notorious 52 Edward Street site, known as Fort Haldeman, prompted a round of community consultation.
In-person engagement and an online survey revealed that about three quarters of respondents preferred building on the recreation reserve, which offered greater future expansion options and proximity to sports fields, as opposed to Fort Haldeman, which was more central in the village. Christeen said the community was probably surprised when the council consulted on an alternative location.
“It turned out to be a good process. I think we got a huge amount of more engagement from the community.”
She added that the statue of disgraced former US president Richard Nixon on the Fort Haldeman site had been sold, which she said was a “positive outcome” for Wakefield.
The owner of Fort Haldeman was not available to comment on Nixon’s fate when approached by Local Democracy Reporting.
