Million-dollar dumps: Boating club struggles to maintain heritage clubhouse due to 1923 law

Caroline Williams Reporter from North Shore Times

In its heyday, the Takapuna Boating Club’s (TBC) Bayswater clubhouse was used for all sorts of social gatherings, including regattas, dances, ratepayer polling, card game nights, school reunions, wrestling and boxing tournaments.

But since the TBC shifted to Hurstmere Rd inTakapuna around the late 1960s, and again to its current clubhouse on The Strand around 1990, the three-storey Bayswater clubhouse has fallen out of use and become what the club’s vice commodore James Jordan described as “a bit of an eyesore”.

Despite its rugged appearance and the need for some repairs to the decking, the building is structurally sound, and the TBC has ambitious plans to restore the building to its former glory.

However, the Auckland Harbour Board and Takapuna Borough Council Empowering Act 1923 limits what the building can be used for.

It is hoped a change of wording in the Act would allow the rest of the building to be used by tenants offering other activities to help provide the club with a small income to help cover the building’s expenses and future maintenance, while improving the public‘s use of the area.

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