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?
Along with Stage South and various other arts organisations, we believe that the former Fortune Theatre building should be sold and all money from the sale ring-fenced for the Ōtepoti arts sector. We believe it is our collective responsibility to ensure our mokopuna and future generations have the buildings, creative spaces and resources they need to create, explore and express themselves – in this way, our future communities will thrive. Just as we have a responsibility to catch up on deferred 3 Waters work and not leave these cost burdens to future generations, so too do we have a responsibility to ensure our arts and community infrastructure is fit for those to come.
Multiple reports have concluded that the city needs a mid-sized, fit-for purpose performing arts facility, and we strongly urge the Council to retain the earmarked minimal budget line for a new build to achieve this. We also acknowledge the long connections that our communities have with existing theatres in the city. We encourage the Council to find ways to support the refurbishment and evolving use of these spaces where this is practical and can be done in community-centred ways.
We encourage the Council to increase arts funding to ensure this sector, on which much of the city’s claim to international fame rests, can survive and in time thrive. This includes the Professional Theatre Fund, and we encourage the Council to create a similar fund for professional dance. We recommend that sufficient budget be allocated for an arts organisation (currently the Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust) to manage Te Whare o Rukutia for the wider arts and community sector.
We question the need to gift the Stadium (managed by a for-profit council-controlled organisation) an additional $2 million, when the city’s built performing arts stock is rundown, damaged, and inaccessible to people who have any kind of mobility impairment. This money should be diverted to the city’s arts community to support the implementation of Ara Toi. It is also unclear what the proposed additional $4.4 million for ‘festivals’ and events’ will be spent on. There is concern in the sector that rather than going directly to the city’s festivals and events, it will be absorbed by Enterprise Dunedin to attract, market and promote events. Without additional resourcing from contestable grants, this will result in a very externally focused events calendar, and existing events and festivals will be left to continue providing huge benefit for the community (and the city’s external marketing portfolio) on shoestring budgets.
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?
Ōtepoti Community Builders is a volunteer-run network of organisations, groups and people from across the community sector. We support grassroots, community-led development in the city, elevate community voices and leadership, and share knowledge of best practice.
We heartily congratulate the Council for their foresight and courage in supporting the development of Te Taki Haruru. We acknowledge and thank mana whenua and mātāwaka Māori for their strategic, visionary thinking and their generosity in sharing this. The intention statements, goals, principles and values in Taki Haruru provide a strong guide for decision-making in Ōtepoti over the course of this 9 year plan and beyond. We are confident that the DCC will have strong support from the community sector in implementing this strategy, and that many community organisations will integrate Taki Haruru into their own thinking and planning over the coming decades. We look forward to being part of this journey.
During the engagement period for the proposed 9 year plan, we held a hui on community funding attended by more than 100 people. Mana whenua, grassroots groups, social service agencies, and local, regional and national government and funders were all represented. One of the highlights of our hui – and a reason why people return – is the value of connections between those present and the opportunities to build relationships, explore collaborations and learn more about each other and our mahi. We would like to acknowledge the councillors who attended and spoke – Mayor Jules Radich and Councillors Chris Garey, Carmen Houlahan, Marie Laufiso and Steve Walker. This was a significant opportunity to engage with a broad cross-section of the community during the long term planning process, and the community has a clear sense of who shows up and walks alongside them.
Through our research, networking and relationships, we know that the social, economic, cultural and environmental wellbeing of Ōtepoti Dunedin depends on well-resourced community and arts sectors. The work that our agencies, trusts, place-based groups, festivals and organisations do is essential. It builds strong, resilient communities, ensures our young people thrive, and creates opportunities for celebration and hope. However, too often this work is under-resourced and those who are closest to the flaxroots are marginalised or not heard when the DCC makes significant decisions.
Currently, a grants review is underway without representation or input from the arts or community sectors, the place-based fund has been frozen, a strategic refresh is underway with limited public involvement, and many of the things that have had strong community backing over recent years have been pulled from the 9 year plan. It is difficult for community groups to plan or operate with any certainty in this environment, and the impacts are already being felt.
We ask the Council to make its grants review process transparent and open, to increase the funding pools for the community and arts sectors annually to account for CPI and other economic factors, and to recommit to the previously agreed increase for the place-based fund, along with an annual CPI adjustment (at minimum).
As a community network, it is difficult to make sense of the decisions that inform the 9 year plan. It is unclear what vision is being enacted through the proposed plan, what values are being met, and whose needs are being served. Overall, it appears that community-centred work has been deprioritised in favour of mainstream and commercial interests. How is this Council enacting its own strategic frameworks through this 9 year plan? How are its long term work plans and budgets giving life to the Social Wellbeing, Ara Toi and Economic Development strategies, Te Ao Tūroa, Te Taki Haruru and the Zero Carbon Plan?
We acknowledge that significant investment in the city’s 3 Waters and transport infrastructure is needed over coming years, and that this cost profoundly shapes the proposed budgets and planned activity. However, there seems to have been less coherent thinking about how to build cultural, social and community infrastructure and invest in the facilities and opportunities that our people need to thrive. Over recent years, community organisations have seen and promoted opportunities to develop youth spaces, performing arts infrastructure, community hubs and more, but these haven’t progressed effectively. We encourage the Council to improve its ability to build effective collaborations and resource community-led initiatives so that more of these opportunities may be realised.
Please see the attachment for our final paragraph - the online form would not allow for our full submission.
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?
Supporting information
Submitter
Submission id number: 1132784
Submitter name:
Anna Parker
Organisation
Ōtepoti Community Builders