Katikati Community Board chairman John Clements: Plan based on renewal, rejuvenation, resilience

John Clements, Anne Henry and Ross Goudie at the tree planting to commemorate the coronation of King Charles.

OPINION

It has been a busy time for Katikati Community Board in preparing the submission for the annual plan and then presenting this to Western Bay of Plenty District Council.

The annual plan submission took the community plan and annual plan developed by the last triennium and drilled down to specific requirements. There have been a number of other issues community board members have been addressing, from elder housing and bus shelters, to concreting of the walkway and individual requests within the community.

The annual plan from Katikati Community Board is based on renewal, rejuvenation and resilience — the three Rs. It is also based on the equity of spend between the wards so the Katikati-Waihi Beach ward receives an equitable amount of the rates. We do not want to be on the fringe as shown in the Tauranga Moana Infrastructure map recently published. We also support the efficiency of spend so that rates are contained.

In gathering community feedback, there was a clear message that rates should not be increased by more than 4 per cent, if not this will have a significant impact on households. The 4 per cent would be in line with the long-term plan and pre-election report just seven months ago. The present proposal is 7.4 per cent.

Our renewal request focus on repairing and renewing some of the infrastructure that has been built in the community over the years. This would cover items such as pavements, playgrounds, toilets and parks and reserves.

As the community and the wider rural population has grown and needs changed, this would include increasing such facilities and upgrading them to current standards and expectations. Rejuvenation is about positioning the town for the future. We are an ageing community and need to bring jobs and younger people in and have a future pipeline of community leaders who volunteer and support the many community organisations in our ward. This also underpins community resilience along with ensuring our infrastructure is in a fit state for extreme weather events.

We have focused on the following for the annual plan.

• Develop the Market Square, The Landing to attract visitors
• Commercial/industrial land availability — want to make it easier for businesses to establish and jobs to be created in the town
• Attracting young families to Katikati — actively attract and appeal to younger families to move to Katikati. Needs investment in facilities and jobs to help achieve this
• Facilities — want to allow for a range of sport codes along with toilet facilities. Need hard-surface courts (for netball, basketball, tennis) at Moore Park
• Support increased medical centre facilities to meet increased demand
• Development of Beach Road Northern Harbour boat ramp area as an integrated facility

The initial draft of the Market Square will be presented at the upcoming community board meeting on May 31 at 7pm at The Hub. We look forward to your input as we move forward. The community board is focused on serving the community.