Arts Hub Debate

Community Wellbeing - Togetherness

Option 1

The comments supporting Option 1 emphasize the potential for the existing Refinery Building to serve as a community arts hub, highlighting its ability to foster collaboration among diverse groups and enhance the utilization of nearby natural amenities, which would benefit the wider community. Additionally, there is a call for a more integrated approach that considers the arts hub in conjunction with other community priorities like the Elma Turner library, suggesting that such integration could yield broader community benefits. The feedback reflects a preference for leveraging current facilities and resources to strengthen community ties and support inclusive access to arts and creativity, rather than investing in new infrastructure.

Table of comments:

Point No	Comment
1040.6	The proposed cost of the purchase of a new building and establishing an arts hub coupled with the cost to demolish the old Refinery Building on Hardy street should be used in combination to bring that Heritage building back into service and use it to provide an actual community space - the Arts Hub has lost the word community and it is a huge omission. While I have full support for Arts Council and the work they do both in advocacy but also as a Gallery and Office spaces for other arts entities there is the dire need for a more permanent solution to enabling a more socially equitable solution to space requirements for our marginalised communities>Community Art Works provides both a supportive and consistent service to peoples with diverse needs and who are in supported housing or require significant care, they also provide outreach and in house programmes for Rangitahi / Youth, Multi-cultural communities as well individual arts practitioners and groups who access the space and resources for projects that generally are of benefit to the Whakatū / Nelson Community.In describing itself as a vibrant creative city there are often image used which include masks, materials or circo-arts additions to events that originate from the CAW space. Council is right to look to the benefits that arts provides to the community / city as a whole but this is not wholly economic in the sense of generating money - but in the social benefit of creativity being something that is supported and enabled for all to achieve, and have access to.Council risks spending vast amounts of money on more strategy documents and provisioning a 'hub' while ignoring the potential for existing spaces to be utllised - there is huge potential for multiple groups to successfully collaborate through the old Refinery Building which is still central (the CBD being only a few blocks anyway), its proximity to the beautiful natural amenity of the River and estuary will draw interest along the River reserve and bring more diverse groups to use this under appreciated area
1482.8	While we are very sympathetic with the idea of an arts hub, we are mindful of the uncertainties about the future of the Elma Turner library , and our advocacy in 2.2 above for increasing expenditure on the development of robust communities. We are also aware that there are present, albeit limited, facilities available.In this context we consider the proposed Option 2 should not be included with this LTP, and that Option 1 is adopted, but that the arts hub is flagged for integrative analysis along with the library and broader community issues to explore the viability and potential benefits of a more integrated approach in the foreseeable future.