Horowhenua District Council proposes to stop mowing berms to save money

Horowhenua District Council is proposing to stop mowing berms to reduce rates requirements.

Love thy neighbour, mow thy grass? Urban grass berm mowing looks set for the chop in Horowhenua and the onus for tidy streets could fall on civic-minded neighbours with lawnmowers.

Horowhenua District Council (HDC), faced with handing ratepayers a 23.6 per cent rate rise, plans to cull some services such as berm mowing to keep the rates increase at a more palatable 17.4 per cent.

All urban grass berms in the district are council-owned and the HDC is one of a handful of councils in New Zealand still mowing berms and charging ratepayers collectively for the service.

While most people mow their own berm, the district-wide service costs ratepayers $240,000 annually. To cease funding berm mowing will shave 0.5 per cent off the projected rate increase.

Not all grass berms in Horowhenua are created equal though. Many homes in towns such as Foxton, Foxton Beach, Shannon and Tokomaru have no footpaths and comparatively larger grass areas than houses in more densely populated Levin.

Foxton Community Board member David Roache has always happily mowed his own sizeable berm, which is 9m wide, each week.

“It’s so big I could put a tiny home out the front,” he said.

He “reluctantly” supported removing funding for urban berm mowing in a formal submission to the HDC last week.

Foxton Community Board member David Roache.

“While the berm mowing does keep things tidy, I don’t think it should continue to be subsidised,” he said.

But Kere Kere Ward councillor for Foxton and Foxton Beach, Ross Brannigan, said he was concerned that unkempt lawns would pop up everywhere and have an adverse effect on the appearance of the district.

“To expect that other people will mow these lawns... it just doesn’t happen like that these days,” he said.

“Bottom line is council owns the land and should continue to mow the grass.”

Horowhenua councillor Ross Brannigan.

Brannigan said coastal and rural towns would be affected as there were more homes uninhabited in those areas and some of the towns had grass berms as wide as 15m.

“There’s no kerb and channel in many of these streets and it will end up costing those people more to have their grass mown,” he said.

A large number of homes in the district have no one living in them permanently, according to the latest Census.

Of the 13,302 homes in Horowhenua, 2391 were unoccupied private dwellings and 58.6 per cent were listed as privately owned.

Lawn mowing contractor Dereck Taylor said he had never charged extra for mowing berms.

“You don’t charge for mowing a berm. Unless it’s massive,” he said.

Green By Nature, formerly Recreational Services, has the council contract to manage all parks and reserves, including all berm mowing.

Berms are seen to on a needs basis. The rule of thumb has been that if grass berms are left to grow higher than 150mm, they will be cut to about 50mm.

Council contractors will also cut berms if long grass hinders traffic visibility or when there is an unsightly lawn in a high-profile site, such as the town entrance, or where there is grass growing on a high bank that a traditional lawnmower cannot access.

The council can have grass mown on private land, at the expense of the property owner, if it is deemed a fire risk.

The council will make a decision on urban grass berms by the end of the month when it signs off on its Long-Term Plan for 2024-2034.