‘Tough times only just started’

A Queenstown mother who has taken a 58 per cent drop in income because of Covid-19 says a planned rates decrease is not enough to help struggling homeowners.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council had planned a

6.76 per cent average rates increase but last week announced it would drop that to

1.72 per cent.

Fiona McArthur has lost contract tourism work, dropped hours working on the stop-go signs and had to shelve plans to start her own tourism company this year.

A mortgage holiday from the bank enabled her to pass on savings to her two boarders, and she is grateful for the 32 hours a week she retained with Southern Safety Systems, but times were tough, she said.

‘‘My budget is to the cent. It’s not an impossible situation but it allows me to prepare for the worst – no job.’’

She is among dozens of locals who begged the Queenstown Lakes District Council to reduce its planned rates increase but

Both the accused and the complainant had been poorly served by the justice system.

Fiona McArthur Queenstown mother

said the new rate didn’t go far enough. The council described the new rate in annual plan documents as a one-off temporary position, achieved despite the council losing $25 million in revenue.

To enable the reduced rates, it planned to cut staff costs by $7m, rely on a forecast reduction in interest rates ($2.2m), reduce its forecast surplus ($3.7m,) reduce development contributions ($4.5m) and reduce capital debt repaid ($2.8m) while suspending all loan repayments ($5.8m) and increased borrowing of $3.8m.

However, it is still planning to invest $172m in a capital programme, part of a 10-year, billion-dollar capital expenditure plan to meet the costs tourism was imposing on the district.

Mayor Jim Boult said the final rate was yet to be decided but the new proposal was ‘‘very reasonable’’ considering the council had had its income decimated.

There was a limit to how far rates could be reduced while maintaining services such as sewerage and water, he said.

McArthur lives in Arthurs Point where the median rates will actually decrease by 3.69 per cent to about $3000, but every other residential area in the district is still facing an increase – 4.27 per cent in Wanaka and 7.56 per cent in Kingston.

That was not good enough in an economy where hundreds of people were losing their jobs, she said.

‘‘I was absolutely shocked to the core when I read the percentages.’’

A council spokesman said rates were not evenly distributed because they were determined by a combination of the costs for services provided to specific areas, along with a share of community-wide costs.

Arthur said the council was focused on helping migrant workers but needed to foresee the waves of unemployment coming among residents.

‘‘The tough times have only just started.’’

‘‘I was absolutely shocked to the core.’’