An Oamaru artist battling a 300% rent rise and other changes affecting her iconic gallery was told “tough titties” when she complained.<\/p>\n
Donna Demente’s\u00a0popular Grainstore Gallery has been a fixture on Harbour St in the town’s Historic Precinct for over 20 years.<\/p>\n
Now she says the actions of the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust (OWCT) are \u2018\u2018forcing\u2019\u2019 her to consider closure.<\/p>\n
Demente was angry the future tenancy of the gallery, also a popular venue for musical events, was at risk.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I\u2019m pissed off, I don\u2019t want to continue being here, I can\u2019t pay the rent now let alone struggle that much harder, it\u2019s not like my income has increased, it will decrease because of that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Demente said after running the gallery for 24 years, and considerable fundraising efforts she was involved in to promote the area, it was never about being a retailer.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I wanted to be an artist and generate better things and colour for the community, helping to make it a fun place that people would want to come.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Now it feels like it’s just, we\u2019ve got to make money out of you and you\u2019ve got to go, that just feels heartbreaking to me,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n
She said the proposed June 1 rent hike from $100 to over $400 per week for the 120sq metre gallery space and additional \u2018\u2018mezzanine spaces\u2019\u2019 below the gallery was not sustainable.<\/p>\n
Demente said that when she complained about the trust\u2019s decision to locate other artists near her business, and that it had impacted foot traffic, she was told \u201ctough titties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trust chair Richard Vinbrux confirmed he had made the comment.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The question is, how much room does Donna actually need? All of the competing spaces have very small spaces downstairs, no one would be able to afford such a big space on street level.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018If you look at the other artists, they\u2019re either sharing spaces or they are in a really small space, I\u2019m talking about equality here,\u2019\u2019 Mr Vinbrux said.<\/p>\n
He said the \u2018\u2018arrangement\u2019\u2019 they had with Demente had not been reviewed in over 20 years.<\/p>\n
“We highly value the role Donna has played over the years in helping to establish what is now the Historic Precinct, she was absolutely pivotal to that.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
He said the trust believed it was a \u2018\u2018very fair offer\u2019\u2019 that they had worked hard to make possible for Demente.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018We have avoided this for an extremely long time, because of who she is, even in the end with all the projected increases, it will still be far, far below market value,\u2019\u2019 Mr Vinbrux said.<\/p>\n
When the Otago Daily Times asked Mr Vinbrux what would happen if Harbour St was to lose Grainstore Gallery as a tenant, he said that would be \u2018\u2018very hard to gauge\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018The gallery is certainly a big attraction and it would be hard to lose that, \u00a0but the trust is not there to support artists, we can\u2019t do that financially and we don\u2019t get regular help from the council,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
Waitaki District mayor Melanie Tavendale said while Demente played a big part in the cultural contribution to the district it was important to keep the conversation between the artist and her landlord.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018I absolutely support that Donna has played an incredible role in our commuity and love that work.<\/p>\n
\u2018But we need to be very careful with how council is when it comes to individual requests. We need to make sure there is some process around these conversations.<\/p>\n
While the council has ownership of some of the trust buildings and is responsible for harbour endowment, we need to let the trust operate within their own realm,” Mrs Tavendale said.<\/p>\n
Waitaki District Council charges a ground rent of $51,500 per annum to the trust for titles that will next be reviewed in 2030.<\/p>\n
Council director of strategy, performance and design Joanne O\u2019Neill said commercial properties within the Oamaru CBD, which included those in the Heritage Precinct, all had their rates calculated through the same model.<\/p>\n
A council spokesperson said the dollar amount the Trust is paying today is the same it was in 2023, it does not get rated by inflation and will stay the same until the next review in 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Oamaru artist battling a 300% rent rise and other changes affecting her iconic gallery was told “tough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-245458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}