Plan process brings some good wins

The challenging Long Term Plan process concluded yesterday. In many ways it’s a relief to finally have certainty, to have made some wins and in particular I’m pleased with a couple of wins I managed to get across the line for O¯ taki.

As every council finds, there is no shortage of people and councillors eager to present our wish lists (and thankfully many do), and thankfully there are many people and colleagues to counter requests which add to the naturally lifting baseline through business as usual.

As I constantly remind people, politics is the art of persuasion.

One request that I managed to persuade colleagues on was that the GWRC has introduced a new policy for the targeted rate for public transport, with a special lower rate for O¯ taki.

Because the new policy makes quite a big change for some ratepayers, it will be progressively introduced over the next six years.

Once it is fully operational, houses in Otaki ¯ (and the Wairarapa) will have a differential of 0.5, which is half the differential applied to residential properties in the rest of the region (=1).

It means that a $300,000 house in O¯ taki (or Wairarapa) will pay half the rates for public transport that a $300,000 house in the rest of the region will pay, once the new policy has been fully introduced.

Business properties will have a differential of 1.4 — so a Business property valued at $1.5 million will pay 1.4 times the rates of a house that has the same value once the new policy has been fully introduced.

Properties in the Wellington city CBD will have a differential of seven, so they will pay seven times the rates of a house in Whitby that has the same value once the new policy has been fully introduced.

But the biggest win for O¯ taki, which has far reaching benefit, is that for the first time ever a permanent rail solution has been positioned in the GWRC Long Term Plan, that would replace the current Capital Connection with permanent (and new) Diesel Electric trains (two sets providing two services instead of the existing one service).

That money is in the GWRC Plan, and a business case is being prepared to pitch to central government for the full funding of the new trains.