Napier mayor Kirsten Wise said it was time for the public to have their say on rates rises. Photo / Getty Images
Napier mayor Kirsten Wise said it was time for the public to have their say on rates rises. Photo / Getty Images
Napier ratepayers could be facing a possible percentage record rates increase averaging 9.8 per cent for the 2022-2023 year.
But it could have been more, with mayor Kirsten Wise and the council facing a major flood, the Covid crisis and now heavily increasing council financial challenges all in her firstterm.
She revealed councillors and staff had culled the forecast from over 20 per cent in five councillor workshops and the resulting work over the last three months.
The increase is mooted in annual plan consultation proposals being recommended to a Napier City Council meeting on Thursday, and Wise says the proposals will go out for public consultation in April.
"Definitely that's the time for the public to have their say," Wise said.
"We have worked really hard to keep with within the percentage set in the Long-Term Plan (LTP), bearing in mind the challenges we've all had over the last two years."
"Our focus has been very much in finding efficiency as against reducing services," she said.
At the workshops, councillors were provided with cost pressures and cost-saving efficiencies that could be made, and agreed to stay within the 10.4 per cent LTP 2021-2031 ceiling by 0.6 per cent.
Napier mayor Kirsten Wise facing one of the crises in her first term with the mayoral chains, the Napier flood in November 2020. Photo / NZME
If agreed by the council in Thursday's meeting it will be included in an annual plan document to be reported back for council adoption on March 31 before going out for public consultation.
The council would call for submissions as part of the consultation process and is required to adopt the final annual plan by June 30.
In a year of possibly more contentious issues merging than any time in living memory – significantly a consequence of the coronavirus era and of nationwide realisation of need for greater investment in infrastructure - the rates increase proposal is one of five specific items the council is being asked to highlight in the consultation document delivered to all homes in the city.
Among others are proposed capital investment in the Napier Aquatic Centre in Onekawa to keep it operating pending building and opening of a new facility, and the future of the council's housing rental stock – each expected to also have separate public consultation, in a crammed space which means councils cannot make major decisions on possibly contentious issues in the three months before the Local Election date of October 8.
In relation to the aquatic centre, the council proposes to increase the capital budget, noting the rates impact of a $4 million investment in the upcoming financial year would be 0.3 per cent in 2023-2024.
The Council proposes to note the aquatic centre may require further investment in 2023-2024/24, but that would be bought back to council for consideration.
The other specific items are funding from reserves for any revenue shortfall from tourism activities (projected to be $2.5m in 2022-2-23), and Coastal Hazards asset transfer, which will have targeted engagement with Whakarire Ave residents over the next few weeks.
