A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
Gisborne District Council has a lot of infrastructure investment under way, planned and expected, so ratepayers can forget the “5 to thrive” message of the 2018-2028 Long-Term Plan — preparing us for up-to-5 percent average rates rises for a decade following a few years of maximum 2 percent rises —and prepare for 6.5 percent hikes.
That is the message of a report on the Long-Term Plan (LTP)prioritisation process before the council today. The council's draft financial strategy recommends rises of up to 6.5 percent in the total rates take for the first three years of the 2021-2031 LTP — “to catch up to where we need to be” — “with the potential to reduce this to 5 percent from the fourth year”.
The report says this draft strategy “. . . proposes an initial spend in the early years of the LTP on critical infrastructure and increasing debt levels to enable this. Once over the ‘infrastructure hump' council aims to reduce debt and focus on maintaining our reserves.”
The report notes that population growth has been higher than forecast in 2018 and this, “combined with other challenges such as climate change and central government requirements and community expectations around how we look after Te Taiao (the environment), mean we need to carefully consider how we provide long-term sustainable infrastructure”. Also: “The need to reduce financial impacts on the community as a result of Covid-19 in 2020 meant we revised our starting point for 2021. This meant we were unable to smooth rates increases for critical infrastructure projects such as wastewater.”
The need for extra rates revenue comes despite generous central government financial support over the past three years. In fact, that has offset two big financial hurdles not explicity offered in the report as explanations for needed rates rises.
■ Bringing forward the second stage of the wastewater treatment plant upgrade soon after approving the 2018 LTP, then seeing estimated costs balloon from $24.4m to $34.8m; $7.5m has been allocated to this project from an $11.04m grant from the Government's Three Waters Reform programme.
■ The Waipaoa River Flood Control Scheme upgrade is now estimated to cost $32m-$35m — up from a $16.4m budget in the 2018 LTP — offset by $7.5m from the Covid Recovery Fund granted in July 2019.
■ And then there was the confidential settlement with owners of the leaky, earthquake-affected Marina View Apartments.
