Napier citizens’ assembly gets 652 applicants - they will now help decide future of aquatic centre

Future plans for Napier's aquatic centre are being shaped by the city's first citizens' assembly. Photo / Paul Taylor

More than 600 Napier residents have put their names in the hat to be part of the deco city’s first citizens’ assembly.

The assembly will discuss what the future plan should be for an aquatic centre in the city, and the council says it will then “endorse” the assembly’s decision, and then put it in front of councillors before they make a formal decision.

Applications closed to join Napier’s first citizens’ assembly at 11.59pm on Monday, and 652 residents had applied to join, with 40 set to be accepted.

The 40 will be randomly chosen by sortition, using a tool that selects participants in line with the demographics of Napier to ensure the assembly is “Napier in a room”, a Napier City Council spokesperson said.

The spokeswoman said applicants should know if they have been selected by August 22.

They will then meet over four Saturdays from September 13 to answer the question “what type of aquatic facility would best meet the needs, values and priorities of the Napier community and where should it be located?”

The assembly will focus solely on the issue of Napier’s aquatic centre and once they have met, heard from experts, debated, deliberated and made their recommendations to the council, their task will be complete.

The council spokeswoman said the assembly will need to identify what the “needs, values and priorities” are and also what the criteria should be for a suitable location.

The Napier City Council has said the assembly’s recommendations will be endorsed.

However, the names of the 40 members of the assembly will not be made public by the council, and a member of the assembly can be removed if they disrupt sessions, are repeatedly absent without a clear reason or intimidate others.

The council spokeswoman said decisions about future citizens’ assemblies will be made next year, and there are other forms of “deliberative democracy” that the council will look at using for other topics affecting the city.

The current site of the Napier Aquatic Centre in Onekawa underwent a multimillion-dollar maintenance and refurbishment project, beginning in May 2024 and finishing in April this year.

Options put forward in the past to bring better aquatic options to Napier have included relocating the site to Prebensen Dr, opening an art deco inspired indoor pool in Anderson Park and a rock pool development near Ahuriri Beach.

The Prebensen Dr site became a major public issue when it was selected by the council of former Mayor Bill Dalton in April 2018, with a then ball-park price tag of $41.3 million.

The Friends of the Onekawa Aquatic Centre took it to court, an injunction first stopping the letting of a contract and, while a High Court judicial review of the decision processes eventually found in favour of the council, and some initial earthworks had started, a new Kirsten Wise-led council put the issue on hold.

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier.