regional venue<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re still here,\u201d Radesic said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gonna do everything possible that we can in our power to stay racing … for as long as we can.\u201d <\/p>\n
The past year had been \u201cgreat\u201d for Arawa Park. <\/p>\n
The racing industry was in a state of flux, but the Rotorua grounds had been busy with people \u201ccoming in and out every day\u201d, he said. <\/p>\n
Its biggest meetings \u2013 the Campbell Infrastructure Rotorua Cup Day, October Plate Day and Holiday Raceday \u2013 draw crowds of up to 5000.<\/p>\n
Closing Arawa Park would deal \u201cquite a substantial\u201d blow to Rotorua, Radesic said.<\/p>\n
He estimated the club contributed about $1 million to the local economy each year through wages, maintenance and day-to-day spending. An associated trust also supported schoolchildren with sporting needs.<\/p>\n
The club employs six permanent staff and relies on another 50 to 100 people on big race days, including security staff, St John, farriers and other contractors.<\/p>\n
The Bay of Plenty Hunt Club races at Arawa Park each year and would need to find another venue, while several tenants based on the property would have to relocate if the course closed, Radesic said.<\/p>\n
The next closest racecourses would be in Tauranga and Taup\u014d.<\/p>\n
The Project Stamina report also tied Arawa Park\u2019s future to the proposed Waikato Greenfields project. <\/p>\n
The development would create a new regional racing venue to replace the Te Rapa and Cambridge tracks. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been kept around until some decisions are made on that, by the looks of it,\u201d Radesic said.<\/p>\n
He believed some reports were produced \u201cfor the sake of it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The club was seeking advice before preparing a response.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still early days … I think people are still getting their head around [it].\u201d<\/p>\n
He believed it would be a shame to lose the racecourse and he would \u201chate to think that housing would go up in the green space\u201d. <\/p>\n
![\"Aerial]()
Aerial view of Arawa Park in 2014. Photo \/ Ben Fraser <\/p>\n
The Rotorua Racing Club owns about one-third of the Arawa Park site, while Rotorua Lakes Council administers the remaining gifted reserve land on behalf of the Crown under the Ng\u0101ti Whakaue Gifted Reserves Protocol Agreement.<\/p>\n
Radesic said he could not answer what would happen to the club\u2019s share if the racecourse were to close, and decisions were \u201cstill up in the air\u201d. <\/p>\n
Destination development group manager Jean-Paul Gaston said the council\u2019s role was limited to administering the lease with the Rotorua Racing Club.<\/p>\n
If the lease were to end, the council would engage with Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust on behalf of Ng\u0101ti Whakaue about the future use of the land. <\/p>\n
Any proposal would then go through the appropriate statutory and decision-making processes.<\/p>\n
Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust chairman David Tapsell said the trust was watching the racecourse\u2019s next steps \u201cwith interest\u201d.<\/p>\n
The land was originally gifted to the city by Ng\u0101ti Whakaue specifically for racing. <\/p>\n
A formal legal process would be triggered to return the gifted land to Ng\u0101ti Whakaue through the trust if the racecourse closed.<\/p>\n
Tapsell said the trust had not yet considered potential future uses for the whenua. It would do so once there was more certainty around the process and its timing.<\/p>\n
Annabel Reid<\/a> is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke\u2019s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt did come as a shock,\u201d Radesic said, though the conversation was a familiar one. A 2018 report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3471,216442,17163,2082,111,139,69,8143,71943,75725,38715,202,213],"class_list":["post-555634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-among","tag-arawa","tag-closure","tag-for","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-park","tag-racecourses","tag-recommended","tag-rotoruas","tag-seven","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555634","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=555634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}