At the public forum before Monday’s Council meeting, the Taieri Community Facilities Trust (aka TCFT or ‘pooling together’) turned up in the guise of Irene Mosley, its chairwoman. Her only visible means of support was Bill Feather, ex Mosgiel-Taieri community board chairman.
Ms Mosley put up images of two site options (see graphics below), however nobody in the public gallery could read them. A previous round of public consultation had determined that 127 people favoured Site A, the site of the existing pool beside the Silver Stream. And 17 favoured Site B, at the township’s Memorial Gardens.
Ms Mosley is lobbying for the build being at the Gardens, a site (B) more likely to flood. Site A, the existing pool site, is higher; and the flood banks to the Silver Stream are doing their job.
We were trotted the line that the (rearguard) push for Site B was entirely down to the Otago Regional Council (ORC) because they have issues with Site A, that construction could potentially destabilise the flood bank. Phooey. Pure folly, Ms Mosley! Besides, ORC has no particular jurisdiction over the siting.
Ms Mosley carefully emphasised that a second round of public concultation on site options was for “transparency”. Hmm. Although she told Councillors there’s lots of positive support for the new pool, we’re not too sure who Ms Mosley has asked lately. We doubt the “positive support” is people with spare millions to give away on her trust’s “Logic” (loaded commercial term) dream.
All we know is business owners in central Mosgiel want the pool located closer to them, thus why Site B is being PUSHED by the trust. What a lot of fines there are, swirling about in the local water supply.
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Mosgiel resident Peter Sim said he would oppose Site B. Green space was “at a premium” in Mosgiel and the DCC was “nibbling away” at it. “It’s time it bloody well stopped.”
### ODT Online Tue, 13 Dec 2016
Pool locations not ‘perfect’
By Shawn McAvinue
The two possible locations for a new aquatic facility in Mosgiel were revealed yesterday, along with a concession that “neither site is perfect”. At a Dunedin City Council meeting, Taieri Communities Facility Trust chairwoman Irene Mosley revealed the possible footprint of both sites … “We have decided we need to go back to the community and explain there is no perfect site … we just want to get it right.”
Read more
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From the pool trust’s website [click to enlarge]:
█ More information at http://www.poolingtogether.org.nz/
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Related Posts and Comments:
● 23.7.16 Mosley’s Pond now a Dunedin Community ‘asset’ to fund
● 26.11.15 DCC report: Mosgiel Pool Future Aquatic Provision
● 16.9.15 DCC Please Explain —Mosgiel pool design to Warren & Mahoney
● 10.9.15 Tale of two pools … #Mosgiel #Wanaka
● 7.8.15 MOU DCC and TCFT New Aquatic Facility #MosgielPool
● 24.7.15 Hands off Mosgiel Memorial Gardens
● 23.7.15 Dunedin ratepayers —Green Island best site for city pool users…
● 22.7.15 DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
● 19.5.15 Mosgiel pool trust conflicts of interest #bigfishsmallpond
18.5.15 NEWSFLASH —Mosgiel pool, tracking [PONT] . . . .
17.5.15 Cr Vandervis on DCC project budgets
● 4.5.15 DCC: Draft LTP matter —‘Unfunded Mosgiel Aquatic Facilities’
● 7.5.15 DCC Draft LTP 2015/16-2024/25 —public submissions online
● 12.4.15 Mosgiel pool trust calls on Dunedin ratepayers to fund distant complex
1.4.15 ‘Pooling Together’ (TCFT) loses chairman, resigns [see Wanaka pool]
28.3.15 DCC Draft LTP 2015/16 to 2024/25 —CONSULTATION OPEN
25.3.15 DCC Long Term Plan: Green-dyed chickens home to roost
11.3.15 Mosgiel pool trust PLAINLY hasn’t got ‘$7.5M community support’
● 6.3.15 Propaganda from trust for Taieri pool project #Mosgiel
● 2.3.15 DCC: Mosgiel Pool private workshop Tuesday (tomorrow) [renders]
● 20.2.15 Taieri Aquatic Centre: 2nd try for SECRET meeting —hosted by Mayor
● 13.2.15 ‘Taieri Aquatic Centre’, email from M. Stedman via B. Feather
● 10.2.15 Dunedin City Councillors invited to Secret Meeting #Mosgiel
14.1.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan: more inanity from Cull’s crew pending
11.10.14 New Mosgiel Pool trust declared —(ready to r**t)
23.7.14 Mosgiel Pool: Taieri Times, ODT…. mmm #mates
16.7.14 Stadium: Exploiting CST model for new Mosgiel Pool #GOBs
● 4.2.14 DCC: Mosgiel Pool, closed-door parallels with stadium project…
30.1.14 DCC broke → More PPPs to line private pockets and stuff ratepayers
20.1.14 DCC Draft Annual Plan 2014/15 [see this comment & ff]
16.11.13 Community board (Mosgiel-Taieri) clandestine meetings
25.1.12 Waipori Fund – inane thinkings from a councillor
19.5.10 DScene – Public libraries, Hillside Workshops, stadium, pools
12.4.10 High-performance training pool at stadium?
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
What if? Dunedin... 
Why was Feathery Bill attending as Mosley’s support person ? As the chair of the community board in another life, he was the board’s representative on the pool trust. He is no longer the chair, or on the board. Why has he not been replaced on the pool trust with a current board member?
If one looks at the aerial shots of the area that includes these two sites, you will find that the small site, Site A (the only caravan park in Mosgiel) and small site B (the only public gardens) are separated by an enormous expanse of open space. They form two extremities of it. This expanse continues on uninterrupted upstream along the side of the Silver Stream for perhaps 800 yards.
This area is entirely devoted to sports fields and buildings – predominantly rugby. This pool facility could be fitted into this area perhaps fifty times over. There is also a very large and usually under-utlised (empty) car park in the middle of it, with good access to both Factory and Gordon Roads.
A quick calculation shows that if these three areas are treated as contiguous, the public garden – (peaceful non-physical appreciation recreation usage) and the campground (temporary/permanent accommodation usage) account for considerably less than 10% of the total area. Sports and physical recreation accounts for the rest – and there are other large areas in Mosgiel that are similarly purposed for sports/physical recreation. The state of the gardens relative to the adjacent sports facilities indicates that DCC budgets for upkeep may be even more skewed in the latter’s favour. The campground ain’t too flash either.
Despite this, it is these two very small non-physical recreation and accommodation usage areas that are being targeted to provide space for this new sports/physical recreation facility. There is absolutely no justification for this. If sports want a new facility in Mosgiel, then space for it should be supplied by a compromise with other sporting areas that already occupy the lion’s share of the available public space. This whole pool facility for instance would fit comfortably on the grubby and usually deserted BMX bike course that sits behind the velodrome – Oh the Screams of horror that this would deny the use of the only facility in Mosgiel to BMX bikers….My point exactly.
So best look at a sports recreation site in Mosgiel for which plenty of usage units exist. One less rugby pitch that is used once a week on a Saturday morning six months of the year wouldn’t make much difference – especially if it is to replaced by this apparently wonderful facility that will be used week and year round by everybody between Milton and Musselburgh.
This proposed pool is a sports/physical recreation facility and housing it should be dealt with as a compromise within and between the facilities that are already provided in Mosgiel at general public expense for a sector of the public whose interests/capabilities) in sports and physical recreation are already grossly over catered for; both within this city and that particular community. Not as a direct degradation of the very limited public areas within Mosgiel that are not purposed for sports/physical recreation.
Or you could use the existing pool site of course as they suggest – Oh but that would then raise the inconvenient issue of the expense of removing the existing pool, which is by its very nature built in the same scale, manner and relationship to ground level as Hitler’s bunker – Removing it would be expensive (a lot more than ripping out a load of plants, paths and a bunch of poxy mature specimen trees that only matter to a few old fogeys who’ll soon be dead anyway – or so goes the implicit reasoning). This considerable expense is not factored into Frau Mosley’s budgets I believe.
It is certainly not identified as a factor in the insulting apology for a site assessment posted above. I wonder if the plan for the old pool and its site is – Have you heard?
Oh and one other thing, I walk the dog around the edges of this massive sports area – takes about 35 minutes – it’s that big. One side of it is lined by state houses – they look OK to me. Solid, nice big gardens etc. They all seem to be empty……Now why is that?
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Two further site option maps supplied:
Rob. There appears to be a site that has been completly overlooked. The offer was made by a community spirited person, who was prepared to make available free of charge a large piece of that person’s property on the northern boundary of Mosgiel for a new pool. (There was also an offer made to develop a pool on the Western boundary but that had so many fish hooks attached to it). It could be described as fitting the bill. No loss of the camping ground site, or need to intrude into the Memorial Gardens, and of course it was free. It may have meant that some of the locals may have had to travel a little further, but others less. I don’t think that any small increase in travel would have any difficulties, as the trust is claiming to have a catchment stretching from Concord to Brighton, so there would be travel distances for the majority of the trust’s catchment at the present site. Why have the trust not included, and released the details of this offer in their latest presentation to council?
The potential donor of land needs to come forward publicly.
What comes first in Mosgiel vanity or safety ? Power poles or a pool. $6 million of ratepayers funds on a pool, or $6 million of ratepayer funds towards power pole safety. Cull has indicated a rate rise to cover the bad decisions of councillors, with their demands of more payments to pay for the great white elephant Foolbar stadium. Will the new chair of the finance committee find the money for both? Easy just add another 2% to the rate bill.
So how much private funding has the TCFT raised so far…while ‘moving forward’? They have to pay half. Right?
Half… calculated by FUBAR Creative Numerologists Inc. That’ll be around $283.90 in current currency & pledges, plus 17 sixpences from someone’s long-lost milk money tin.
There was a moment of optimism that some of the sixpences might be rare and worth quite a lot. How dumb did they think the donor was? Too dumb to check first?
The area of sporting land in this contiguous block is much larger than the aerial photos above suggest. About twice as much again – largely devoted to rugby – extends North, out of frame, beyond the Taieri RFU Club.
Personally, after the Wanaka experience, I would be very suspicious of any land ‘donations’ or other private ‘contributions’ on the fringe (or beyond) of the built up area. Such is the unsuitability of the current sites,and the level of predictable opposition to them, that they suggest to me that, as the opposition mounts and the cash dries up, a ‘SPONTANEOUSLY GENEROUS WHITE KNIGHT’, that would actually be neither of the first two of those things, will appear with a greenfield land offer of the type that Brian describes.
The presence within the Pool Trust’s bizarre fundraising plans of a very small group of very large but as yet unidentified donors (The biggest is $1.5 million) simply reinforces this possibility. As does the seemingly throwaway inclusion early on in the process of an unspecified site in ‘Puddle Alley’ – a road that wanders through juicy class two rural land perhaps 4 km across North Taieri from one end to the other. I personally do not believe that that option has ever gone away.
Such ‘philanthropy’ is a standard gambit in the USA. Many parts of the Oxnard Plain, an area of super high value flat hort. 2 soils that was very similar to the Taieri, located to the North of LA was concreted over this way. One of my friend’s parents was devoted to the hopeless task of opposing it within local government. They might as well have tried to hold back the sea with their hands. The standard patter, in this case adapted for our own situation, runs thus:
Offer: I will give you the land for free……..If you let me build noddy houses on another 30 ha of Class 2 hort soil………..If you let me build noddy houses on another 30 hectares, I’ll throw in the pool complex too……….Another 30 hectares of noddy houses buys you a social centre etc etc etc……In this case it is a prerequisite of this act of SPONTANEOUS GENEROSITY that the complex will be named as the: “Sir Spontaneously Generous (Insert developer’s name here) Taieri Aquatic Centre”. All this of course fits right in with the Govt’s philosophy on ‘public-private partnerships’, among others – so expect no help from that quarter. The Mayor will of course drool over the ‘free’ ribbon cutting photo opportunities.
The “Sir” bit will of course be the Govt’s post-hoc contribution to the exercise for the purposes of consistency. The SPONTANEOUSLY GENEROUS donor will probably already be white (and male). If they weren’t male then they’d be a dame – and who’s heard of a white dame? The knight bit can thus be fixed pronto, and it then all fits: SPONTANEOUSLY GENEROUS WHITE KNIGHT (Phew!).
They will already be rich, but this act of SPONTANEOUS GENEROSITY will of course make them much richer – it’s a strange World innit?. The terms can also change (to the SPONTANEOUSLY GENEROUS party’s benefit) once the target is firmly gaffed on the political and contractual ‘hook’. The further SPONTANEOUSLY GENEROUS donation of the social centre might get them made Senior New Zealander of the Year, in addition to the other gong.
Perhaps I am being cynical, but that is an outcome of being cynically lied to and screwed over consistently and continuously for an extended period of time. My heart is most definitely not in the Highlands, but quite a bit of my cash, in the form of publicly funded infrastructure, is by all accounts. Can’t say that I’m looking for any encores by way of acts of SPONTANEOUS GENEROSITY in my immediate locale. However, I believe that I am doomed to witness them.
Rob, I think you will find that when it is all said and done (assuming it is) there will be an Aquatic Centre somewhere in or very near Mosgiel. Like the Stadium, the promised ‘public funding’ will fail to happen and the whole glory project will sit fair and square on the DCC’s Debt File. This of course means more rates across the town, and more funds going out of town via the banks in the form of cash and interest. What’s not to like about that, eh Dave?
ODT 17.12.12 (page 30)
DID THEY RAISE MUCH MONEY – no, not really.
POWER FOR OTAGO
….before a new pool for Mosgiel paid for by Dunedin Ratepayers
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Mon, 13 Feb 2017
ODT: Up and down again to support pool
Hundreds of people took the opportunity to tackle a prominent Dunedin landmark yesterday, raising thousands for the planned Taieri Aquatic Centre in the process. About 700 people, some clad in Lycra, others wearing baby carriers, climbed to the summit of the 473m Saddle Hill during a rare open day of the privately owned access land. Cont/
Something very strange is happening out at Mosgiel. Last year there was public consultation to choose a pool site, and the present pool site came out the winner. This was then confirmed by the group formed by council and pool trust. Nothing strange about that you may say, but wait. After all the consultation, and just when the Mosgiel public thought that the trust would get its arse into gear. All of a sudden out of the blue, the pool trust is now asking the public to vote again on another site. It would appear that the public got it wrong last time, and the pool trust doesn’t accept the public’s choice. (We know what’s best for Mosgiel, said mother bear to the trust committee). We want the Mosgiel Memorial Gardens site by hook or by crook. So the trust has decided to have another public vote for the pool site, and have put up option B. This site has been called the B. site because it is B. for the Back Door method. You guessed it. Site B is again the Memorial Gardens site, only difference is they are attacking it from another angle. From the Back Door. They are coming at the Gardens not from the main street this time , but making the attack on the gardens from a back street. Thus option B.
– The Back Door method. Only problem is, the only people they have fooled is themselves.
Mealy-mouthed Mosley is in cahoots with WHO over option B., the trashing of the Community’s Memorial Gardens founded with, I understand, local donations of trees and plantings.
Democracy & consultation Mosgiel style – keep on asking for new responses to the same question till the people are worn out and give the “right” answer, or bin the latest consultation documents/survey, sighing “Oh whatever, anything for a quiet life just GO AWAY” – so the Pool big players go away and do what they wanted all along, and the people have to pay as usual.
Some members of the pool trust are also members of the playground trust, that by slight of hand commandeered a large area of the Memorial Gardens for the playground, without any public consultation. They have a secret agenda for the Gardens based on the salami effect. That is, you take small slices that nobody will notice the salami getting smaller. Until one day, some one will say “There is no salami (Memorial Gardens) left. Then they next show up in the Queens Birthday honours with a big gong for community service.
How bizarre it is to read in ODT letters to the editor today, a letter headed “Saddle Hill hike”. The writer sings the praises of the fundraising effort of the walk up Saddle Hill for the ‘Taieri Aquatic Centre’ that has a preferred pool site at the Mosgiel Memorial Gardens. The letter writer has been a leading campaigner to save Saddle Hill from further destruction, and rightly so. But now seems to be supporting the pool trust’s site at the iconic Memorial Gardens, that will destroy the gardens. How bizarre. Also mentioned in the letter are the landowners, whose property was crossed for the hike. These landowners have a QEII-covenanted native forest. Yet appear to be supporting the pool trust who have the Memorial Gardens with its splendid specimen trees as their preferred site. How bizarre.
Flexibility, James, that’s the NZ way nowadays. Reserves, covenanted areas, national parks, mining-selling-subdividing, residency and citizenship rules and restrictions and conditions, building height restrictions… all are negotiable.
No James, not you. If you got the idea that you could build a fence 15cm higher than in the rule-book, or build yourself a shed that’s not sufficiently “relocatable” for the inspector du jour – forget it. Unless – please excuse a personal question – are you rich, very rich? Very very rich? Or well-connected to the current rulers/rule-enforcers, so well connected that you know where various bodies are buried? With whom do you have “You scratch my back…” relationships, anyone useful enough?
If not, return to previous advice – forget it.
A doggone truism, Hype. You should join the policy planning team* at DCC where you can earn big bucks while empowering and enriching your private friends (with Taieri subdivisions). Don’t mention the trickledown to City Planning* and consenting processes.
*where conveniently, no-one has regard for recent-historical Environment Court rulings – like they didn’t happen
To answer your question Hype. Yes I am rich. Some would say very very rich, and well connected.
Hey James, good on you! Regulations don’t apply to you – wanna strip-mine a national park? You’ll be thanked for creating jobs and wealth in an area with few employment opportunities!
AT WANAKA
Sat, 4 Mar 2017
ODT: Pool project in full swing
By Tim Miller
It is full steam ahead at the new swimming pool facility in Wanaka. The first concrete for the 25m and learn-to-swim pools was poured yesterday. Delays in negotiating the final details and pricing of the facility with contractor Cook Brothers meant the original opening date of September had to be pushed back. The project is now expected to be completed by March next year. At last week’s Queenstown Lakes District Council community and services committee meeting, sport and recreation manager Simon Battrick said the work on the $12.3million facility was progressing well. “We’re moving, we’re digging, we’re on budget. We’re not going to stop.” Mr Battrick said about $600,000 of the $12.3million the council had budgeted for the facility, still needed to be found. The council was looking at funding options, including sponsorship.‘I don’t think we need to fundraise. Cont/
The Mosgiel playground trust chair complains about the vandalism by fire of the playground slide. While at the same time he is on the pool trust that wants to vandalise both the Memorial Gardens and the playground to put the bloody pool on the site. At least they can replace the slide. Once they vandalise the Gardens, they are gone forever.