Rates proposal’s costs for city detailed
Invercargill’s domestic ratepayers would face an average 30% direct increase in their Environment Southland rates under the changes proposed in the regional council’s Long-term Plan.
That figure would rise to 32.6% with the addition of an indirect charge as the city council passed on the impact of its own increased bill to ES, which would rise 119% to $402,000.
A report to Invercargill city councillors on Tuesday from strategy, policy and engagement manager Rhiannon Suter also put the direct increase for the city’s commercial ratepayers at 50%, rural industry ratepayers at 12%, utilities at $142% and the small number of large industry ratepayers in the city boundary at 112%.
Environment Southland is consulting on its plan, which includes budget increases both to cover the rising cost of undertaking its work, and to introduce more flood protection work.
It also plans changes to the rating system intended to spread the rating burden more equitably around the region, shifting focus from land value to capital value.
The city councillors supported a simplified rating system, and were silent on calls for the submission deadline to be extended, but asked ES to use differentials or other mechanisms to “rebalance’’ the forecast outcomes, particularly considering the impact on the city’s residential ratepayers.
They supported the focus on flood protection planning, but asked for clearer outlines of prioritisation and scheduling work for Invercargill.
The councillors welcomed upgrades to the Waihōpai Dam as one of three capital projects and sought delivery of the remaining Waihōpai floodbank project, designed to work with the Stead St stopbank and pump station improvements, in an early year of the long-term plan.
Deputy mayor Tom Campbell said the proposed flood protection work “might be a little bit painful from Invercargill’s point of view from time to time’’. “But we need to remember the best flood protection for Invercargill might be things happening in the district,” he said, rather than physically with the Invercargill territorial authority.
However Campbell spoke against Environment Southland rating at this stage for work that would not be done before the planning to determine the best projects had been carried out.
At a time when people were under cost-of-living pressure, some funding could easily be deferred for a year or two while planning work was done.
To do the necessary work was important but to develop a ‘’war chest’’ beforehand would be inappropriate, he said.
Finance chairman Grant Dermody pointed to cost overruns with Environment Southland’s Stead St pumping project. While he accepted that the contractor responsible for the mistake met the costs of it, he asked why the mistake arose in the first place and how well the project had been managed.
The council accepted his request it also seek assurances that Environment Southland had gone through its costs “line by line’’ to extract all the savings it could.