Rodney council looks at breaking away

Rodney District Council is considering breaking away from the Super City and taking over duties done by the Auckland Regional Council.

Mayor Penny Webster said yesterday that 90 per cent of Rodney residents who had spoken to her about the Super City proposal did not want to be part of a greater Auckland Council.

"They say that Rodney is not Auckland, we are a rural community and our concerns are very different to Auckland," she said.

Chief executive Rodger Kerr-Newell reported four options for the future.

Embracing the Super City and becoming "Just Another Fantastic Aucklander" offered the lure of some of the district's services or facilities being paid for by a region-wide rating system. Alternatively, it could dissolve and have its urban parts joined to the Auckland Council and its northern rural parts merging with Kaipara District and coming under Northland Regional Council.

It could also stay as it is but join its northern neighbours, share rural issues and save the costs of the Super City transition.

The fourth option was to become a unitary authority, taking over the responsibilities of a regional council.

Mr Kerr-Newell said the district could deliver the ARC services at "half the cost" to its ratepayers and keep making its own decisions. It could also dodge the bullet of transition costs.

Rodney council staff already carried out some of the functions of the ARC.

A drawback of the option, however, was that its unitary council would lack leverage on planning of Auckland's public transport, which was important to Rodney's many residents who commuted to Auckland.

By a vote of nine to three, the council resolved to investigate likely costs of a unitary council and report back to the council. The information could form a basis for the council's submission to the Select Committee on the Local Government Auckland Bill.

* Franklin Mayor Mark Ball shares Mrs Webster's concerns.

In today's Dialogue article on A11, Mr Ball writes that if the Super City is to succeed, it should focus on the metropolitan area and exclude rural Franklin.