The economic development team have liaised with the club since 2018 but the parks department was unaware of any serious plans until last year, when they showed concept plans to locals which included the clubs preferred entrance using Eskdale Park.
Locals were not happy, forming a protest group.
Save Eskdale Park chair Trina Bergloff-Howes said the group was happy for the club to have its multimillion-dollar world-class facility on Pan Pac land, but not if access was from Eskdale Park.
"It is going to change the usage of the park from this beautiful natural green space to becoming a mountain bike hub," she said.
"Plus it isn't stopping at a car park. They also want a bike wash station, a mini kid's pump track and according to what they advised us on the planting day, this is just the start because also in the projected plan are commercial buildings."
The proposed late-stage commercial buildings are a cafe and bike-hire facility from shipping containers.
The Hawke's Bay Mountain Bike Club has been given resource consent to use Pan Pac land for car parking and access, but says the terrain is not suitable for parking and private cars are not a good mix with forestry operations.
Its first choice to access the new mountain bike park, via Taits Rd, close to its current park entrance, was thwarted by neighbours.
It says it only nominated Waipunga Rd for access and parking to help get its resource consent over the line. Nearby Eskdale Park offers the parking and access it needs.
"We want a win-win situation for the community, for our club and for the sport and for the greater Hawke's Bay region," Hawke's Bay Mountain Bike Club chair Scott Richardson said.
"We bring a lot of riders into town who come for the weekend.
"Bike tourism now is a significant part of our tourism in Hawke's Bay and we need facilities in the region to facilitate the sport."
A third of Eskdale Park has been leased to a private user and he said the land, accessed from Yule Rd, could be an option for its proposal.
But using Eskdale Park to access its forestry tracks would require a pedestrian/bike bridge to be built at a cost of $500,000 and funding is not going well. An application from the club, for $400,000 to the Lottery Grants Board to build tracks, was unsuccessful.
Richardson said while park enhancement could be a consideration for funding applications because of wider community benefit, Eskdale Park would nonetheless still be its first preference.
"There's more room there than most people realise. We have got an idea of where we would like to be and the footprint that we'd bring, but understand that there's other user groups.
"We believe as a club that there is room for all. What we need is a car park and a place to cross [the river] in essence and anything else would be a bonus."
While the council's economic development team got behind the prospect of a mountain-bike tourist attraction, the council's parks team says it has not received any formal application from the mountain bike club to use Eskdale Park.
It says the club's proposal could not proceed without consultation with all stakeholders.
The council has pre empted any resource consent application from the club by bringing forward a long-term park management plan, a seven-stage process which will take more than a year.
"Our council's preference is to work with the wider community rather than just work with one request, because there are always multiple demands for the use of public space," Hastings District Council asset manager Craig Thew said.
"There are a whole pile of desires and this is an opportunity to see what the future of Eskdale Park looks like.
"The mountain bike club has its plans and desires, the Friends of Eskdale Park has their plans and desires, and who knows who else has plans and desires.
"We've all seen in the media there's a group of individuals who would like to form a skid pad somewhere. Maybe gymkhana would like to come back to the reserve as it was in the old days."
He said two-thirds of the reserve was originally gifted by a local family to the Crown.
"There are discussions that have to happen with the Crown because we only manage the reserve on behalf of the Crown and the Crown might have its own uses. We don't know.
"We are at the very early stages for this reserve, council has no plans for this reserve. I'm sure there's all sorts of ideas.
Richardson says the club was surprised the council went public when it did, using council-drawn concept plans, when the club was still in the scoping stages of its evolving proposal.
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