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The Mahurangi Community Sport & Recreation Collective is a small but significant step closer to its long-held dream of developing a major new multisports centre at the Warkworth Showgrounds.
At its meeting last month, Rodney Local Board granted landowner approval to the collective to build its new gymsports facility and an agreement for it to lease the land required – just over 3000 square metres – for five years.
Members also voted to grant them a 10-year community lease, with two rights of renewal for 10 years, on the same land when that lease expired, or when the facility was finished and certified for public use, whichever happened sooner.
The collective still has to obtain resource consent from Auckland Council, which is currently processing an application made in January.
Collective board member Nicola Jones told the Local Board that 10-year community leases were needed since the collective was in the project for the long haul and keen to get started.
“We plan to be there a long time,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere, we plan to see these projects through.”
She added that she was hopeful of obtaining support from private investors as soon as approval was granted.
“Early indications are that they are very keen and interested. I would hope we’d get funding quite quick,” she said.
Current plans are for a two-stage development – Stage 1, with a basketball court, indoor netball/futsal court, volleyball court, four badminton courts, a gym and changing facilities; and Stage 2 with extra multi-purpose indoor courts and sports clubrooms (MM May 19).
In 2018, Rodney Local Board gave the collective $150,000 to get the project to the resource consent stage and last year, Auckland Council awarded them a further $2.25 million from its Sport and Recreation Facility Investment Fund to progress the project.
