Northland Regional Council chairman Pita Tipene believes a 0% increase in rates take is achievable for the upcoming financial year. Photo / NZME
Northland local government leaders are reacting cautiously to news of Te Tai Tokerau’s first proposed rates freeze in a decade.
The zero-rate increase has been put forward by Northland Regional Council for its 2026/2027 financial year and would affect 100,000 ratepayers.
Chairman Pita Tipene said the council had been looking for savings and reductions that would not “deeply impact our overall levels of service”.
“We believe a 0% increase in rates take is achievable for the upcoming financial year.
“In an era of rising costs and inflation, holding the line on rates is our tangible way of standing with our people and easing pressure where it’s needed.”
Northland’s last zero-rate increase was in 2014, also at the regional council.
Tipene said the rates freeze would build on the regional council’s 3.54% general rates increase for 2025/2026, which had been lower than the 5.79% initially forecast.
This followed three consecutive double-digit rate rises: 15.94% in 2024/2025, 10.48% in 2023/2024 and 13.9% in 2022/2023.
Tipene said the move would mean minor reductions in some service levels but the council’s overall work would continue as planned.
He said the regional council had begun its rates consideration before the Government recently announced plans for council rates capping.
“We didn’t need central Government to prompt us in our approach.”
The final rating decision will be confirmed mid-2026 with the council’s next Annual Plan.
Former regional council chairman, Mangawhai’s Mark Farnsworth, responded cautiously to the proposed freeze.
Farnsworth said he applauded the council – if it could hold rates and still match the extra costs of inflation without draining capital or borrowing to the point where interest costs were greater than the rates take.
Council rates were challenged by central Government’s compliance cost creep and more work being pushed on to authorities without adequate funding, Farnsworth said.
Former regional council deputy chairman and Kaipara Mayor Graeme Ramsey said the zero increase would be welcomed in his district.
“A lot of people over here are finding it very tough. The cost of living is a big issue,” Ramsey, from Baylys Beach, said.
But he was tentative about the freeze, saying he wanted to know what services were being cut to fund it.
Meanwhile, former Whangārei District Council Mayor Stan Semenoff said the regional council’s proposal was positive.
“Let’s hope it stays into the future,” Semenoff, also a former regional council deputy chairman, said.
He said the council needed to be careful about how this was achieved.
Semenoff helmed the district council and, with finance committee chairs Wally Yovich, Dick Sumpter and Warwick Syers, achieved Northland’s longest annual rates freeze of nine consecutive years starting from 1989 when there was local government amalgamation and the district council began.
Whangārei District Council proposed a new rates increase option for its Annual Plan next year, halving the 2026/27 rise that is set to be consulted on in March at its December meeting.
This would slash its planned 10.1% increase to about 5%.
Whangārei Mayor Ken Couper said the council had heard the community’s concerns about rates affordability and an independent financial review was underway looking for further opportunities to cut costs.
The district council would consider the status quo 10.1% increase and another option, which Couper said would lighten the rating load for commercial and industrial ratepayers to better support economic growth and job creation.
This would involve residential ratepayers’ share of the overall rating payment increasing.
Meanwhile, local government veteran and former Whangārei District Council deputy mayor Phil Halse said both councils’ downward rates moves were a “good start”.
But he said they needed to be careful they weren’t forced into borrowing to fund the work that rates would otherwise pay for.
Costs for today’s council work should not be pushed on to future generations to pay for, he said.
Halse said the district council’s proposed rates halving was a good move, as long as it came with the capacity for increases through rates or debt to fund unforecast storm damage from events like Cyclones Gabrielle and Bola.
Kaipara District Council has yet to signal its draft 2026/2027 rates increase.
The council is expected to decide on this early next year.
Its long-term planning set an average 8.3% general rates increase.
Councillors will be reviewing budgets in February to identify efficiencies where possible, with the average general rates increase dependent on any budget changes.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.