Report by John Lawson, 30.04.14
Waikato Council’s GM Tony Whittaker spoke to an audience of almost 30 at Wednesday night’s briefing on the Waikato District draft Annual Plan. The audience at the Raglan Bowling Club, included reps from the local media along with three council officers, Mayor Allan Sanson and three of the female councillors. Raglan Councillor Clint Baddeley gave his apologies as he had an urgent family matter to attend to.
Mr Whittaker spoke for an hour and took questions for about 20 minutes. He showed a film featuring Charlie Young, to illustrate council’s involvement in economic development, and explained that the Annual Plan mainly covered alterations to the Long Term Plan. He drew attention to the 10% increases in water and sewage rates, explaining that they were the last in a series of large increases aimed at correcting the deficits on these accounts.
When I asked why water rates had been equated across the district but not our sewage rate he seemed unaware of that and suggested I put in a submission. He seemed surprised when I said I put in that submission along with Rodger Gallagher last year and were ignored. I also mentioned the $1m wasted on meter manifolds. When I asked why the spending on water capital was almost halved (graph below), Tony explained that some capital projects had to be delayed, but rates still needed to be raised for it and current spending also needed to be covered.
Tony drew attention to the proposal to subsidise connection of Pokeno’s CBD to the new sewage scheme being funded by the developers. He was saying that initially Auckland hadn’t been keen to talk to Waikato, but they were now working well together in the development of Pokeno to relieve development pressures in Auckland. Sheryl Hart described her experience of lack of cross border coordination. A farmer on the Auckland side had been allowed to extract groundwater, resulting in a well on the Waikato side drying up.
In response to a question from Shane Gold about Waitetuna Valley Rd, Tony, the Mayor and Jenni Vernon all mentioned that Franklin had had a targeted roading rate and that was an option.
A slide in Tony’s presentation showed the main changes for Raglan – additional walkways in Wainui Reserve $23,000, water booster pump station to improve fire hydrant pressure $127,000, wastewater pump station to provide additional stormwater storage $36,000, surf lifesaving grant up $20,000. They’d also found funding to complete the Simon Rd footpath to Manukau Rd. However, Tony was unsure about the Roading accounts item showing “Lorenzen Bay Structure Plan District Wide $1,455,000”. He assumed it related to the 2005 plan to join Lorenzen Bay and Greenslade roads.
Tony mentioned problems arising from new government proposals. In particular, council has put a case to the select committee that development contributions amount to only about $25,000 per house, so don’t significantly affect house affordability. However, losing them could result in rates rising several percentage points above inflation, or not providing new developments with services they expect.
It was noted that some people hadn’t received copies of the Plan summary, which should have been posted to all ratepayers. The Mayor said they’d accept late submissions.