John Lawson, secretary of Whaingaroa Environmental Defence Incorporated organisation has prepared and circulated a draft submission with WED’s views on the Waikato Draft Annual Plan. John is urging people to make their own submissions and to provide him with ideas on how the WED submission can be improved.
John says, “Have you put in a submission yet on Waikato District Council’s annual plan? Submissions can be emailed to corporate.planning@waidc.govt.nz by 4pm on Tuesday. The plan is available at http://waidc.govt.nz/Documents/Plans/Annual-plan-(1).aspx. A draft of WED’s submission is also attached. What changes would improve it?
Thanks
John”
p = page number in plan
The Annual Plan is written in such a way that it’s almost impossible to see just where our rates will be spent. An example is the 8 pages about regulatory spending; the plan only tells us about spending (p34) of $28,027 (on building consents and a drink drive project) out of a total of $6,815,000 (p40). What happens to the other $6.7m (up $750,000 from last year)? There are surely savings to be made, but only a few can be identified from the plan.
The few figures there are, suggest that too many savings have been made on environmental work. The report on Community Outcomes shows the sustainable outcome as most popular. Footpath spending, planned at $501,875, is down to $360,018 and bus shelters, from $26,375 down to $20,316. On p112 a former Franklin target for students cycling to school is set at nil, with a note saying: “Waikato District Council does not intend developing school travel plans beyond 2011/2012”.
p183 General rate rising to $194.26 per $100,000. This is far too high. Franklin’s rate is shown as $61.33; less than a third! Money should be saved on the road improvement budget (eg p113 seal extension and widening totals $1.721m) and moving staff to local offices, rather than spending $1m (p57) on extending the Ngaruawahia office.
Is part of the difference explained in the summary document, which shows that 43% of WDC spending is on roading (but only 28% in Franklin) and that 72% of the Franklin income is not from rates, but only 56% in the rest of the district? Does that mean that more money is spent on projects which don’t qualify for government grants? Does that mean they’re less necessary?
Flat rate charges are rising well above inflation. Inflation on the CPI (see http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/statistics/0135595.html) was 4.5% from the 1st quarter of 2010 to the 1st quarter of 2011 (the figure available when the rate was set). It appears from p170 that total rates revenue of $48.15m last year is to rise to $54.723m, up 13.65%. Flat rates apply to all properties, so that percentage increases will be well above 13% for the poorest. At the last census 2/3 of Raglan had incomes under $30,000 pa and ratepayers in many other parts of the district are not wealthy. No explanation is shown for the 33% water rate rise, the 10% extra wastewater rate, nor why the UAGC 5.2% rise should be higher than that for the general rate.
These increases follow on a decade of rapidly rising rates. In the previous 3 years inflation had been 9%, but general rates rose 17% and UAGC 34%.
p9 Yet another flat rate charge is mooted to pay for community boards. Targeted rates have no relationship to ability to pay. They should be abolished rather than increased. If a rate were introduced for Raglan, the area covered by it and the Board should be increased to the size of the council ward.
It seems that some services are expected to cover their costs, but others are subsidised. Among the subsidised seems to be the daily charge for aircraft on Raglan airfield at $5.30 (up 4%), though mowing of the airfield costs over $10,000 pa. Income for the airfield is no longer shown as a separate item, but is still probably less than $3,000 pa. Much less subsidised are the rents for retirement housing (Raglan with a disproportionate part of the population retired, should have some), up over 5%. Burial fees are again rising by about a third, eg interments up from $907 to $1,300. Also a new Hamilton Library charge of $25. Checking of swimming pool fences remains free. It’s not clear why other charges don’t reflect their social or environmental value.
p43 If seal extension is selected from Te Papatapu Rd, or Tikotiko Rd, Te Papatapu should be chosen. It carries about 190 vehicles a day, rather than the 75 on the latter. If seal extension can be afforded, rather higher priority should be given to Waitetuna Valley Rd, which is used for diversion when SH23 is blocked.
p47 WED welcomes the statement that Council will consider funding a Hamilton to Auckland passenger rail service. WED would welcome still more solving of the overcrowding and luggage problems on the Raglan bus. The $336,648 to be spent on buses (only $95,625 on Raglan’s bus) forms only 1.6% of the $20.79m being spent on roading. In 2006 8.5% of Raglan’s population, 8.9% of Ngaruawahia’s, 12.2% of Huntly East and 14.3% of Huntly West didn’t have access to a car. Over the whole district the figure was 5.1%. The proportion of the roading budget supporting buses should reflect these proportions. Ratepayers who are poor and/or using the least environmentally damaging and safest form of transport should not be subsidising motorists. 5% of the roading budget would be over $1m and allow provision of services without overcrowding and luggage problems.
p29 In 2007 the cost of the Council’s vehicle fleet renewal was $335,000. A survey at that time put Waikato District Council at 65th place in a survey of carbon emissions by Council fleets, putting over a tonne a year more into the air than the cleanest fleets at considerable cost ($29,604) to ratepayers. The proposal this year is to spend $644,592, almost double the high 2007 cost. Transport inflation since 2007 has been 20%, not 90%. Smaller, cheaper cars, better planning of journeys and more car sharing could result in at least equal service at far lower cost.
p53 Could access to Papanui Point be secured for less than $100,000 by using existing public land (see map)? Maybe some of the saving could restore the Ocean beach protection, which is down from $6,173 to $5,952?
p54 Whaingaroa Harbourcare support has already been cut from $20,000. It should not be further cut from $11,682 to $11,264.
$78,911 was allocated for Raglan walkways last year, but not spent. Raglan does have several paper roads suited to walkways, but it is unlikely that surveys, stiles, signposts and publicity will cost $81,121.
Raglan Structure Plan options report mooted the idea of traffic calming and use of shared space on Wainui Rd. That scheme should be reconsidered before spending $64,137 on a Whale Bay – Wainui Reserve walkway.
p55 It appears most of the $277,946 for Wainui reserve projects will be spent on sealing the car park at the end of Riria Kereopa Memorial Drive. This car park works well without sealing.
p58 As the Raglan beacons have been renewed, it is not clear why $15,790 is needed.
p60 The Raglan kerbside recycling is working well and worth $117,493. Raglan recycling bins are also well used. Possibly the $38,926 could be increased to allow provision of the bins in all locations with a rubbish bin.
p64 Upgrade of the stormwater network at $224,957 is long overdue. However, money might be diverted from the stormwater projects associated with development ($58,917) as development is not taking place as fast as once expected. Similarly, the plan (p67) to relocate and rebuild Lorenzen Bay pump station and rising main ($562,393), provide additional pump storage ($168,171) and the water network upgrade works (p72 $117,835) may not be necessary.
p67 Consultation on the Whale Bay wastewater project is welcome. A scheme cheaper than the $3,260,251 allocated should be considered. For example, regular collection from septic tanks could be cheaper and bring a quicker solution to the pollution problem.
p72 Installation of water meters ($123,726 in Raglan each year) should be postponed. The plan is to work with WEL’s smart meters, but WEL has been silent about that project for over a year. It appears they’re waiting for the meters to become smart enough to turn off appliances, so as to shed peak demands, but that technology is some way from mass installation. Therefore the water meter preparations are probably premature.
Raglan Structure Plan looked promising until it was decided to short cut consultation. Provision should be made to continue with a plan incorporating Raglan Naturally issues.