Horizons Regional Council responds

Horizons Regional Council chair Rachel Keedwell says she nominated Alan Taylor as chair because of his extensive experience chairing and strong rural background. Photo / Bevan Conley

OPINION

Rachel Keedwell, chairwoman, Horizons Regional Council

Horizons Regional Council have recently gone out to our community, asking for their feedback on our draft Long-term Plan (LTP) 2024-34. Submissions have now closed, with hearings and deliberations to be held in the coming weeks.

The focus for this LTP has been on balancing increased changes and requirements by central government, holding the line on progress we have made, meeting community expectations, while also considering increased climate-related events and ageing populations. While we, like all councils across the country, are looking at large cost increases simply to provide our current levels of services due to inflationary pressures, we are very conscious of the potential impact any increase in rates can have on our community and believe we have also remained prudent in our spending wherever possible. Thus we have worked hard to limit the region-wide average rates increase for this LTP to 12.9 per cent in year one (2024-25), keeping in mind that some higher properties will experience a greater increase than that due to the proposed changes to how we charge the Uniform Annual General Charge (UAGC) and general rates.

As outlined in Horizons’ LTP consultation document, the Uniform Annual General Charge (UAGC) is a fixed amount applied equally to all ratepayers across the region - in the 2023/24 year it was $56. The UAGC pays for a range of council services that provide region-wide benefit, for example, the governance and leadership functions of council. Under the Local Government (Rating) Act a limit of 30 per cent of total rates revenue can be collected via uniform annual charges (UAC), which includes the UAGC.

Under the 2021 policy, revenue from investments is used to offset the general rate. The general rate is set based on capital value. This means that currently, ratepayers whose property has a higher capital value receive greater benefit from the revenue generated by council’s investments.

As part of the LTP, council is proposing to change the way it uses its revenue from investment activities from offsetting the general rate, to offsetting the uniform annual general charge (UAGC). It is forecasted that this would result in the UAGC decreasing to around $12.73 in 2024/25.

These changes will have differing impacts on properties across our region, based on their capital value. It is important to keep in mind that this rate impact will differ from district to district due to factors such as changes to property values, and specific rating inputs such as river schemes, biodiversity and passenger transport. We encourage property owners to visit our online rates search on the Horizons website to understand how our proposed LTP will affect their rates.

In relation to proposed new and improved regional transport connections through the provision of a regional transport network, this issue was presented as one of the consultation topics in the LTP consultation document. As stated in the document, this activity, if it is to go ahead, would be 100 per cent targeted to properties across the region which are predominantly urban in character, rather than all properties in the region. Therefore, those who would benefit the most, would contribute the most.

Councillors look forward to reading through submissions in the coming weeks and hearing from our community face-to-face as part of the Long-term plan hearings process. These conversations are incredibly important as we get to hear directly what you, our community, think, whether we have got it right, or if we should be looking at things differently. We appreciate the time and effort submitters have taken to provide their feedback and no doubt there will be some robust discussions to come amongst council.