Stop the Stadium

Opinion, Otago Daily Times, 25 Oct 2008

We live in alarming financial times, as sharemarkets bump their way to new lows and the New Zealand dollar lurches downwards… Nobody knows what comes next and the good times, at the very least for now, have stopped rolling.

On current trajectories, the impact will be felt far and wide, with unemployment rising and standards of living falling. More businesses are likely to fail or downsize. Many are already considering cost-cutting options. This is what faces not just our Government, but also our civic leadership.

How are our elected councillors and our council bureaucracies going to react? What leadership will they provide as they respond to the growing crisis? Conventional wisdom dictates that governments reject the retrenchment that marked the Depression of the 1930s, and which is widely blamed for the length and depth of that local and international disaster….

Local councils are placed differently because many ratepayers will be under increased financial pressure just to pay the rates. Both rates and council debts have, in most places, galloped ahead of inflation for all sorts of reasons, a trend which cannot keep going. In Otago, the Dunedin City Council’s predicament is particularly stark, with an avalanche of increased debt weighing down on the city’s future and - through mounting debt servicing costs - also on present ratepayers.

The city’s finance head, Athol Stephens, has prudently warned that, in the face of volatility, major city projects may need to be reconsidered. Tellingly, these comments were made before the jolt he must have received when he ran into problems last week with a 90-day debt-repayment agreement.

The city is due to borrow $92.8 million this financial year, for the stadium, the West Taieri and northern water schemes, the Tahuna wastewater scheme, and the Otago Settlers Museum.

…Dunedin’s mayor, councillors and senior executives urgently have to reprioritise capital spending, as well as thoroughly examine costs across all council departments.

It becomes a case of not what is desirable, but what is absolutely necessary. Priority has to be given to the basics, including fundamental infrastructure such as water and sewerage and the essential maintenance of roads so that more costly repairs are not required later….

As Dunedin’s debt grows, it also faces a credit rating downgrade, albeit small, which means the interest rate it has to pay on debts will rise. At the same time, income from the council-owned companies - which are used to subsidise rates - can be expected to decrease because they will not be immune from recession.

Dunedin has no realistic choice other than to cut its cloth to match its current circumstances.

» Read the full article here

Otago Daily Times, 26 Sep 2008

Three Dunedin city councillors who have led recent opposition to the Awatea St stadium have changed tack, deciding to work with the project after failing to convince their peers.

Greater Dunedin councillors Kate Wilson, Dave Cull and Chris Staynes have moved to set time-frames and specify fundraising targets for the Awatea St stadium - an initiative they say will assist a process they have so far opposed….

“I don’t want to be seen as anti-stadium - I want to be seen as for good and prudent management.”…

That meant trying to manage risk, and, for the council, taking more responsibility, and taking the pressure off the Carisbrook Stadium Trust.

The three councillors have written a series of amendments to conditions set down by the council in March, which gave the trust a list of milestones to reach as it continued the project.

The amendments will be discussed at a council meeting on Monday….

The amendments include an October 20 date for the council to confirm the cost of contract between it and the University of Otago to buy land at the stadium site, and to approve an agreement between the trust and the Otago Rugby Football Union, and a late-October date to confirm the district plan change necessary to change land zoning at the site….

» Read more here…

Opinion, Otago Daily Times, 9 September

Dunedin citizens owe it to the coming generations to keep adapting to change and changing circumstances; to plan with the future in mind; and to keep the sense of vision that our forefathers had, Robin Charteris argues….

Some of our present naysaying brigade are among the ranks of stadium critics, their shrill cries tending to muffle the warnings sounded by the more sober to which the stadium proponents would be wise to listen….

Too much carping by the anti-stadium brigade, and not enough vocal and visible support from the silent majority, tend to reinforce Dunedin’s fatuous reputation as a dying city.

Such rank pessimism is contagious.

The laid-back need to stand up and give the lie to it….

» Read more…

» See also The scale of the per capita ratepayer commitment

Otago Daily Times, Opinion Piece, 21 Aug 2008

In the context of the Dunedin City Council’s deliberations on its long term plan, councillors Dave Cull, Chris Staynes and Kate Wilson have raised with council colleagues a number of “important questions” on the public funding of the proposed Awatea St Stadium.A final decision must be made soon on the proposed stadium.

However, not all the issues are the same as when the project was first mooted.

It is increasingly clear that the stadium will come at enormous cost to the city, now and into the future, yet it may not contain what the community was promised.

That poses a number of questions - questions we have asked our fellow councillors to consider.

What are we getting? The Carisbrook Stadium Trust has promoted the stadium as a well-equipped, multi-purpose venue with minimum 20,000 permanent seats, and maximum capacity of about 30,000.

There were three stands, and a paved area for a temporary fourth stand.

However the trust has stated that because the budget is fixed, the project is cost-driven rather than design-driven.

Read more…

From Channel 9 News, August 12, 2008 - 7:43pm

The two pro-active initiators of the Stop the Stadium group approached 9 Local News today, to voice their concerns about whether or not the Otago Regional Council received vital information in the form of a peer review, before the council signed the dotted line for the Awatea St Stadium.

» See Channel 9’s news item here

Watch out for more on this story tomorrow on Channel 9.