Robyn Edie/Stuff
Bluff’s Club Hotel could soon be demolished after an application to knock it down was granted on Friday, subject to conditions and an appeal period.
An application to demolish the Bluff Club Hotel has been granted.
In a decision issued on Friday, independent commissioner Paula Costello granted Bluff Oyster and Food Festival Charitable Trust’s application for earth works and demolition of the hotel subject to a number of conditions.
The trust owns the long-vacant main-street hotel and stages the Bluff Oyster and Food Festival on an adjacent site but had to cancel the event last year due to the former hotel having a dangerous building notice on it.
During a hearing on November 15, the trust urged Costello to make a swift decision to enable next year’s festival to be planned.
The building has long lacked any champions but sticking points under the Resource Management Act have confounded attempts to bring it down since the trust’s earlier application to do so, in 2018, was declined.
Robyn Edie/Stuff
The back of the Club Hotel, which fronts a site used not only for the town’s annual oyster and food festival, but other social and sporting purposes.
The conditions discussed in Costello’s decision cover typical considerations around managing a demolition project and others related to the site’s historic value.
These include, salvaging archaeological features and building materials, where possible, for reuse at the site or to be made available to the community; the original building plans, where obtainable, being digitised; consulting with mana whenua on the landscape plan for the area; detailed building records being made of the exterior and, where possible, the interior of the hotel; and oral history recordings being made from the stories of former staff and guests of the hotel.
The decision is subject to an appeal period of 15 working days, which ends on January 12, 2024, due to the legislative statutory closedown from 20 December 2023.
In a statement announcing the decision, Invercargill City Council group manager consenting and environment Jonathan Shaw said council was not able to make any comment while this appeal period is in effect.
