Earthquake-prone community hall faces closure or sale after the Board shelves a renewal costing up to $2.5 million
The Howick Local Board has paused any renewal or relocation of the 1921 Pakuranga Community Hall, handed a council manager the power to close it, and left the door open to selling the site.
Staff told the Board the hall’s “strategic importance within the local community network has significantly diminished”, with Lloyd Elsmore Park directly across the road and the Highland Park Community Centre nearby offering alternatives.
The hall, at 347 Pakuranga Road, is an earthquake-prone Category 2 heritage building rated at 15 per cent of the new building standard, with active timber rot, a failing building envelope and asbestos.
A full renewal was estimated at $2.1 million to $2.5 million, and moving the building at $1.8 million to $2.2 million, both of which staff assessed as financially unviable.
Staff said reinvesting that scale of capital into a legacy building carried “high commercial risk”, because older wooden structures “often conceal additional structural decay that is only discovered once invasive work begins”.
At workshops in December 2024 and April 2026, board members “expressed strong concerns about the high capital expenditure required to renew a single-use hall” and backed a pause to protect “public funds from high-risk legacy asset investments”, the report said.
Instead the Board agreed to a service and property review costing about $25,000, against a $458,000 budget previously approved for the project.
It also delegated authority to the Manager Area Operations, Parks and Community Facilities to close the hall during the review if building risks worsen.
During the pause, cleaning and non-essential maintenance would be suspended, with the building protected “with boards, security hoarding, and regular monitoring”, the report said.
Council data records the hall at 15 to 18 per cent occupancy, used mostly for “low-yield, single-activity slots, such as small dance rehearsals and community club meetings”.
Staff said they would “proactively engage with existing hall hirers” to support their move to other spaces, though the report said “service continuity cannot be guaranteed if defects worsen”.
Council heritage advisers said the building’s Category 2 heritage status “constrains renewal and alteration approaches, increasing complexity and cost”.
The report said that if the hall were eventually sold, “the sale proceeds could be ring-fenced for reinvestment into more suitable multi-use community facilities in the Howick Local Board area”.
A presentation attached to the report, dated 9 April, went further, recommending the building and land be sold “as is, where is”, at no cost to the Council and with no guarantee the heritage building would be kept.
The Board made its decision on 28 May, and staff will report back on the review’s findings in late 2026.
