Further City Block Funding Approved But Not Everyone Happy

A further $30 million of funding has been approved by the Invercargill City Council for the City Block development, despite ongoing concerns from some councillors.

A $22.5 million short-term loan and an additional $7.5 million investment was decided at yesterday’s council meeting, despite some councillors warning it was a huge risk.

New councillor Marcus Lush initially aired his concerns at the Performance, Policy and Partnerships meeting – that met to discuss the recent submissions and make a final recommendation to council.

“As a new councillor I have trouble getting in behind this, and I don’t know which way we go to stop it happening.”

“There is a mentality of, ‘let’s just get it done so we can go to an election and say we’ve done this’. I just don’t think it stacks up.”

He believed council had gone from making one bad commercial decision to another, but councillor Lesley Soper said this was not a time for any cold feet.

The question was asked about how much the borrowing would impact on ratepayers, but staff outlined at the council meeting how the loan wouldn’t affect ratepayers at all.

Councillor Rebecca Amundsen also spoke up and said there were still risks that council needed to be make sure were being acknowledged, and deputy Mayor Nobby Clark was opposed to the loan outright.

“There seems to be comments made that there is a general consensus to this,” he said.

In his opinion, council should be waiting for more information from the finance team about its investment portfolios, and how that might impact on funding the extra money that was required to continue to the project.

Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt concluded that it was challenging, “but we can’t stop now, we have to make that project work and forge ahead.”

He said in a recent survey it was shown that shopping was the number one recreational pursuit by people.

“I believe it will be a great asset to the city.”