19 January 2023
Media: NZME (Rotorua Daily Post and BOP Times)
Topic: Blue Baths
Enquiry
Reporter following up on yesterday’s enquiry re Blue Baths:
Just a point I was hoping for clarification on please:
"Regular checks and maintenance to ensure the building maintains its building warrant of fitness are ongoing." - I thought this expired last year?
The response says it is not known what work needs to be done but the detailed assessment outlined what work would need to be done to get it to 34% NBS - is there no estimate for what this might cost?
I spoke with Jo this morning and she said the meeting on Tuesday went well and she was encouraged. She said councillors had asked for the topic to be included in the next council meeting.
She said her business proposal had been approved by council and had structural and geotechnical engineers working on it for about a year having been given a transitional lease while the proposal was explored. Any seismic issues found would have been addressed, she said.
She said it was estimated to cost about 4-6m to fix damage associated with a leaking pool and subsequent issues with water pooling which she said was causing the foundation issues when combined with the corroding nature of the heat and sulphur.
For a decade it had been leaking 50 cubic metres a day.
“Which the council was very well aware of.” She said this was through water meters it installed in the early 2000s.
As landlord it was responsible to fix this, she said.
But it would cost more than the $4-6m to get the building up to a standard to be able to operate out of, she said, with the building needing a refresh and outstanding maintenance needing to be done.
She said this was estimated to be about $12million, excluding the more extensive seismic repair and cost escalations.
Response
From DCE Organisational Enablement Thomas Collē:
“The building has a building warrant of fitness.
“We do not have an estimate of the cost of work needing to be done.
“This matter is not on the council meeting agenda but elected members are being briefed next week.
“We supported a business proposal and a resource consent was submitted in early June 2020, subject to a final DSA which, as you are aware, showed the building to be at 15% NBS.
“Council’s DSA and geotechnical reports were completed at the end of the transitional lease, well after the business proposal and resource consent were submitted.
“The business proposal did not address the issues subsequently identified in the DSA and no information about how seismic issues would be addressed has been shared with us.”
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Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Upcoming long weekenders
Enquiry
I am working on a story about the upcoming long weekends - Auckland Anniversary and Waitangi weekend - next weekend and the weekend after.
Could I please have a list of council events running during these weekends to include in the preview with any other relevant information?
Could I also please have a comment on the following questions
- What can locals and travellers expect when coming to the city over the long weekends?
- How are the weekends expected to pan out compared to previous years?
- What do you think will be most popular with out-of-towners?
- How will the previous bad weather this summer impact these long weekends? Do you think more people will be more or less likely to make the trip here?
- Will there be any road closures during this time? When/where?
Any other comments are welcome.
Response
We provided the following information:
We referred the reporter to RotoruaNZ for comment/insight into tourism expectations for the two upcoming long weekends and provided the following information re events and road closures:
See below link to all events listed on RotoruaNui from 26 Jan to 7 Feb inclusive. The only council one is Music at the Band Rotunda which tends to be locals-focussed although visitors are obviously welcome to attend.
https://www.rotoruanui.nz/?s=&event_cat=&event_tag=&min_date=2023-01-26&max_date=2023-02-07&s=
You’ll find road closures HERE on Council’s website (scroll down to view and you’ll see dates they refer to)
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Media: NZME (Rotorua Daily Post and BOP Times)
Topic: Red plastic bags used where wheelie bins can't be used
Enquiry
Reporter followed up on request for/receipt of information yesterday about the red plastic bags issued to households in parts of our district where wheelie bins are currently not possible:
sometimes I might ask for information before deciding whether or not something is worth looking into, as was the case here.
That's really interesting about the comparative decomposition times on the two materials [paper bags and plastic bags] - where is this sourced from? Thanks for the info, handy to have.
Would it be possible to have the question answered as to whether the bags are recyclable and are recycled, please?
Response
We provided the following information, additional to information provided yesterday:
Re info about comparative decomposition times, that is Craig’s industry knowledge/expertise.
The plastic used in the bags is 30um Natural HDPE which is recyclable.
[Recycling the bags] would require removing the rubbish that was in them and then cleaning them as they would be contaminated with the waste they had contained. The cost in terms of time, money and the extended carbon footprint would outweigh any benefit gained.