Service centre considered for closure

Auckland Council is proposing to restructure and relocate its public service centres – often the first point of call when residents want to discuss a building consent, pay their rates or dog registration fees – in fact, access any council service.

The proposals include potentially closing the Orewa Service Centre, in Centreway Road. These buildings have been in Council ownership for many years and were previously the headquarters of the former Rodney District Council.

Last month, Council’s head of corporate property, Rod Aitken, discussed Council’s Corporate Property Building Strategy with Hibiscus & Bays Local Board members at a workshop.

Among other things, he sought feedback on the option of closing the Orewa Service Centre in 2021 and replacing it with a single, centralised North-Western service centre, perhaps in Albany.

Mr Aitken told the paper that while there is currently an option to vacate the Orewa buildings, as part of Council’s corporate property building strategy, this is at the investigation stage and a decision is yet to be made. “Further announcements will be made when a decision about the building’s future is confirmed,” Mr Aitken says.

The local board holds its public meetings at the Orewa Service Centre and local board chair Julia Parfitt says that members’ feedback focused on where they could possibly relocate to.

The Orewa Town Centre Plan, adopted by the local board in 2016, suggested that the Centreway Road site could be sold. It proposed that the Orewa Library, which could be rebuilt to a height of seven storeys under the Auckland Unitary Plan, could be redeveloped, providing a new, central location for council services as well as a meeting point for the local board.

Mrs Parfitt says members raised this option at the workshop.

“Our board’s feedback was clear that we don’t want to lose local services in Orewa,” she says. “We need a redevelopment of Orewa library, which would be advantageous because we could take council services where the highest foot traffic is.”

She says a further concern is what the Centreway Road site could potentially used for. “People would like to see it used as a valuable community asset – a hospital has been suggested – rather than sold off for housing.”

Offices contained within the Orewa Service Centre were leased to Zeald, but that organisation moved out just before Christmas. Those offices are currently back on the market for lease.

The RV of the site is listed as $28.8 million. Cr John Watson says that the proposal reeks of asset sales under the guise of efficiency. “I don’t think there’s anything very efficient about expecting people from the Hibiscus Coast to drive down to Albany to pay their rates when they could go to Orewa,” he says. “I also think it’s a monumental waste, given that Rodney District Council spent over $20 million putting an extension onto the buildings just before the councils amalgamated.”