Local artist Donna Demente is urging the council to intervene as she faces a massive rent hike that threatens to close her long-standing Oamaru gallery.
At a public forum in the council chamber this week, Demente outlined her submission to the council’s annual plan, asking councillors to consider the ‘‘contribution’’ she had made to the community as she called for rent relief.. Her landlord, the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, last year informed her that from June 1 this year her weekly rent would increase from $100 to over $400 for the 490sq m gallery space and additional ‘‘mezzanine spaces’’ she
has occupied for the past 30 years.. Demente said the quadrupling of her rent left her contemplating closing her gallery in Harbour St.. She asked Mayor Mel Tavendale and councillors to reconsider what she said was a push from the council on the trust to ‘‘commercialise’’ the entire precinct, at the cost of what she said gave the area its ‘‘beating heart’’.. ‘‘It’s an existential crisis for me and I’ll be gone if I can’t
get some kind of support …. it’s do-or-die for me.. ‘‘I am asking for understanding that I can’t operate on a strictly commercial basis.. ‘‘I’ve been doing it 31 years.. I know what I can extract from that and it’s enough to keep me alive and pay the bills, but I can’t pay more than I am now – it’s really, really challenging,’’ she told councillors.. She said her gallery would be part of a
very ‘‘significant publication next year, a best in world travel’’, but by the time the publication came out she would be ‘‘shut’’.. Demente outlined what she said was a ‘‘lesson in give and take’’.. She listed projects she had been involved in ‘‘to support council’’ through the years, including donating artworks, along with other ‘‘significant artists’’, such as a clock to establish the former Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony, now Oamaru Penguins, and helping design the
logo for the Oamaru Opera House.. Her contributions had raised tens of thousands of dollars, she said.. She had ‘‘contributed to this place over the years’’ and asked for ‘‘very little’’ back.. ‘‘It has not been easy to make a living.. ‘‘I don’t think people appreciate the long, hard slog over 30 years to really get this place on the map.. It was never a cool place to be,’’ she said.. In her submission, she
asked for a portion of her operating expense (Opex) costs, which went to the council, to be reduced from the amount the trust was charged so she could continue to stay in the gallery.. Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust chairman Richard Vinbrux said the trust was also under significant pressure.. ‘‘In the end, we are under cost pressure from all sides – that’s insurance and compliance beyond the council.. ‘‘We are under enormous cost pressure, our
Opex costs have gone up immensely and while council is a part of this mixture, it’s not the only factor,’’ he said.. Mr Vinbrux said he sympathised with Demente’s situation ‘‘on many levels’’ but the trust had no choice but to proceed with the rent rise.. In the council chamber this week, Mrs Tavendale questioned whether there was a way to monetise what Demente was doing, including the Creative Communities Scheme.. Demente said she had
‘‘done those things as much as she can’’ and could not keep ‘‘hogging money from other people’’.. Mrs Tavendale said the council was between ‘‘a rock and a hard place’’.
Donna Demente, Oamaru, rent relief, council, art gallery, local government