Why should you make submissions to council?

Scrutinise your rates, as you would any other bill

The submissions for Whanganui’s District Council’s

2022-2023 Annual Plan have now closed — and there are more than 200, largely focused on the kerbside recycling and food waste issue, which I will come to later in this column.

The average residential ratepayer will pay $3150 annually for a range of services; for most of us this is a big household bill, which should be scrutinised like your power, telephone and grocery bills. You could buy a pretty nice smart TV, quality bed or lounge suite, new fridge/ freezer or new e-bike for what your town rates cost.

Council is hearing submissions on Thursday, May 12, and making its decisions (deliberating) on Thursday, May 26.

You are welcome to come to council to listen on both days, although some Covid protocols are likely.

You may ask: why bother making submissions when council doesn’t listen anyway? I have heard that hundreds of times in the past year, particularly when council asked the community to have a say on our 2021-31 Long Term Plan (LTP), and had as its No 1 issue the Whanganui Velodrome project.

Council’s preferred option,

Option 2: Roofed Velodrome with $20 million capital cost, received the highest submissions in history with 608, with 561 submissions and well over 50 per cent support for a roof, yet council inexplicably made the decision NOT to proceed, with a 6:6 split vote, including the mayor voting against and Cr Reid abstaining.

The equal votes meant the motion was lost, via council’s standing orders, with council voting against its preferred option.

All I can say in regards to why you should bother to submit, is that submissions can help alter council’s decisionmaking, even when they have a “preferred option”.

That brings me to the upcoming Annual Plan. Really the only reason council needs to consult wider is that it wants to introduce something that it didn’t cost into the LTP.

Council wants to introduce kerbside recycling in 2023 at a cost per rating unit (each ratepayer) of $134/year and food waste in 2024 at a cost of $61/year.

For this upcoming 2022/23 year, the average proposed rate increase is 3.9 per cent (about an extra $130 per rates bill) but that will vary slightly with every rateable property. The average residential rate “rise” is actually 4.1 per cent, 6 per cent lifestyle property, 5.2 per cent farming and 1.2 per cent commercial property.

Although we are asking for your submissions/feedback on the LTP Amendment and particularly “recycling”, the above rate increases will not include these new fees, as it will take 12 months to set up.

If you do support recycling in 2023, my understanding is that rates will increase by a proposed 2.8 per cent to 5.1 per cent and for food waste in 2024, rates will increase by a proposed 3.3 per cent to 4.3 per cent, moving our peak debt from $133 million to closer to $140m (2023-24).

All of this is without including any potential further ratepayer capital funding for the Sarjeant Gallery that we were recently informed has increased by $9.4m to $64.4m and, as it is in the middle of being built, the money must be found.

If council has to fund all this over-run, it will add another 1 per cent to rates every year for 20-25 years, as it would be loan-funded.

The Velodrome is again mentioned in this 2022-23 Annual Plan as, thank goodness, council found some good common sense to approve $2.5m to replace the rotten track, at the end of those LTP decisions.

This money is factored into our Annual Plan, so will not increase rates further than explained.

Some really good work has occurred, led by Ron Cheatley and it’s looking very feasible to complete this replacement by the end of 2023, allow this significant “Hero” project to be well utilised again, and enliven Cooks Garden and our central city.