In a week of out of touch councillors, New Plymouth has gone a step further and voted against their own report recommendations to support the request from Tesla to install a Supercharger site (along with a generic charger, most likely Chargnet) in New Plymouth, as written in this agenda.
I'll post the minutes once they're released (probably tomorrow at this point), but it's dissapointing to hear
Results after 19 of 19 wards declared:
- Labour: 31 Seats (+6)
- Conservative: 26 Seats (-5)
- UKIP: 0 Seats (-1)
Turnout: 33%. Full declaration of results.
Last fall the Plymouth City council approved a mixed use development plan from the Dominion Company - which would have featured mixed use retail, a park and ride and low income residential housing. However, Dominion has failed to get the required federal and state funding and has abandoned the project.
The Plymouth council met on May 11, in a closed session to discuss the purchase and soon after in an open session voted to purchase the land with "Transit Funds" and demolish the abandoned mall. The closing date for the sale is expected to be 6/30 or sooner. The city plans to demolish the mall and search for development partners for a smaller mixed use type development.
For those interested in the history of the mall, it was built in 1976 and housed 20+ stores at one time. Tenants included a Super Value Grocery store, Summit Dance, a hardware store, FanMan Lighting, a travel agency, insurance agency, beauty school, barber shop, beauty shop, Synder Drug, Hallmark, multiple restaurants, and a bridal shop.
During the early 2000's tenancy tumbled, with the closure of the anchor grocery store, liquor store and dance studio. By 2012 - the last two tenants - a Thai restaurant and Marcellos Italian Restaurant both had closed and the mall was sold to Walmart, who planned to raze the mall and build a smaller version of a Walmart, incorporating many eco friendly and eye friendly design aspects, however, that project never made to the city council due to neighbor complaints.
For the last 9 years, the mall has sat empty - and the city has struggled to find a buyer / developer, largely due to the fact that the mall sits on / is surrounded by swamp - which makes a lot of uses unfeasible.
Because they all vote neigh.
