How the Northland Council might look with reform

VISION: How the Local Government Commission sees a Northland Council. The proposal is only a draft at this stage, and is open to public submissions.

Northland's three district and one regional councils are set to be merged into one Northland-wide unitary authority, the Northland Council, if the region accepts the draft proposal released by the Local Government Commission last week.

The authority will have nine councillors elected in seven wards, a measure designed to ensure there is no domination by Whangarei, with the Mayor elected across the region. It will have seven elected community boards and two Maori boards, whose members will be appointed by iwi and councillors.

Once the commission's final plan is announced, early next year (following consultation over the draft), 10 per cent of electors within any of the three districts will be able to binding poll, where voters will simply vote for or against the proposal. If it is rejected the status quo will continue.

The proposal means that assets such as Northport will be shared, but local debt, in particular from Mangawhai's sewerage scheme blowout, will be ringfenced so only the 'community of benefit' will service that debt for the first six years. What happens after that will be up to the council.

LGC chairman Basil Morrison said the commission initially considered 10 options but rejected six as impractical. The four that were seriously considered were the status quo, an enhanced status quo, and and two unitary authorities. The commission believed its proposal was the best option for democratic representation and improved economic performance.

It would combine one council and one Mayor, speaking with one voice for all of Northland, with a second tier of empowered community boards (which currently exist only in the Far North).

The commission's inability to propose Auckland-style local boards, which have greater powers than community boards and cannot be abolished by the council, may change with an amendment to the Local Government Act which is currently before the House.

"The door is not entirely closed to local boards. It's a matter of watch this space," Mr Morrison said.

The new council will be based in Whangarei with service centres in nine towns, including Kaitaia, Kaeo, Kaikohe, Rawene, Kerikeri and Kawakawa.

Public hearings will be held after submissions close on February 14. If the commission sees sufficient support it will prepare a final plan, with elections in October 2015.

Mr Morrison said the new council would not necessarily reduce rates, but clients would only have to deal with one council.

It was not yet known how many jobs would be lost. The new council would be responsible for redundancies and other obligations of the outgoing councils.

He put the likely costs of the merger at $5-10 million, with similar on-going savings each year, while he believed concerns regarding the Far North being dominated by Whangarei would be mitigated by the proposed ward structure that gave Whangarei and the Far North four votes each. Kaipara will have one.

"At the end of the day, one person one vote is the basis of democracy," he said.