Kaipara pensioners risk having to sell homes due to rates hike - community leader

Kaipara District Council's proposed rates are, at present, the highest for Northland for 2024/2025. Photo / Susan Botting

Kaipara pensioners may have to look at selling their homes if the council’s proposed 18.3 per cent rates rise goes ahead, community leader and long-time council watcher Dot Gorrie says.

Kaipara District Council (KDC) proposed rates are, at present, the highest for Northland for 2024/2025.

Mamaranui’s Gorrie said the council’s record rates rise would risk pensioners having to look “pretty seriously” at whether they could stay in their homes.

Pensioners, who were on fixed incomes, could have to look at downsizing to a more affordable property, she said.

The council watcher of almost 30 years described KDC’s early-stage proposed rates rise as scary.

“I’m shocked, thank goodness I am sitting down,” Gorrie said when told the figures by Local Democracy Reporting Northland.

“For people on a fixed income, it’s getting beyond a joke.”

She said it was getting to the stage where people could not afford to pay their rates.

Longtime Kaipara council watcher Dot Gorrie. Photo / Susan Botting

KDC’s LTP council meeting in Ruawai on March 6 indicated a prospective 18.3 per cent proposed rates rise for 2024/2025.

This figure would be finalised on March 28, ahead of a month’s public consultation.

However, council general manager sustainable growth and investment Sue Davidson indicated that figure would likely be trimmed by up to 4.5 percentage points, after further financials were worked through.

She later said the 2024/2025 rates increase figure would likely be 15 per cent.

Gorrie said her concerns for Kaipara pensioners would still prevail, even with a 15 per cent rates increase.

That was still a record rates rise for the council.

KDC has special dispensation from the Government to produce a three-year rather than the normal 10-year Long Term Plan from 2024/2025, in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle’s damaging impact.

Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson said the coming three years’ proposed LTP budget was a repair budget and aimed at keeping the basics ticking over.

The council was recovering from last year’s extreme weather events and fighting huge pressure from compounding inflation and interest rates.

The council was also now shouldering $44 million in Three Waters debt after the Government axed water reform legislation.

The council’s drinking water, wastewater and stormwater assets and debts had been due to be transferred to the country’s first-established water services organisation, known as Entity A, from July.

This would have seen Three Waters services from KDC, Auckland Council, Whangārei District Council and Far North District Council combined into the inter-regional mega entity that would run them, and carry their debt, rather than this falling on councils.

“We are majorly impacted by this and it’s clear that we cannot burden our ratepayers with the level of investment needed for our Three Waters services,” Jepson said.

Kaipara District Mayor Craig Jepson. Photo / Michael Cunningham

He said the Government had indicated funding would be available to KDC and other councils towards managing the returned Three Waters asset and debt into the future.

It needed to get moving on providing the details around this.

Jepson said the council was in the short term having to find a way forward.

Three Waters infrastructure across the district needed attention. This included wastewater treatment plants at Maungaturoto, Paparoa and Dargaville which were reaching capacity.

Dargaville’s drinking water supply was also an issue.

Mangawhai’s wastewater scheme expansion would be progressing but in the next three years, only to keep up with the provision of the extra connections needed.

Jepson said the council had indicated, during the formation of Entity A, that $600 million was needed over the next decade to bring its Three Waters assets up to the Government’s gold-plated standards.

The council would simply now be keeping these facilities ticking over and delaying some further works, he said.

“We will be sweating our assets,” Jepson said,

He said Kaipara was impoverished with a median annual income of only $38,000.

It had only 18,000 ratepayers to shoulder Three Waters debt and increasing costs.

“I can’t see the dairy farmers making enough money to pay their bills. Sheep and beef farmers are paying to farm. Kūmara growers haven’t had a good return for three or four years.”

This provided a challenging context when it came to ratepayers across the district being able to pay their rates.

■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.