KEY POINTS:
North Shore Mayor George Wood has thrown an election week sweetener to residents who are angry that their rates are set to double in a decade to pay for a string of expensive projects.
Mr Wood says the timetable can be extended even as long as 15 years to ease rates rises.
Standing on a policy of good quality service and infrastructure, Mr Wood has led a council which approved a 10-year $1.2 billion capital works programme.
This indicates annual rates rises in excess of 8 per cent.
Council spending and property rates rank with transport problems as the top three important election issues, a Herald-DigiPoll found.
Andrew Williams, who is challenging Mr Wood's re-election for a fourth term, has been hammering a message: "Don't Waste the Rates".
This year's rise was 6.9 per cent, including water. Mr Williams wants to see rates rises under 5 per cent by deferring projects.
Six candidates for the council elections are part of a ticket called "Cap Rates Shore Can", led by Nick Kearney, which vows to stop rates rising above inflation.
Mr Wood said a new council could consider stretching planned works progress from 10 to 15 years, "if that's what the community wants".
He said the council could not pull out of commitments to the new busway and the $95 million outfall for the water treatment works.
Councillor Kevin Schwass said a solution could be to defer $336 million of works past 2015-16. This reduced rates rises from an average of 8.1 per cent over the 10 years to an average of 6.2 per cent a year.
Annual increases could be under 6 per cent from 2008-09, reducing the average home rates bill from $3151 in year 2016 to $2650.
Just 30 per cent of respondents in the Herald-DigiPoll were in favour of the council taking on more debt to spread payments for big projects over many years.
