23/05/2025
Community Halls In Real Jeopardy
Just as Derk Schoemaker’s book is published, Otago District Council reveals it’s shortlisting as many as 20 of its community facilities and halls, for “divestment.”
Interviewed on TVNZ’s Breakfast program, 14 May, Mayor Tamah Alley explained the Council rationale; “Some of them really need to just be demolished. There are a couple of buildings that are just not of heritage value. We've got a couple of old kind of prefab buildings or cinder block places that actually don't have any heritage value, and that's why we've put everything into the mix because some of our buildings people don't want to keep … Some of them could be sold to community groups if they wanted. Some would go back to the Crown or to Iwi as the first right (of refusal). And then, of course, some we will most likely retain.”
The issue of course is that, with the best will in the World, some of these “assets” cannot realistically continue to be maintained, and many of them don’t see much action.
Nevertheless, the proposal netted 1,200 public submissions, the majority of them from people wishing to retain “their” local facility. Mayor Alley explained, “So we have heard really strongly from our communities that want to retain something locally in their area, that that's what they want to keep, and that they're willing to pay the price for that.”
Looking for savings, the Council has tried to make some pragmatic decisions about what to keep and what to divest, and the current budgets assume that these buildings will no longer feature on the Council’s assets. If communities want to retain them, they either need to accept that an increase in rates is implied, or step up and take ownership of them.
In the same news segment, archaeologist Matthew Sole makes many of the same point that Derk does in the photographs in his book “Reverie.”
“These are the heart and soul of many of these small communities, and they go back a long way. They stem from the early pastoral life, gold mining, and a lot of them also were built as war memorial halls, and people are gravitating back to them.Granted, the use is not massive, but they do fill an important place in the heart, especially in the smaller communities”
As Mayor Tamah Alley notes, “Some are more well utilised than others. We've got a couple of halls that have something on two or three times a week and then some that haven't been used at all in the last two years. So I think there's a case to be made, and it is a case by case basis for each hall and each facility.”
Matthew Sole went on to note that there should be some room for some lateral thinking and flexibility in retaining them. “We lost, through Rogernomics, the schools, post offices, and some of these buildings are the only remnants of those times. And I think when you look at what Dunedin's done with the warehouses, they've been able to earthquake strengthen them.”
The issue isn’t as black-and-white as it might first appear, either. Sole continued, “I think I would like to see the council help the community explore other ways of keeping them. I think, you know, the council's got a lot of resources and it doesn't necessarily need to be monetary. It can be, you know, technical advice and helping steer the community and work with them to come up with some creative solutions. I think it's totally responsible that the dollar value (is) behind (this), but it's how we can help these communities retain these facilities, and we've got some really good examples granted to these people. They've got money behind them. We’ve got Pitcher's Store, Oliver's, and we've also got the Alexandra Courthouse. And, I mean, look at the passion with Roxborough with the recent loss of the theatre and hall. So these things are important to people.”
Mayor Alley agrees. “Absolutely and we are more than willing to work with communities to achieve their aspirations for different venues.”
These buildings have seen a tectonic shift in New Zealand, as mechanisation and urban drift have decimated small rural communities, and at the same time an aging population has changed their social habits. However it appears it may not be all over for these heritage buildings. The communities that created them are going to have to reinvest and reinvent a future for them, before they all lost to the inexorable march of time.
It's not just Central Otago either. There's no doubt about it, Derk Schoemaker's book "Reverie" offers a timeless reminder of the fragile fabric that created New Zealand. Even before it was published, some of the halls featured in "Reverie" had been demolished.
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