Former mayor Stan Semenoff's pet concept of converting a council-owned building at the Town Basin to an art museum honouring Austrian artist Hundertwasser is not dead, if Cr Kahu Sutherland has anything to do with it.

Cr Sutherland, deputy to Mr Semenoff in the previous council, said at the November council meeting earlier this week that he wanted a place on the 20/20 Inner City Development (city centre/urban design) sub-committee expressly to promote the Hundertwasser project.

He won a place after the issue was put to the vote, unsupported by committee chair-elect and deputy mayor Phil Halse.

Cr Halse said he believed Cr Sutherland might be in a position of conflict of interest because of business contracts he had in the central city but CEO Mark Simpson said he was "struggling to see that".

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Cr John Williamson wanted to know why the Hundertwasser concept would be a reason for winning a committee place, when it had never been discussed by the new council.

Mr Semenoff intensively promoted the idea during the first two years of his term, from 2007-10, which would have seen the council-owned former Northland Regional Council building remodelled to a plan produced by the late artist about 20 years ago, and the interior dedicated to his artwork.