Find an affordable way to move Dunedin forward

IT is great to see the bold plan for our city as proposed by our council. Unfortunately this is balanced by the need to pay for these improvements.

Our council, led by Mayor Dave Cull, was set only two years ago to reducing debt. It now wants to increase debt, as well as increase income by raising rates, and these are set to rise by 60% over the next 10 years, from an average of about $2308 per year ($44 per week) to $3693 per year ($71 per week).

Can Dunedin’s citizens afford this, when income expects only a 15% rise?

We cannot stop moving forward but it must be done in a measured consistent manner.

We must not allow mayor’s leaving their post with a larger debt and poorer rate payers than when they started, as is the case of both this and our previous mayor. Gavin Turner

Dunedin

The ODT (11.5.18) described as ‘‘smaller’’ the annual rises in rates of 4% to 5% for the nine years that follow the initial rise of 7.3%.

This is an accurate description of the yearonyear increases. However, as the increases are both cumulative and compounding, the rates increases could also be described as becoming progressively larger in each subsequent year.

After 10 years, rates will be 59% higher than their present levels. As inflation is under 2%, and increases in personal incomes will tend to be of a similar magnitude, the council’s planned rates rises will result in rates demands taking up an increasing proportion of ratepayer incomes.

In the long term, rates increases that continue to exceed the rate of inflation are unsustainable.

Much of the rates increases are required for renewal of essential infrastructure such as drainage. Nevertheless, the council having voted for the most expensive option on all three of the nonessential projects in its LTP deliberations could be seen as adding insult to injury.

Many put in submissions to the LTP consultation which opposed the most costly options. The majority of the present council are nevertheless showing an appetite for more spending, more debt, and higher rates. This is a turnaround in attitude from just a year earlier, when the council had a policy of limiting rates increases to 3% per annum. The 2019 elections will be an opportunity for the disgruntled to have a say on the matter. Malcolm MoncriefSpittle

Dunedin

GIVEN the proposed rate rise, perhaps it is time to examine alternatives to the bridge to the harbour properly.

Access to the harbour will be wonderful but years ago we used to just drive past a barrier arm and across the tracks. As there seem to be hardly any trains, I doubt that would cause much inconvenience or danger to anyone, if managed properly. The road still does that at the other end of the railway station, apparently without too many problems.

Maybe it’s worth a second look.

Bill Gilmore

Caversham

I WAS fascinated by an opinion piece from Rob Hamlin (ODT, 11.5.18) and I’m still awaiting the uproar.

It was a critical look at the DCC accounts but try as I might, as a layperson, I found it difficult to comprehend. And if we are in trouble, to what depth? I could discern however that it sounded sinister, peppered with dark acronyms and seemingly dire consequences.

But as ratepayers how worried should we be, on a simplified scale, say from ‘‘concerned to totally devastated?’’

Perhaps we should call upon that other ‘‘Hamelin’’ fellow to bring out his magic instrument and pipe away all the ‘‘rats and mice’’ that may be lurking in the DCC books?

Tony Crick Andersons Bay