Rotorua CBD at Hinemoa and Tutanekai Streets. Photo / Laura Smith
Rotorua CBD at Hinemoa and Tutanekai Streets. Photo / Laura Smith
Questions have been raised about whether an increased police and guardian presence in Rotorua’s inner city has pushed problems elsewhere.
Rotorua Lakes Council’s community and district development committee met on Wednesday and received an update on the community safety strategy.
The council’s community wellbeing deputy chief executive Anaru Pewhairangi and Rotorua area prevention manager inspector Phil Gillbanks jointly presented an update on what had been achieved over the summer and reiterated longer-term goals like reducing crime and antisocial behaviour.
Pewhairangi said the approach focused on the visibility of police alongside the council and ensuring better joint responsiveness to reassure the community.
A December Rotorua Safety and Wellbeing Survey found 50 per cent of respondents wanted to see more police in the city.
Between 14 per cent and 17 per cent felt encouraged by the presence of Māori Wardens.
Pewhairangi said having more police visibility was in progress, as was having more integrated deployment between police, Safe City Guardians, regulatory staff and security partners.
Signage, such as for alcohol bans, had been improved, and more work was needed on public education and community safety awareness initiatives such as sharing crime prevention advice. A community constable had been reinstated last month.
Gillbanks said during the Christmas period there had been a gradual increase in reported crime “across the board”. He attributed this to having more reporting avenues including online and through the 105 number.
Community feedback had been it was good to see police patrolling the inner city.
Councillor Don Patterson said other areas of the community were struggling with crime; in Fordlands there were dirt bikes where they shouldn’t be, and he said a car had been set alight outside fellow councillor Conan O’Brien’s home recently.
A car was set alight in Fordlands recently. Photo / Ben Fraser
He said there had been gang intimidation at the Te Ngae shopping centre and theft.
“They feel like they have been left out on a limb.”
He asked if the increased presence of patrollers in the city meant the problems had been pushed out to other areas.
In response, Gillbanks said there was a small element of that and he was aware more police visibility was needed in other urban centres, such as small shopping areas.
He was “well aware” of the bike issue and said police could not chase them but were doing what they could to hold the people responsible accountable.
An investigation was under way and search warrants would be conducted with the aim to seize some bikes.
He said he was unaware of the issue at the Te Ngae shops and would look into it.
Councillor Lani Kereopa said she had been fielding concerns from the community about the impact of emergency and transitional housing and asked if resources were going into managing those impacts.
Gillbanks said there was, but there had been a “dramatic drop off” for calls for service since the housing accord was signed.
“We still get a few and we will always get that because people have high needs and complex issues... but we are certainly not seeing the volume of calls for service to the same repeat locations we were seeing. It’s probably since December we have seen that drop off.”
CCO updates to council
Members also heard reports from two council-controlled organisations (CCO) - the airport and the district’s economic development agency.
Both organisations were ahead of budget and reported higher numbers of visitors.
Rotorua Airport’s chief executive Nicole Brewer said at the airport this was mainly due to increased landing fees and lower-than-expected operating expenses.
One of the issues it was addressing was a high turnover in staff in its fire and operations team. She said there was no single reason for this and was trying to understand the situation better.
Councillor Rawiri Waru asked if a programme might be created to address the issue.
Brewer said recruitment had been fine, but turnover was the problem. She said the team had a specific skill set and was “really happy” with the staff that had started.
RotoruaNZ board chairman John McRae said the difficult economic environment had implications for projects.
He said it was good to see tourism in the city on the up again and events were bringing people to Rotorua.
In his presentation chief executive Andrew Wilson reiterated projects were currently hard to get off the ground.
The data showed that while visitor numbers were not at pre-covid levels, expenditure was.
Councillor Gregg Brown asked if the council was supporting RotoruaNZ enough to deal with reputation recovery and whether the council was tracking in the right direction given a number of rooms in the city were unavailable as they were used for emergency housing.
McRae said RotoruaNZ would like more resources and wanted to do more mahi in that sphere. He said the good part of having reduced rooms available was that yields were up.
Councillors unanimously approved making District Plan Change 3 – Significant Natural Areas operative in the Rotorua District Plan.
This followed an appeals process in which three were resolved.
