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Bay of Plenty MPs are vowing to fight a proposal by the regional council to move its headquarters from Whakatane to Tauranga, fearing it will result in major economic and social losses for Whakatane.
Environment Bay of Plenty, one of the biggest employers in the town, decided "in principle" to relocate to Tauranga late last year, saying the move to the region's fastest-growing city was necessary to fulfil obligations under the Local Government Act.
It has estimated the cost of the move at almost $23 million, about $2 million of which would be spent on staff redundancies.
Most of the money, $15.4 million, would pay for a new head office in Tauranga.
The eastern Bay of Plenty economy would lose an estimated $4.3 million annually as 130 staff shifted and a further 57 full-time equivalent positions were lost in the wider community.
Politicians from several parties have opposed the move and yesterday condemned the plan as "illogical" and "unjustified".
Their comments come ahead of a council meeting on Thursday, when the regional councillors will vote on whether to take the plan to the stage of public consultation.
In December, they voted 11-3 for the move, drawing criticism for holding meetings behind closed doors and without putting the proposal in the council's 10-year plan.
The council now hopes to amend the plan.
National's East Coast MP, Anne Tolley, and United Future's deputy leader, Judy Turner, have organised petitions calling on the council to axe the proposal.
"[The proposal] has come out of left field and will have a devastating effect on the community of Whakatane," Ms Tolley said.
The town would lose highly skilled employees and "good spending families".
"[But] it's not just their spending power," she said.
"It's also their participation in the community. They're the people that chair the school boards of trustees ... and are involved in sports organisations. They're community leaders and a community can be quite devastated if it loses that calibre of person en masse."
The council's December vote in favour of the proposal was based on a Deloitte report, which was commissioned for $91,000 and found the move to Tauranga was necessary to fulfil "regional leadership roles and functions, particularly under the Local Government Act 2002".
"We now believe we need to be in the fastest-growing area of the region to do this well," council chairman John Cronin said at the time.
But Labour list MP Moana Mackey said the report was "flimsy" and she had sought clarification of the act from Local Government Minister Mark Burton.
In a letter to Ms Mackey on December 13, Mr Burton said the act did not preclude the council deciding to shift its headquarters but "nor does it require the council to be physically located in the most populous part of the region."
The council said more than $10 million of the move had already been budgeted for, but National's Bay of Plenty MP, Tony Ryall, questioned the high financial cost.
"Ratepayers are finding it hard to believe the council can save money by shifting 130 people one hour down the road, buying expensive land, and building a new office tower. No one has shown it will save one dollar."
