Tauranga City Council’s proposed fee hikes for community facilities under fire

Tauranga City Basketball Association general manager Mark Rogers. Photo / Sun Media

“Absolutely devastated” and “horrified” are how people have reacted to fee hikes for Tauranga community facilities.

People expressed their concerns at the Tauranga City Council hearings for the proposed user fees and charges for 2023-24 on Monday last week., with the council now due to deliberate on June 19.

The council consulted on the draft user fees from March 24 to April 24 and received 138 submissions.

A large portion of the submissions were about the proposed increases for Bay Venues, the council-controlled organisation that manages community facilities.

Speaking at the hearing, Frances Wilcokson, of the Matua Major Leisure Marching team, said they used the Mount Sports Centre for their 90-minute practices weekly.

“We need our activity to be accessible and affordable to anyone in the older age demographic who, by participating, keeps themselves connected with like-minded women, keeping fit in mind, body and soul,” she said.

“We were absolutely devastated to read [about the] proposed 89 per cent increased hourly rate.”

The hourly rate to hire the centre for regular users in the senior category is $15.40; the proposed rate is $29.20, an 89.6 per cent increase.

Wilcokson said the group of 10 women paid $5 a week each and this covered their costs, but under the new fee structure they “won’t have money left” after hiring the venue.

Basketball is the biggest community user of Bay Venues facilities. Photo / Sun Media

Hiring the centre for 90 minutes would cost $43.80 with the proposed increase.

She said if it went ahead, practices would have to be cut down to an hour, which was not long enough.

It also would not be fair on “where the members are financially” to increase the fees, said Wilcokson.

“It would be less painful to the user if smaller steps are taken rather than having one big leap, potentially affecting groups’ financial viability.

“We don’t object to price increases at a sensible rate on a yearly basis, as has happened in the past years.”

She believed the fees for the Mount centre should not be the same as the Merivale Action Centre or Aquinas College facilities because those facilities were of a higher standard.

Julie Batten, of Fusion Dance, uses the Elizabeth Street Community Centre for social dance classes.

Batten said the group was “horrified” when they saw the council had proposed a fee increase of 96 per cent from January. The council has since said it miscalculated and the increase would actually be higher.

The price for an hour’s hire for an adult regular user is $9.70; the proposed new fee is $19.60, a 102 per cent jump.

In Batten’s view, the facilities at Elizabeth St “did not meet the quality” of those at the Arataki or Pāpāmoa community centres, which she had also used, and the prices were similar, she said.

Her dancers were “not necessarily high-income earners”, and she could not pass on a 90 per cent increase in her class charges, said Batten.

“I would seriously have to consider using another venue.”

She said her venue hire fees were about $300 to $400 a month and she charged $15 per person for a class. She also had “other expenses like any other business” but did not make a profit.

Commissioner Stephen Selwood said the fee would be divided by the number of people in a class.

“You wouldn’t need to increase your charges by 96 per cent to cover the cost of the venue hire.”

Batten replied if the venue hire were going to double, she would have to increase class costs “quite a bit” to cover it.

Tauranga City Basketball Association general manager Mark Rogers said in his written submission basketball was the biggest community user of Bay Venues facilities.

The association opposed the 58 per cent increase in fees because “it may discourage teams entering the various league competitions”.

Rogers said this would most likely occur in their school leagues because they were the “most sensitive” to price changes.

The association also wanted the user fees across indoor and outdoor sports reviewed “to provide cost recovery equity, of [the] council’s costs, across all user groups”.

He suggested indoor user fees be increased in line with inflation until a review was done.

At the hearing, Selwood asked what the increased cost would mean to a player.

Rogers replied the cost per player varied depending on age, the competition they were in, and how many players were on the court. The association paid about $100,000 a year to Bay Venues in rent, he said.

Commissioner Stephen Selwood says the percentage increases "sound dramatic" but "come from a very, very low base". Photo / Sun Media

“Another way to reframe that is that there’s a cost to the players and there’s the cost of the organisation because not all those costs are passed on to the players.

“When you break it down to, I’ve got three kids [playing] how much is it going to cost me on a weekly basis, given all the other costs … That’s where you actually get the flow effect for the organisation and people dropping out.”

Selwood said the commission’s dilemma was, in it’s view, a historical “significant underinvestment in all forms of infrastructure, including social structure across the city”.

The price rises were a legacy of that, he said.

There had to be a balance between ratepayers and users paying because ratepayers had been subsiding Bay Venues, said Selwood.

“Some of the percentage increases, they sound dramatic … but they’ve come off a very, very low base.”

Commission chairwoman Anne Tolley said in future she wanted Bay Venues to be part of the hearing process.

Once approved, the new general fees would be implemented on July 1 this year and the fees for regular user groups on January 1, 2024.

– Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air