Whangārei’s acclaimed, but controversial, Hundertwasser Art Centrecould run out of money by October 2025 – which means ratepayers may have to stump up to keep it open.
That is despite an undertaking during the long-running campaign to build the centre that it would pay its own way rather than rely on council funding.
It cost around $33 million and got over half of that from taxpayers as corporate welfare. They said they expected it to attract 450,000 visitors a year.
The trust’s half-yearly report, presented to Whangārei district councillors last month, showed the centre had 19,800 paying visitors in the second half of 2023 – a sharp drop from the 37,000 in the first four months after the doors opened.
So they are likely to get 40,000 visitors over a year, less than 10% of what was claimed. I don’t know why government keeps falling for these fantastical claims of patronage that never eventuate.
Reduced admission fees and shop sales led to a half-year loss by the Hundertwasser Art Centre of $765,000.
So a possible annual loss of $1.5 million. There are 30,000 households in Whangarei so each household will have to subsidise it on average by $50.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
4 comments:
If the Hundertwasser in Vienna is anything to go by and they know how to market they’ll easily get more than 450,000 as this man’s name is huge in Europe. Even more so when you take into account our extraordinary landscape and the vapid social media crowd who spread intellectual poverty, but bring a lot of money with them. The question is whether we want them as they’re annoying as F.
As a former Whangarei ratepayer I have enormous sympathy for the ratepayers there expected to carry this burden. Hunterwasser did not have a relationship to speak of with Whangarei. He didn't live there.This project while it is a feather in the cap of a very pretty town was pushed for by a select group of unpopular people. It was ever thus! Covid and slips on the Brynderwyns have hoisted them on their own petards! Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch or people.
We were shouted down as heretics, uncultured racists for not wanting it. No business model presented ever looked realistic and here we are stuck with it and a 17% plus rates rise this year. Oh yeah, it hasn’t used up its $2m emergency fund yet, you know the one they said would last 10 years, got reduced to $1.2m. Draw down 500k last year, another 500k this year. That’s the max they can draw. At what point do we wake up and stop this nonsense.
As a Whangarei ratepayer, I can confirm that this has been a farce.
There was a referendum BUT it was arranged to split the ‘No’ vote so the ratepayers ended up with a cost that they didn’t want.
It’s likely that this very unusual looking building draws visitors, but the most interesting part is the exterior, which can be viewed without spending a cent.
So now the ratepayers are left to subsidise a building that has little benefit to them.
There are moves afoot to repeat this process subsidising an ‘events centre’ that most ratepayers won’t use, and likely no one else either. I sincerely hope common sense will prevail
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