Palmerston North Mayor Grant Smith: City in spotlight at Smart Cities Forum and Net Zero Seminar in Taiwan

Smart cities such as Taipei in Taiwan point the way to the enhancement of Palmerston North city services.

OPINION:

As we head into a long holiday weekend on the back of an action-packed city summer events schedule, isn’t it great to have some sense of normality restored?

The city turned it on for the Super Rugby Pacific clash between the Hurricanes and Perth’s Western Force on Sunday.

Events such as this mean the world to our beleaguered hospitality and visitor sector, which has done it hard over the past three years - more on that shortly.

Last week, along with our chief city planner and sustainability and climate change manager, I had the pleasure of attending the Smart Cities Forum and Net Zero Seminar in Taipei, Taiwan.

Presenting as a panel speaker with Wellington on behalf of New Zealand cities, I spoke on what Palmerston North is doing in the digital and smart technology space and about our approaches to environmental sustainability.

Compared with the 42 countries and 350 cities represented at the three-day forum, Palmerston North and New Zealand are generally doing well.

We were also able to visit Taipei’s data control centre, along with leading international Taiwanese research and development centres.

There are some takeaways from Taipei I believe can be applied here, such as traffic light counters, cameras and sensors, as well as approaches to “sponge city” planning.

Council officers will be exploring how this planning and data control centre technology could be used to enhance Palmerston North.

The city’s March Quarterly Economic Report is out, and while the figures don’t incorporate 2023, they show some hopeful trends.

The city’s GDP growth for the year ended December 2022 rose 2.9 per cent and is worth $6.34 billion. This exceeded the national growth rate of 2.8 per cent.

Record investment in construction over the past three years, high rates of employment and good wage earnings growth have continued to support core spending even as our economy softens.

The benefits of city events programmes are reflected in visitor stats that show tourism spending increased 7.7 per cent during the year to January 2023 over the previous year.

The domestic tourism spend was up 4.1 per cent, while the international tourism spend increased a whopping 96.2 per cent. Combined, they brought around $275 million into the city over the year to January 2023.

Evidence of economic slowdown, however, is reflected in falling residential consents, a substantial drop in house prices and falling car and commercial vehicle registrations.

Retail data for the February 2023 quarter shows spending has fallen relative to the previous February quarter, with the main impact on discretionary spending.

Household living costs increased 8.2 per cent in the December quarter of 2022 compared with the 2021 December quarter.

The council is also subject to these rising costs affecting debt servicing, goods and services, insurance for our infrastructural and amenities assets, labour and skills supply.

Faced with these circumstances, your elected representatives have decided to reset the city’s Annual Budget.

Hopefully, you’ve received and read the Annual Budget mailer about this and are prepared to make submissions on our draft revised expenditure.

We’ve proposed reducing spending on new capital projects by nearly a third, and reprioritising programmes where possible. This is to knock an initial rates increase of 8.3 per cent down to 6.4 per cent.

More details are available at pncc.govt.nz/annualbudget, with the next public meeting about this in Ashhurst on Tuesday, April 11, and at Central Library on Saturday, April 15.

The hearing of submissions will take place in mid-May.

The short-term indications are the city, with its diverse economic base, is relatively well-placed to weather the economic storm.

Have a happy and safe Easter.

Grant Smith is the mayor of Palmerston North.