Storm recovery charge proposed to be paid by more residents
Ratepayers may face a smaller annual storm recovery charge in Nelson as the council looks to spread the cost over more residents.
Nelson City Council is looking to reduce the annual $330 storm recovery charge to $300. Each ratepayer will likely face the fee for 10 years, starting in 2025.
The council has managed to get the cost down by considering a different approach for who it charges.
The council is proposing to charge each Separately Used or Inhabited Part (SUIP) instead of applying the charge to each rateable unit, spreading the $60-million storm recovery cost over an extra 3000 units.
In practice, the key change is that places like retirement villages or apartments where there are multiple homes, but a single title, would pay the charge for each effective unit.
Nelson has 25,284 SUIPs compared with 22,367 separate rateable units.
“The reason the council has refined its approach to the storm recovery rate is because we think it is fairer to spread the cost over a wider group of ratepayers,”
Mayor Nick Smith said.
“There is no perfectly fair approach for how we recover the $59.8 million storm recovery cost to council, but with further advice and feedback from the community, we think getting the rate down and spreading it more widely is the better approach,” he added.
The general rate will still apply to only each rateable unit rather than also being applied to each SUIP.
The council is currently proposing an 8.2% rates increase for the 2024/25 financial year.
However, once the storm recovery charge is factored in, that changes to an effective increase of about 15.4% for the first year of the 10-year Long Term Plan.
Reducing the annual charge won’t decrease the average effective rates increase but instead changes where and to what degree the burden falls.
Nelson City Council is expected to adopt its consultation document for the draft Long Term Plan 2024-34 in March, with consultation following soon after.
Residents will be able to provide feedback on dozens of suggestions, including the proposal to apply the storm recovery charge, referred to as the ‘recovery targeted rate’, across each SUIP, or the proposal to introduce the charge in the first place.