Editorial: Time will tell if it's all worth it

The artist's impression of the new City Focus area.

It was a busy day at the Rotorua Lakes Council chamber yesterday - as you can see from pages 2 and 3.

Within the space of a few hours, the Strategy, Policy and Finance Committee voted to proceed with three major changes to the inner-city. Parking, the night market and the big one for many - the City Focus.

None came as a surprise, the changes had been signalled previously and in the case of the City Focus, retailers were asked weeks ago when the best time would be for demolition to occur. So it would have been a shock had the committee not voted the changes through, after the money, time and effort spent on formulating the plans.

However, the removal of the sails and pillars was not a given - that option was only added at the request of inner-city retailers.

The artist's impression shows their removal certainly opens up the space and, in my view, looks attractive.

But debate will continue to rage as to whether it's worth the budgeted cost of $1 million to $1.2 million.

Former mayor Grahame Hall, who was in charge when the City Focus was built, doesn't think so. He didn't hold back in describing the council as, in his view, inept and wasting money we don't have.

Less controversial will be the extension of the night market and changes to the inner-city parking model. The free parking has been a trial and error process but the council is confident it's settled on the right mix of metered and free parking. And very few people could quibble with extending the market, it has developed into both a tourist attraction and locals' favourite so its success should be built on. Say what you like about the current mayor and councillors, but you can't say they don't know how to get things done. Whether Rotorua will thank them for that or not - we'll find out next October.