Dialogue: A workable alternative is on the cards for boaties

By TONY GEE

Boat owners and ratepayers in the Far North have until April 6 to comment on a proposed brave new world of maritime facility management in harbours, bays and estuaries throughout the district.

Put forward by the Far North District Council as an establishment plan, the new scheme aims to resolve ownership, management and maintenance problems dogging the 24 public wharves and 25 boat ramps scattered among six harbours in the area.

Refinements may be needed as a result of public input and a hearing process scheduled for next month, but details so far indicate a realistic attempt is being made to sort out the messy saga of ownership and management responsibility for public wharves and launching ramps.

There is likely to be user pays-inspired pain for some groups directly affected. This will involve a $25 annual charge on every recreational vessel using council wharves or ramps from July 1 next year. Mooring owners will pay the same annual amount, down from the previous, hotly disputed $60.

Many of these wharves and ramps are in poor condition, although they are well-used by commercial, charter and recreational groups. Starved of funds because what money there was available was siphoned off elsewhere, many are hardly an advertisement for a marine playground.

The council-owned company which was required to own, lease or manage the maritime facilities at no cost to ratepayers when it was set up in 1992, was allowed to abandon that idea the following year to concentrate on profit-driven alternatives.

Once the company shed its responsibility for structural repairs on its leased wharves, about 1900 mooring holders, each paying the $60 annual mooring charge, were left to pick up much of the tab for commercial wharves they hardly ever used.

Profits from the company's valuable Paihia and Opua properties went elsewhere, while recreational wharves and ramps went begging.

The council-owned company has reinvented itself over the past two years and has reduced its overheads by absorbing subsidiaries into the one parent company, Far North Holdings. Its council owners have gone back to broad 1992 intentions and now want their new-look company to own, lease or manage all public maritime facilities.

The need to return a profit has been dropped. The company is expected to maintain and improve commercial wharves at no cost to ratepayers, using income from commercial user charges and from buildings and land it owns at Opua and Paihia.

This includes the busy Opua and Paihia wharves, which the company already owns, the Russell wharf, which would be run under lease, and all other commercial wharves with associated land at Waitangi, Totara North (Whangaroa), Mangonui, Unahi, Pukenui and Opononi (Hokianga), all of which would also become company-owned.

No wharf could be sold without council consent, and the company would spend $400,000 on upgrades and repairs.

With the exception of one launching ramp already leased to a club, Far North Holdings would manage all recreational wharves and ramps for a management fee plus actual costs under a contract requiring consultation with local community boards.

Until July 1 next year when the $25 annual user-pay charge is scheduled to start, ratepayers will meet the company's fees and costs. The establishment plan's intended recreational charging regime aims to cover all spending on non-commercial wharves and most boat ramps which need it.

Assuming it finds at least grudging acceptance, the district's attempt to offer a workable alternative to eight years of shambolic maritime management will be worth the time and effort.

But those targeted for recreational user-pay and trailer boat charges must be able to see tangible benefits. In return for their money, they'll want to launch their boats on safe, easily accessible, properly maintained ramps and park trailers safely in uncongested areas.

They'll want to see structurally sound jetties, with a night light that works, fresh water that flows and a safe power source.

They won't want the Far North mooring owners' experience where, for $60 a year, yacht and boat mooring owners got little for their money from the district council year after year. For the council to sell its plan and proposed charges, it must convince Far North mooring owners and trailer boat owners that their money will be spent on looking after facilities they use.