Council approves spending of $147m on Town Hall

Wednesday, 25 October 2023

The Wellington City Council, facing a claimed billion-dollar funding gap, will go ahead with earthquake strengthening the Town Hall at a possible cost of $147 million.

“There’s only one choice today,” said Iona Pannett, a supporter of protecting the heritage building. She believed Wellington was actually “quite a rich city” which could afford the strengthening and heritage restoration without penny-pinching.

A majority of 11 councillors voted to move ahead and increase the budget. Deputy mayor Laurie Foon said she’d been tempted to vote against it, because of anger and frustration at the council’s stalemate.

“It’s a multi-generational decision that generations will appreciate in the future,” Foon said.

The council meeting today took place in the midst of a reignited debate about whether the council is facing a financial crisis and which expensive projects should move ahead.

Three weeks ago the council announced that the $180m project budget had blown out because of challenges with waterlogged foundations, pushing the total cost to between $250m and $329m.

The building, owned by the council, was first declared earthquake prone in 2009. It had already been earthquake strengthened three times since it was built in 1904.

In 2013 it was closed to again attempt seismic strengthening, but the project was put on hold when the budget jumped from $40m to $60m.

Now the council is in the midst of another project to strengthen the building, which started in 2018 and has already had two significant budget increases.

It was traditionally the home of the city council chambers and the mayoral office, but the council’s latest plans would repurpose those spaces into security rooms and performance spaces to support the proposed music hub around the Civic Square area.

The heritage building cannot be demolished and must be strengthened because of its low earthquake rating. The council was left with few choices other than moving ahead with strengthening.

In a briefing ahead of the meeting, staff told councillors that other options such as pausing the project or demolishing the building could cost an additional $100m.

Councillors were unhappy with the lack of options and wanted more information before the vote. Tony Randle pointed out that if $147m was allocated to the Town Hall, as many as 10 smaller council projects would need to be cut.