ECan warns of looming rates hit
Ratepayers will face an increase in regional council rates of at least 15%, the chairperson of Environment Canterbury (ECan) has warned.
Peter Scott said he could not disclose the exact proposed rates rise, but warned it would be “substantial”.
“It won’t be under 15%, it’s likely to be substantially more than that.”
The proposed increase will be included in the draft long-term plan, which is due to go before the council in February before heading to public consultation.
Christchurch City Council has yet to confirm its proposed rates rise, but earlier in the year mayor Phil Mauger signalled it could be around 18%, and warned of service cuts - though that figure was a starting point and the final rise is expected to be significantly lower. Rates owed to city and district councils make up the major portion of bills.
Based on a typical home in Marshland with a capital value of $680,000, a 15% rise would push a rates bill from about $346 to about $398.
ECan has responsibility for the region’s environment, public transport, rivers and waterways, and regional planning and consents, as well as being an environmental watchdog.
Councils across the country are grappling with the prospect of large rates rises.
Last week Hamilton City Council voted for a whopping 25.5% proposed rates rise next year to rein in borrowing by balancing spending.
Speaking in October, Selwyn mayor and Local Government New Zealand president Sam Broughton said councils desperately needed different ways other than rates to raise money.
“Funding is the number one concern for councils. We need more funding tools. The current tool that we have is rates, and it’s a very narrow way of funding all the infrastructure that councils provide,” he told RNZ.
“We need other tools that enable councils to be sustainable.”
In a statement, Scott said the “significant rate rise” was to “meet the demands placed on us from government mandates, growing community expectations and the impacts of climate change”.
It wasn’t something the council is “completely comfortable in having to do” but is “left with little choice”.
“Frankly, I’m tired of fronting community meetings where I have to ask you, my fellow ratepayers, to pick up the tab for government decisions when we’re all already contributing to Treasury’s tax take,” Scott said.
“Like other councils across the country, we’re feeling the pinch of rising costs driven by inflation, and are facing challenging times in delivering our growing legal obligations and your ambitions for the region.”
It would “take some time” before there was any detail on policy changes signalled by the new government, Scott said.
In the meantime, the council would have to “press ahead with business as usual for environmental regulation, public transport, and all our other core services”.
He said: “I’ve also explained to ministers that, although we’re well positioned to respond to any changes that might come our way during their tenure, our community and ratepayers have to foot the bill every time government changes policy.
“This ultimately results in extra work for us to deliver with no additional funding, meaning we have to cover those costs ourselves.”
Scott said he hoped to have the opportunity to speak to ministers, particularly Chris Bishop, Minister of Resource Management Act Reform, on the repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act, which the coalition has vowed to get rid of before Christmas. He said the repeals would leave the RMA in place, which has “a few hiccups and hurdles that those things were looking to fix”.
Environment Canterbury processed three times more consents than any other regional council in the country, he said, and legislative changes had left it issuing short-term consents, which could result in a “tsunami of stuff” in years to come.
“I can see that in our future, we’re not going to have enough consenting people or enough planners, or enough money ... from our ratepayers.”
Inflationary pressures were a key driver of rates increases, he said, as were plans for work on river resilience and stopbanks, and improvements to public transport.
He said the issue is widespread, with councils across the country “all in a substantial rate increase situation.”