Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Alex Walker says they are still working to reduce the rate increase. Photo / NZME.
Hastings District Council says it is sticking with its 15% rate increase and its promise to ratepayers to focus on critical infrastructure.
Meanwhile, Central Hawke’s Bay District Council is working on lowering its own projected 15% rate increase to below 10.9%.
Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said councillors made it clear to management at its meeting this week, the community needed to be kept fully informed.
However, she said all council’s funding was fully committed.
“To hold formal consultation would imply that, as in other years, we can accommodate new projects and changes wanted by our people.
“That is not the case, and therefore the pressing need is to ensure residents understand the Year 2 priorities as set out in the Long Term Plan,” Hazlehurst said.
“All of our funding is fully committed to the Cyclone Gabrielle rebuild and other critical infrastructure,” she said.
Hastings ratepayers face a 15% increase for the 2025/2026 year, with 6% going to cyclone costs, and the remainder to meet the “rising cost of delivering core services, particularly in the transport and three waters areas”.
Hazlehurst said there was extensive community consultation on the 2024-2034 Long Term Plan (LTP) last year.
Provisions within the Local Government Act 2002 allow councils to adopt Annual Plans without prior consultation,
Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Alex Walker said when it adopted its Three Year Plan last year it looked as if the rate increase for this year would be 15%.
“Councillors were clear they didn’t have appetite for that, so a lot of work has happened to take that down,” Walker said.
“A new report had it at about 10.9% but the council team continue to work on some pretty important things around consent numbers, waste numbers, our critical water supplies and how we are phasing that programme.”
Walker said officers would be working on this during February and March and would come back before the final adoption in April-May and she expected the rate increase would reduce.
CHBDC chief executive Doug Tate said council doesn’t intend to change the levels of service or do anything materially different as outlined in the Three-Year Plan.
“That means there will be no need for further public consultation, as we consulted with our community for the existing Three-Year-Plan.”
Walker said other interesting topics discussed at the recent council meeting were a recap of its roading recovery programme.
“We talked about what’s underway and what still needs to be done and also something that you might have been waiting for, Quotable Valuations (QV).”
The last revaluations were done in 2021.
“I think we all know that our property values are not what they were three years ago.”
Rating valuations are carried out on all properties every three years to help local councils assess rates for the following three-year period.
The rating valuations, determined by QV, don’t change the total rates collected, just how the total rates cost is shared across rateable properties.
Central Hawke’s Bay District Council chief executive Doug Tate said the average rate charged in Central Hawke’s Bay in 2024 was $3391.69 from the 8144 rating units in the district.
“These average rates cover a wide range of properties, from large, highly productive farms, right through to coastal bachs,” Tate said.
“As a result, there is a range of how rates charges are determined and what each ratepayer pays, with services particularly associated with land transport and three waters, impacting ratepayers differently.”
In the Hastings District, the average rate in 2024 was $4674.73, not including targeted rates for things like kerbside waste and recycling, connected water services etc.
A council spokesperson said it was important to remember the QV was only a mechanism for deciding how much each property owner will pay.
“It is not a mechanism for deciding how much a council will spend. So, each council sets its budget based on its community’s needs and feedback (through LTP and AP processes), with the amount in that budget then shared out among its property owners, with the QV used to decide who will pay more or less,” the spokesperson said.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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