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rd th May 2018 22thndJan May -- 328 27 Feb 2014
FIRST ON THE STREET
No No 434 651
LAKES WEEKLY BULLETIN
7 J 6 O IN SI BS D E
enquiries@lwb.co.nz
The council’s panopticon plans . One of the more contentious topics in the Queenstown Lakes District’s Ten Year Plan is the proposal for a new council building and where it should be located. For almost three decades, consecutive councils have considered and designed an office building, but none have come to fruition. The current council operates from different buildings at opposing corners of the CBD. The council pays commercial rents in some places and owns its offices in others. A real hotchpotch of short term arrangements. The plan is to build one, large, unified council building on the corner of Stanley and Ballarat Street. My initial reaction was anger – that Queenstown will likely lose more CBD parking and a valuable development space will be lost to a grey, drab authoritarian figure looming over a prominent corner of town. I imagined one-way windows and security cameras manned by parking wardens, and all the other tropes of modern dystopian fiction. Aside from the library, many residents don’t access the council buildings on a regular basis, particularly now that so much can be done online; so I questioned the need for a council building in town at all. Frankton is one of Queenstown’s fastest-growing areas and with more housing coupled with big city vices like Kmart arriving, it could make sense to put the council there too. However, talking to CBD business owners soon changed my mind. Long-term, stable jobs for residents are few and far between in the CBD, particularly outside of the hospitality industry. Council workers are a regular presence in town and from early morning coffees to lunchtime shop browsing, that regular presence is a regular income for some CBD businesses.
Internationally renowned master of pottery, Ben Carter, was in Queenstown this week to do a series of lectures for QT pottery enthusiasts. Ben, (middle) flanked by Louise Parker, Margaret Amor, Martha Matthews and Raul Faustino (left-right).
(Photo: Jodi Walters)
More importantly, some see the council presence in town as the final bastion of a strong local community in the CBD. By abandoning Queenstown’s original heart, the council would be sending a clear message: the CBD is a more active version of Disneyland; a temporary destination for visitors to empty their pockets, with bungy jumping instead of Mickey Mouse rides. There’s something about the dayto-day actions of residents which makes a town feel more like a community. In retail and hospitality, it’s the regular customers which bring a sense of belonging to an establishment. It’s a sense of regularity and familiarity which gives your hometown the ‘home’ feel and that’s something you can’t recreate with the transient nature of tourism. It’s no wonder the council have named the plans “Project Connect” – it’s about staying connected with the local community and maintaining a physical and practical local presence in the CBD. Provided the new council building isn’t designed around the principals of Bentham’s panopticon, perhaps having the new council building in the CBD isn’t too bad an idea after all.
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