By Samantha Gee/RNZ
A popular Nelson pub in a 100-year-old former church could face closure under one of the city council's multi-million dollar options for a new library, community hub and civic centre.
The council is proposing three options: developing the current Civic House and the adjourning Savings Bank and State Advances sites at a cost of $73.3 million; or building a new hub, library and civic space in Collingwood Street for $74.1m, or in Church Street for $88.2m.
Under the Collingwood Street option, The Free House would be replaced with a new building.
The pub, which was established in 2009, has become a regular meeting place for many groups including knitters, singers, backgammon players and mountainbikers, among many others.
Owner Eelco Boswijk says he was aware of plans to develop the land adjacent to The Free House, but news the land the pub was on was also included in one of the council's options came as a bit of a surprise.
"It was only when we saw the pictures that the council put out that it was like, 'oh, okay, we're well included' but it is what it is and people have to decide which one they want, if they want anything at all."
Eelco says the idea for The Free House came after he and former co-owner Mic Dover couldn't find anwhere in Nelson to get a decent beer.
"All the pubs were tied basically and we were lamenting the fact that there were craft breweries popping up all over New Zealand and we couldn't get the beer in Nelson."
The pair ran beer fetes once a quarter at Founders Park, all the while hoping someone would see there was a market for craft beer and open a pub or change their taps, he says.
When the former Reformed Church on Collingwood Street came on the market, Eelco and Mic decided to have a go at it themselves.
In the last 17 years, it had become a community hub, a neutral space that welcomed everyone, he says.
If the Collingwood Street option was chosen, he hoped there was scope for The Free House to be integrated into the design in some way.
"There are two other options on the table and they may well get chosen so there's no point in getting terribly worked up just yet."
Jenny Smith started the Free House Knitters about five years ago, in a bid to make a hobby that was often solitary more social.
"We didn't want to meet anywhere where there's a room charge or a minimum drinks requirement or anything like that and The Free House was just always very accommodating.
"It's just a great living room for the city, there's so many special interest groups that meet here and you always see your friends here too, even if you're not planning anything."
Fellow knitter Gera Verheul said people often asked if they could join the group and anyone was welcome.
The pub reserved a table by the fireplace for the knitters, and put a bright light so they could see what they were doing.
"It's so much more than a pub, like on Tuesdays when we're here, you'll see in the corner there's a bunch of backgammon players, they're always here, live musicians will come and play music, the mountainbikers love it here, artists, all sorts of people come here."
Gera says she was all for a new library, but not in place of The Free House.
"This is an institution, there's an inner city garden here, we can sit outside, there's greenery, this building is an old church from the 1900s.
"We've got to hang on to these things, we don't want everything big and new and modern."
Carolyn Phillips and usually one, if not two of her brothers, have been meeting at The Free House every week since it opened. The three grew up in Jamaica, but now live in Nelson.
Their group, known as The Jamaicans, had grown to include many others and every Thursday, they gather to play dominoes.
"[It's] a great Jamaican tradition, very noisy, as you will hear, lots of banging and crashing and yelling and several glasses of beer and or wine, but such fun."
Carolyn says she couldn't believe it when she heard one of the council's options for a new civic building could mean the end of The Free House.
"What do you mean you want to take this down to build a community centre? This is a community centre, I meet so many people here, so many people I know and so many people I don't know, which I think is one of the healthiest aspects of it.
"Why aren't you taking some derelict place that nobody goes to or some bit of empty land or some horrible concrete box that is an eyesore? There must be other places.
"To me, it would be like removing a nugget of gold from this city and I think this city is under stress anyway as it is."
David Montgomery started the Nelson Shanty Club about six months ago and it found a home at The Free House.
"Every month we get together and over the course of a couple of hours and probably a few drinks, sing some sea shanties together.
"We do kind of impose shanties on [pubgoers] a bit for the evening, but a lot of them really enjoy that, get involved in singing and singalong, so it's brilliant."
Whakatū Ultimate Frisbee Club member Jim Risner said for at least seven years, a group of players had been heading to The Free House after their Thursday night games.
"One, it's got a great selection of beer which always changes, two, the staff are great and three, I do like the decor, but that's why I stay, that's not why I come."
Jim says the pub was part of Nelson's history and world famous outside New Zealand.
"A couple years ago, it was in a guidebook. Tourists would be reading that from overseas that come here to the pub, you can't replace that, you can't tear it down."
Deputy mayor and city revitalisation taskforce chair Pete Rainey says the council has been grappling with how to address the ageing library and council building for some time.
Plans to build a $46m library on the banks of the Maitai River were shelved in 2022 after the severe flood event caused millions of dollars worth of damage to the community, with the cost also considered unaffordable in the current economic environment.
That same year, the council building Civic House was served two earthquake-prone notices, despite strengthening works undertaken in 2021.
"This term of council we've taken it head on and given real thought to what we can do about both of those issues and that's when we came to the decision to go ahead with a plan to combine the facilities into one building because we think it's the most cost-effective, prudent and forward-thinking plan for the city."
He says he really liked The Free House and that it encompassed many of the things he hoped that a new civic community space would too.
"A lot of the activity that happens in the Free House, the community aspects, are exactly the kind of things that I would like to see happening in a new community space that we would build for the city. Not necessarily the bar, but all of the community-facing type of activities that happen in there, are they the kind of things that we need real consideration to."
Pete says there were multi-use facilities around New Zealand that were great examples of combining libraries with civic administration; the Te Kahu o Waipuna - Marlborough Library & Art Gallery in Blenheim, Te Ara Ātea in Rolleston and Te Whare Whakatere in Ashburton.
He encouraged people to make a submission on their preferred option.
"We need to know what people think, there's no doubt that it's tricky economic times, we certainly recognise that, but we don't think sitting still and parking the issue is the right move.
"We've got to start thinking ahead for the city for the next 50 to 100 years. This is not just about the current ratepayers and the current population of Nelson, it's about their children and their grandchildren."
Consultation on the three options is open until early next month, with a public meeting to be held at the Trafalgar Centre on Wednesday.
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz
