Submission
9 year plan feedback
Should we remove 231 Stuart Street (formerly the Fortune Theatre) from the list of strategic assets in the DCC Significance and Engagement policy?
Yes, remove 231 Stuart Street from the list of strategic assets (this is our preferred option)
Do you have any comments about 231 Stuart Street?
Should we charge an entry fee of $20 (incl. GST) for international visitors aged 16 and over, at Toitū and Dunedin Public Art Gallery?
Do you have any comments about the entry fee for international visitors?
Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
I support removing 231 Stuart Street from the list of strategic assets but we MUST reinstate funds or make a concrete alternate plan for establishing a performing arts centre in Ōtepoti. Of course the local theatre community is divided on the issue because we are a diverse group of people with different experiences and expectations of what type of work (and therefore what size venue, what size staff, what business model, etc.) we think is important. Realistically, by the time a new venue is built most of the current theatre practitioners in Ōtepoti will have retired, so the DCC needs to stop asking us to magically agree on one silver bullet solution and build something appropriate to the size of our city that will benefit future generations. Just please do something so that practitioners and audiences see that the DCC cares about the arts in this city. I believe even the optics of movement would buoy morale and generate momentum for more support. At the end of the day, a healthy city is a city with thriving ecosystems of sustainable, functioning schools, museums, theatre venues, concert venues, sports venues, restaurants, and the like. A diversity of cultural offerings makes for a vibrant place. For a city this size - with UNESCO City of Literature status and with a prominent university - it is shocking to have such limited theatre support from Council.
Since the closure of the Fortune as our flagship producing theatre (as opposed to a receiving house like the Regent or Mayfair) we have lost many of our skilled practitioners to Wellington and Melbourne, not because they want to leave Dunedin but because there isn't enough work here to even scrape by as a part-timer. These are not frivolous people who do theatre just for the love of it - they are skilled professionals who are highly trained in their field. All of the Dunedin-based theatre professionals (earning most of their money from theatre, film, or TV) leave the city for long periods of time in order to work. So far this year, I've spent about month in Christchurch and Wellington because that's where the work was. Until recently Rebecca Gibney and her husband Richard Bell lived near Taieri Mouth, but they've decamped to Marlborough partly because it is more convenient for her work. I am a full-time theatre professional who is *only* able to live in Ōtepoti because my Wellington-based part-time job allows me to work from home and all of my paid freelance work is in other parts of NZ and the USA. If that were to change, I would have to sell my house and leave Ōtepoti because there is literally no job for me here because we do not have a functioning professional theatre ecosystem here.
Please just do something to show the community - and the next generation of artists who want to call this beautiful place home - that Dunedin is a place that chooses to invest in our cultural identity.
Local Water Done Well feedback
Which water services delivery model do you support?
Why did you choose this option?
Do you have any other feedback related to the proposed water services delivery models?
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Submission id number: 1130956
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