Hot pool project has new hurdle

The $7.5 million redevelopment of the Mount Hot Pools faces an extra hurdle after the council yesterday insisted it needed to approve a new down-sized version of the project.
It followed the council-owned pools company Tauranga City Aquatics Ltd (TCAL) altering its plans for the hot pools to try to satisfy objectors.
TCAL's revised plan was revealed at a confidential conference last week before a court-appointed mediator. It was seeking to allay some of the concerns which this year led to a commissioner ruling against granting consent for the redevelopment.
The project was given an extra hoop to jump through by the Tauranga City Council, which met yesterday in the aftermath of last week's unsuccessful mediation conference.
The conference involving the pools company and objectors was unable to find enough middle ground to stop TCAL's appeal from proceeding towards a full Environment Court hearing.
Mayor Stuart Crosby said TCAL needed to come back to the council with the full business case for its new design because it would be a waste of money to pursue the amended version to the Environment Court if it did not have political support. "We need to be part of the process."
The mayor backed Cr Murray Guy's recollection that TCAL gave a clear undertaking in April to return to the council within three months with options on the way forward for the pools. Cr Guy said TCAL had gone too far down the road without seeing the council.
The council's new chief executive, Ken Paterson, said it was risky to have a resource management consent process without council support. He undertook to talk to TCAL and report to the council within a fortnight.
Cr Guy said he had supported mediation on the understanding that consent was required for the remedial works needed to get the existing pools up to spec. He had now been told no consent was needed for the current upgrade which had shut the pools for up to 18 weeks.
He said he was concerned that the direction they had been given for entering mediation had been on a potentially false premise.
However, Cr Larry Baldock said the work needed to be finished by 2012 when the Bay of Plenty Regional Council's consent expired for the hot pools' discharge into Pilot Bay.
The new discharge consent placed restrictions on the temperature of the discharge water. The solution to bring it down to a complying temperature was to run it through the planned health and wellness centre as well.