Garden overwhelmed by donation offers as councillor admits 'error' over $314 fee

Jo Stock was shocked to receive a letter from the council notifying her of the proposed fee hike. PHOTO/ANDREW WARNER

A Bayfair Community Gardens volunteer has been flooded with offers to pay a proposed $314 council annual land use fee after her story went viral this week.

Meanwhile, one Tauranga City councillor is backpedalling on the proposed policy change voted in last year, saying sending a letter to gardens co-ordinator Jo Stock was "an error".

Mount Maunganui/Papamoa ward councillor Leanne Brown posted a video on her Facebook page on Thursday admitting the council got it wrong.

"We realise at the time when we adopted the policy and told staff to go ahead we should have actually looked at the 55 organisations on the spreadsheet and worked out for ourselves that the likes of Bayfair Community Gardens - that give 100 per cent back to the community with food and to the Foodbank - shouldn't be subject to this.

"It was an error on our part that we missed it. We didn't know they were going to be one of the recipients of a letter and a notification."

The council was working on a fix for the issue, she said. In the meantime councillors and staff had received thousands of "nasty" messages over the matter.

Brown stopped short of saying the many other community groups who would face fee hikes under the new policy - including sports clubs, social service providers and childcare providers - should also be given a break.

She said she believed there was a difference between groups that gave 100 per cent back to the community and, for example, a sports club whose members benefited but the wider community largely did not.

The council's proposed land occupation policy change was an effort to standardise land use charges for community groups that own buildings sitting on council land.

Tauranga City Council is asking for community feedback on the policy - which would also see some land-using groups pay less than they currently do - as part of its Long-Term Plan for 2018-28.

Brown encouraged any group affected by the policy change to make a submission.

"We may throw the idea out altogether."

Bayfair Community Gardens volunteer Jo Stock said last night it was "great" to hear signs the council was "backpedalling".

"That outcome is really the one that we want - that they don't charge us."

She had heard of several offers from people and companies to pay the fee, if it came to pass, after two days of heavy coverage of the garden's plight.

Stock was happy to take donations - there were many projects that needed doing in the garden - but she was unsure about someone else paying the fee.

"It feels unethical to me to accept money from donors and give it straight to the council."