After hearing from a large contingent of submitters this week it was decided to only reduce funding by $300,000 in year one, keeping funding at $1.52m for the first three years of the LTP, at the same time as asking Hawke's Bay Tourism to investigate other funding avenues, such as a bed tax.
During deliberations after the submissions hearings, councillor Alan Dick said he was pleased a degree of logic and commonsense had finally entered the debate.
"I will vote against this though because I think this council has had and will have very good value from an ongoing contribution of $1.8m, with industry further contributing $950,000 a year on top."
Councillor Peter Beaven said a wide range of views had been canvassed and he was sorry this would not be a consensus vote among councillors.
"It's very hard to measure the success of the $1.8m we have invested - there's no measure invented that council can quantify how much it contributes to tourism growth."
In approving a single regional rate for civil defence, some concern was expressed at the lack of detail in the territorial authorities' LTP proposals released to date about whether the money they had individually previously rated for civil defence would result in rates reductions for their constituents, or be absorbed and spent elsewhere.
Councillor Paul Bailey said it was unfortunate the territorial authorities did not take the opportunity to be as clear as they should have been in terms of the information provided to ratepayers with the LTPs.
Councillor Neil Kirton said it was important to send a message to the territorial authorities they needed to show their constituents where the money they were no longer rating for had gone.
Council chairman Rex Graham said the regional council should be making the decision for the right reason.
"We should stop playing politics and take a wider view - the submissions were overwhelmingly in support - this is the right thing to do."
In other key proposals, the council agreed to borrow up to $35m over the next 10 years, to provide incentives to change in the form of interest-free loans for farm plans and subsidies for riparian and reforestation.
It also agreed to spend $650,000 over three years to establish and operate a "future farming" initiative to lead on-farm research innovation.
Councillors Debbie Hewitt and Alan Dick voted against the future farming initiative.
Hewitt said it was a "red herring" at a time when the country was dealing with biosecurity incursions such as M Bovis.
"It's taking away from the focus of building the land management team, staff and capability - it's a nonsense - this is already being levied and paid for by the farming community."
The council also agreed to a 2.9 per cent increase in rates for 2018-19 to cover increased costs in regulation (planning, consents, compliance and science).
Over the next 10 years, the council would borrow up to $13m to provide financial assistance packages to allow 1300 homes in Hawke's Bay to become more sustainable, such as solar heating. The scheme would be fully cost recovered so there would be no impact on the ratepayer.
In a bid to work more closely with tangata whenua, an extra $384,000 would be spent in the first year of the LTP, and it was agreed to join the Local Government Funding Agency as an un-rated guarantor.
Graham said it was great to have the public so engaged in the consultation process.
"We have listened and deliberated over all of the submissions and as a result there have been some changes to our plan. I personally have been challenged on two matters after hearing and reading submissions."
He said the council was aware the rate increase would be difficult for some and it would be pro-actively communicating payment plan options to the public.
The Long-Term Plan will be adopted at a council meeting on June 27.
