Association says scheme’s shortfall proves it right
The Kerikeri Ratepayers’ Association said last week that it had been proved right, after the Far North District Council meeting of August 29 heard that Kerikeri’s new sewerage scheme urgently needed an additional $1.5 million to continue construction.
The three alternatives for the council’s consideration were to discontinue the work, to delay it so the plant’s capacity could be reduced, or to spend the extra $1.5m.
The association had only been informed in July, via a newsletter accompanying the first rates demand of this financial year, that the scheme was well behind schedule, and would not be ready to receive new connections until July 2020.
“This is nearly three years later than a strict ‘condition’ that the scheme had to be operational by October 31, 2017, to secure the Ministry of Health’s $7.3 million subsidy, which was the reason given by councillors in 2016 for their complete lack of engagement, consultation or liaison by staff, during an election period, in dealing with land owners in the extended area of benefit,” association spokesman Roger Barnard said.
“We were repeatedly told there would be no choosing to opt in or to opt out of the extended area of benefit, yet we have witnessed opting in going on ever since, via various resource consent applications and a private plan change outside the extended area of benefit, all of which have received permission from council engineers’ advising consenting and a plan change process.
“There are now many more properties lined up to be connected than had been included in the calculations for not only how much the rates would cost each connection, but in the analysis of what size to scale this new plant to.”
In October 2016, according to the council’s response to a Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act (LGOIMA) request from the association, the capital cost of the scheme was going to be $18m — the separate solution for the Waitangi ponds community was $4.97m — and it would service 1250 rateable units (SUIPs), 360 more than the existing 890 that were connected. Since then council advisers had declared that the new scheme would cater for an additional 350 SUIPs.
It was not clear if the additional $1.5m was needed only to complete the plant being built.
No reason had been given to the council for the cost over-run, which was presumably over and above the 15 per cent contingency that were factored into such budgets.
“It was also not clear if this increase in cost will fall upon, or be contained to, just those properties in the area of benefit that they have insisted is still relevant,” Mr Barnard said.
“Or are they intending to spread the cost across all ratepayers of the Far North? It is very difficult to know what is in their minds when so little has been released to the public for the purposes of ‘consultation’ with us on this project.
“This association thinks the mayor and councillors who collectively — by majority — are inflicting this very expensive yet capacity-constrained new treatment plant upon a small proportion of ratepayers (4 per cent) without so much as a single genuine consultative effort over the design of the scheme ought to be prepared to explain what is going on here, as this situation is entirely of their making.”