Rotorua councillors adopted the 2026-27 Annual Plan in Wednesday's chilly council meeting. Photo / Mathew Nash
Rotorua councillors adopted the 2026-27 Annual Plan in Wednesday's chilly council meeting. Photo / Mathew Nash
Rotorua Lakes Council staff and councillors braved “igloo”-like council chambers on Wednesday to adopt the 2026-27 Annual Plan.
The room temperatures dropped as low as 15.5C, but councillors did not go cold on an average rates rise of 6.8%, down from the projected 10.8% drafted in December.
Mayor Tania Tapsellexplained that teething problems with a new geothermal heating system were the cause of the chill.
Councillors kept winter coats and puffer jackets on. Merepeka Raukawa-Tait huddled under two blankets and even former Winter Olympics skeleton racer Ben Sandford struggled.
Council strategic policy adviser Ashton Mismash called it an “igloo”.
Despite recent hostilities in the chambers, however, the room was the only thing that stayed frosty as the Annual Plan faced little resistance after months of workshopping and debate.
Rates were set at the 6.8% increase figure the council reached at a meeting in March, where staff and councillors found more than $6 million in savings through efficiency measures, cost-cutting and budget shifts.
The council decided no further consultation would take place, citing “significant consultation” already done for the Long-Term Plan 2024/34 and a lack of significant changes for the upcoming year.
The average rise by sector was 4.82% for business, 7.23% for farming, 7.81% for rural residential and 6.97% for urban residential.
The potential for future rates to be capped was a key consideration. Chief executive Andrew Moraes signalled an effort to show rates were getting close to the 4% figure (not including three waters) that central government has teased so far.
Rotorua’s rates rise would sit at 4.5% without water costs included, or 2% with roading also removed, council staff demonstrated.
Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell at the April 22 council meeting where the 2026-27 Annual Plan was adopted. Photo / Mathew Nash
Councillor Te Rika Temara Benfell questioned the relevance of the latter two figures.
The council’s chief financial officer, David Jensen, said they were important to show council rates increases were driven by infrastructure improvements.
“It is not on the nice-to-haves,” he said. “Rates are going toward the core services.”
Moraes said the indicative figures demonstrated to the community that the council was “being precise” over cost drivers.
“The reason water is excluded and also transport is because councils have very little control over those two spaces,” he said.
Moraes acknowledged the plan was being adopted amid an “uncertain environment” due to the ongoing fuel crisis and rising inflation, but said he felt the council was up for the challenge.
“The environment is always uncertain,” he told councillors.
“We are required by legislation to make decisions based on the best information we have at the time.
“This Annual Plan in front of us sets some budget and targets that are very challenging, but we, as an organisation, are up for it, and we are going to do our very best to deliver it.”
Councillors kept coats and jackets on to battle the cold in a Rotorua council meeting on April 22. Photo / Mathew Nash
Tapsell praised staff for finding savings to reduce rates, calling the 2% drop from the initial projection a “fantastic result”.
“While I know our community is still feeling the pain of a cost-of-living crisis, we all remain committed to ensuring we can deliver the essential services and ensure we can have a better Rotorua for all,” she said.
Projects in the annual plan include ongoing Rotorua Museum reconstruction and planning and the wastewater treatment plant upgrade, with a capital investment budget of $102m.
Rates will go up from the start of July to coincide with the start of the new financial year.
Councillor Fisher Wang told Local Democracy Reporting later that day that the heating issue should be sorted by the end of the week.
It was not the only Rotorua public building with heating issues – Rotorua’s courthouse has also had air-conditioning failures amid recent system upgrade works.
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
