Napier ratepayers face highest rise ever

Napier ratepayers are looking at the highest ever proposed rates rise, of 23.7%, due in large part to the need to improve ageing infrastructure.

Napier City councillors yesterday signed off on consulting on the proposed increase, which Mayor Kirsten Wise noted was originally going to be 43%.

A draft financial and infrastructure strategy to support the council’s Three-Year Plan 2024-27 Consultation Document said it was time “to be honest with ourselves about the state of the infrastructure networks we manage”, and admitted that the council had not invested in infrastructure as it should have.

“A significant proportion of our asset portfolio is ageing, which is common after development ‘booms’ in the 1950s and 1970s. It gets to a point where lots of assets come to the end of their useful lives after 50 to 80 years – a concrete pipe, for example, is only engineered to last for a finite period,“it said.

“We also haven’t invested the way we needed to in maintenance and proactive replacement. While that saved our ratepayers money in the short term, it means we’re starting to see assets failing and requiring costly emergency fixes and increased renewal programmes,” the document said.

Ratepayers who were around for the failed amalgamation of the Napier and Hastings councils in 2015 will recall thenNapier mayor Bill Dalton and CEO Wayne Jack rubbishing claims that the council had underinvested in infrastructure assets, and claiming that the city’s infrastructure was better than that of Hastings.

This year’s three-year plan contradicts those claims.

Napier City Council presently has an external debt of $10m. By 2034, this is expected to be $504m.

While the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle and requirements imposed by new drinking water rules have affected rates, much of the increase is due to ageing infrastructure. More than $10 million is needed for new water reservoirs over the next 10 years, to replace an ageing one and build another. About $20m is needed to upgrade the city’s wastewater plant and outfall.

Wise said the proposed rates increase was the highest ever put out for consultation, and she thanked staff for finding a 20% reduction from a draft version of the consultation document which proposed a 43% increase.

“I know there will be many in our community who are surprised and not happy with the proposed rate increase that we are asking them to provide feedback to us on, and we encourage everybody to provide their feedback,” she said.

Wise said it was important to understand that Napier and other councils were faced with “ever-increasing pressures on our financial position”.

“Obviously here in Hawke’s Bay, we have the additional impact of Cyclone Gabrielle and the ongoing recovery to that. All councils are dealing with a new Government and the ongoing uncertainty around all manners of reform, which are still in play, and not knowing quite how they might impact on our future financial sustainability,” Wise said.

Public consultation on the proposed Three-Year Plan 2024-27 will begin on March 25.