Public views bring district plan rethink

Whangarei District Council looks set to adopt its finalised 2015-2025 Long Term Plan today.

Public feedback has seen a number of changes made to Whangarei district's 10-year plan, with the means of footing the bill still hotly debated.

Whangarei District Council looks set to adopt its finalised 2015-2025 Long Term Plan today.

Changes as a result of 1024 public submissions on the draft plan include a $500,000 grant towards the first stage of constructing the Hihiaua Cultural Centre, $60,000 towards a cycleway to Ngunguru and a $155,000 top-up on the spend on village plans.

The budget for a proposed $12 million conference centre and theatre has been cut to $10 million.

Council will also engage with a number of community groups - the Bank St Revitalisation Group, Whangarei Youth Space Trust and Company of Giants, the theatre collective that wants to facilitate community use of a decrepit church at 116A Bank St.

A proposed residential rate rise of 9 per cent on average next year with further yearly increases of about 4.8 per cent until 2025 remains the main issue of contention among councillors.

Councillor Sue Glen is staunchly against the rise but said it was clear the clique of councillors opposing it will be voted down. Part of the justification for the rates rise has been that Whangarei has among the lowest residential rates in the country.

Councillor Tricia Cutforth said she did not see the rationale. "[Because] our rates are low and everyone else's are high, there's an assumption that ours should be higher. But I think we've achieved a great deal without having to have the rates of other cities around the country," she said.

"I see having lower rates as a drawcard."

Councillor Phil Halse was critical of the hardline approach taken on commercial rates. A number of factors had led to "anomalies" where rates more than doubled for some businesses from 2012/2013 to 2013/2014, he said.

Cr Halse moved for a remission for those who had experienced an increase of more than 40 per cent, with a full review of rating policies in the 2015-2016 financial year.

Council voted to proceed with the review, but not the remission.

WDC collected $65 million in rates in the last year. That will rise to $71 million next year if the increase goes ahead.

By the end of the 10-year plan, council is set collect $119 million a year, almost double what it currently does.