Ōpōtiki District Council has refused to agree to the demolition and redevelopment of the local coastguard building.

At a meeting this week, councillors voted 4-3 against supporting a proposal from the Ōpōtiki Volunteer Coastguard to demolish its premises on Wharf Street and replace it with a larger building suitable for accommodating its new rescue boat.

The coastguard has been at the site since 1975 and says the building is at the end of its useful life.

It has identified that services are going to need to increase significantly when the new harbour opens next year and has put together an options analysis that identifies four potential sites for a new building. Of these, the current site at Ōpōtiki Wharf has been assessed as the preferred option.

Coastguard also has a new 12.5 metre rescue boat, which is too large to be securely stored at its current building and a new accessible storage facility was a caveat to being gifted the boat.

It has written to the district council seeking its support and approval, as the landowners, for its plans to demolish the existing building and redevelop the site.

The former yacht club building is owned by council on reserve land that it manages and has been leased to the coastguard since 1988. The Ōpōtiki Coastguard has engaged an architect and put forward concept designs for a new three-storey complex on the site, to be built in stages.

Councillor Barry Howe said he did not agree to the demolition of the current building saying the building simply needed some 'TLC” and a new building on the other side of the stopbank to house the new boat was more appropriate. He said the plans 'looked fantastic” but were overly ambitious and 10 years too early.

'I remember we have [agreed to demolish a building] before and there has been a massive backlash. I think these guys are putting the cart before the horse a little bit,” Mr Howe said.

'I do support the Coastguard and what they do as volunteers. They're taking a major step forward here and we're not ready to accept something of that magnitude at the moment.”

He felt the cost of the new building could run to $4 million.

'It's a giant step to demolish a building. They haven't even got funding for it yet, so the demolition of the building will be at the cost of council.”

Planning and regulatory group manager Gerard McCormack, who presented the report to council, assured Mr Howe the coastguard was simply seeking the council's approval of the plan to seek funding for the redevelopment, not funding.

Councillor David Moore also said he could not support knocking down the building.

Though he fully supported the organisation, he felt there were plenty of places on the reserve where a new boat shed could be built, and he would happily support that.

'[The building] might not be fit for purpose for them but it might be for someone else.”

Councillor Steve Nelson asked Mr McCormack how he saw the ownership of the new building. 'Because that is a ratepayer-owned building.”

Mr McCormack said it had not yet been considered. 'We can't get to that stage until we have the elected members' approval to move forward. That's all well down the track.”

The council voted against supporting the proposal. The vote was split with Ms Riesterer and councillors Louis Rapihana and Debi Hocart supporting the proposal and councillors Mr Nelson, Mr Howe, Mr Moore and Shona Browne against.

Mr Howe suggested the council meet with Coastguard to discuss the reasons for voting no. 'I would like to sit down with them and talk to them about it,” he said.

Ms Riesterer said that would be an interesting discussion because she was not clear on what those reasons were.

'It seems that the word ‘demolish' is scaring everyone at the table,” Ms Riesterer said. 'So, what we're saying to Coastguard is that ‘yes they can have a new building but they can't demolish the old one'. Is that what you're saying?”

Mr Howe appeared to feel the problem was that the coastguard's new boat was too big.

'The reason we're at this stage is because they bought a new boat that can't be housed under the old building. If they hadn't bought a new boat, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Simple as that.”

Chief executive Aileen Lawrie suggested council staff bring a report back to council at the extraordinary meeting scheduled for the end of June.

'It will give us a bit of time to put a bit of sense around this.”

-Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air