Artists backing the proposed Hundertwasser Wairau Maori Arts Centre in Whangarei are urging residents and ratepayers to vote yes to the project.

The Whangarei District Council is holding a referendum on the future of the former harbour board building.

The option are for it to become a maritime museum, to be demolished, or to be turned into a gallery to show work by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

Maori Advisory panel chair Elizabeth Ellis says the late Austrian artist and architect lived and is buried at Karetu.

Because of his close relationships with Northland Maori, he made use of his distinctive design conditional on Maori input.

"He said there had to be a Maori art gallery as part of the complex and if we could have that it would mean that for Maori it would be a place that people can go to, our people can go to, and see the best of Maori art on display," she says.

Elizabeth Ellis says she has just returned from opening an exhibition in the Czech Republic of work by another immigrant artist, Gottfried Lindauer, and people there are excited by the Hundertwasser project because of his fame.