​Ōpōtiki District Council adopts Annual Plan

On 28 June 2023, Ōpōtiki District Council adopted the 2023/24 Annual Plan. The plan sees an average rates rise for the district of 13.7%.

Ōpōtiki Mayor, David Moore, spoke at the meeting thanking councillors and staff for the amount of work that had gone into the Plan.

“Even if it is an outcome that none of us wanted coming into this job, I am confident that we worked hard to get to this stage, and we looked everywhere we could to ease this impact. It’s been a long process for all of us and very challenging.

“Borrowing our way out of this is just prolonging the pain and we have to fill this gap somehow.

“We hear often that we have some of the lowest rates in the country, but we also have some of the highest rates of deprivation and it isn’t a good match. Add to that, we have some of the highest regional council rates as well which doesn’t make it any easier for our communities,” Mayor Moore said.

Councillor Dean Petersen also added the comment that they had kept all the services for the community through the process.

Council also adopted an updated fees and charges schedule for the coming year. The report to council noted that increasing fees and charges for some council services was one of the ways in which the general rates rise could be kept a little lower.

“This is something councillors and I have discussed through the Annual Plan process and it aligns with some of the feedback we got as well. One of the ways we have tried to minimise the rates increases this year is to move to a clearer user-pays approach for some of our council services. This is particularly true with our rubbish and recycling where increasing costs associated with dealing with our rubbish and recycling are more fairly paid by those who use the services the most,” Mayor Moore said.

Council’s Engineering and Services Group Manager, Nathan Hughes said that the changes also brought Ōpōtiki more in line with neighbouring areas for rubbish and recycling costs.

“Users of the RRCs [Resource Recovery Centres] will see the higher charges from the start of July and this is because it is more expensive to dispose of or recycle our waste. Council has seen increases in waste generation, diesel costs to transport it and national levies. There are also additional costs associated with consenting our facilities and ongoing maintenance.

“On the upside, the amount you will pay at the RRCs will be clearer with easier-to-understand rules about the size of a ‘load’, what it can contain and how much it will cost. The staff who front the RRCs will be changing over and implementing the new rules shortly so please be patient. We really appreciate their work,” Mr Hughes said.