Palmerston North City Council confirms long-term plan after changes related to community submissions

The Pasifika Community Centre will be upgraded as proposed in the council's consultation document.

After a record amount of public feedback, Palmerston North City Council has adopted its long-term plan which includes a change to how it calculates rates.

In April, the council consulted on the draft plan, including whether it should change the rating system and whether its plan for key seismic upgrades to city landmarks was right, as well as asking about new or proposed upgrades to six community facilities.

A record 1441 submissions were received.

Elected members have confirmed the council’s vision “Small city benefits, big city ambition”, and its City Strategy which includes four goals and associated plans for achieving the vision and strategy.

Mayor Grant Smith said the public feedback helped shape the final plan.

“We’ve been thrilled to see such a large amount of people getting involved in our long-term plan and having their say, including many first-timers. Whether it was a formal submission, on our Facebook live, during public engagement sessions, drawings, poems, videos, public meetings, face-to-face or over email, it was just fabulous to see people having their say on the future of our city.

“This feedback was crucial in helping elected members make decisions on the final plan. Our plan shows we have listened to our community and made decisions that reflect their concerns.”

The council asked for feedback on the rating system, including options of the status quo, a capital value system or a hybrid 70% land/30% capital model.

Smith said there was a large range of feedback on all the options.

“One of the key points raised by all submitters was a matter of fairness and how we could make our rating system fair for all ratepayers – whether residential, rural, commercial or otherwise.

“We heard that loud and clear and have adopted a new rating system which will see rates be determined 50% on land value and 50% on capital value to be phased in over a three-year period.”

There have been significant budget cuts for the new Awapuni Community Library Hub and changes to timeframes for this project.

The first stage of the new rating system will come into effect from July 1, with information to be included in the annual rates invoice booklet to all property owners in August. Residents can see their rates for the coming year on the council’s website now.

Smith said elected members made changes for rural lifestyle ratepayers. The council proposed reducing the discount rural lifestyle ratepayers received and would proceed with that, but in a staged process and less than what was proposed.

Currently, there is a 37% discount or differential to the general rate for these ratepayers. During the consultation, the council proposed that the discount should be lowered to 17%. Elected members voted to stage this, making the discount 30% in Year 1 (July 2024-June 2025), and 25% from Year 2 (July 2025-June 2026).

During consultation, the council explained that its Nature Calls resource water or wastewater project could cost $647m including inflation. As a result of feedback, elected members voted to reduce that budget to $480m excluding inflation and that staff review and report back to the council about whether there are any new, or better, best practicable options for treatment and discharge for the future.

Seismic upgrades for Central Library, Te Manawa Museum and the Regent Theatre will be pushed back one year. That decision comes from submissions on these projects but also wider feedback on reducing rates, especially in the next year. The council will look at options for obtaining co-funding for the projects.

The proposed new Multicultural Centre will now be built within the council’s main city centre offices, by reallocating staff space. This reduces the initial construction costs and ongoing operational costs by not having an external commercial lease.

There have been significant budget cuts for the new Awapuni Community Library Hub, changes to timeframes for this project and upgrades to Te Pātikitiki Highbury Library.

Elected members have allocated $1.5m for Roslyn’s Eastern Library Hub, which was not proposed during consultation but came as a result of submissions during consultation.

Work on the Arena 5 new indoor court space at the Central Energy Trust Arena will start earlier than planned, but all other work has been deferred.

A new Rangitāne Civic Marae development at Te Motu o Poutoa Anzac Park and upgrades to the Pasifika Centre are set to continue, based on what was proposed during consultation.

Smith said elected members agreed to increase funding, staged over three years, for the community sector partners to help continue the work they were doing for residents.

There were significant improvements to maintenance and renewal budgets, especially in the transport and water networks, which the community had been keen to see for some time, he said.

“This long-term plan has been a case of striking the balance. This coming year, the total rates increase is 10.1%.”

Elected members had worked hard to get it to that point with the number of legally required projects the council faced, but “appreciate that will still be hard for some in our community with current cost of living pressures”.

“Our long-term plan, as well as most around the country, has demonstrated that the funding model for local government is broken and it needs to be sorted out as soon as possible. Councils are funding more and more each year, often as requirements from the Government, but our community simply can’t afford to keep doing this.”

Smith said receiving an adverse opinion on the long-term plan from Audit New Zealand was an example of this.

“We received an adverse opinion last time due to our wastewater project Nature Calls. This time around we still have some uncertainties about funding that project, as well as the co-funding required for legally required seismic upgrades. These projects do not have significant funding within the first three years of our long-term plan and will be subject to future community consultation and the next long-term plan in three years.

“We’ll also be continuing to look at ways we can provide more certainty regarding funding these projects for our community, and whether projects need to be deferred or reprioritised if the funding does not eventuate in line with our plan. We’ll also be reiterating these concerns to the Government, as both Nature Calls and the seismic upgrades need to occur to meet legislative timeframes.”

Smith said it was important the community continued to feed into decision-making.

“It’s been great to see this many submissions, and we hope to see that continue. Many of the programmes in our plan will be subject to further feedback, engagement, co-design and ongoing consultation and we encourage people to get involved and keep providing feedback so we can ensure we’re all Palmy Proud.”

The long-term plan will be available on the council’s website once minor amendments have been made.