The Waitaki District Council hearing into its proposed 2025-34 long-term plan (LTP) opened yesterday after it received a record 650 submissions.
In-person presentations were made by 20 individuals or organisations, speaking to their written submissions.
Among them was North Otago Federated Farmers.
It queried the lack of transparency in the LTP consultation document when it presented a 10.3% average rates increase for Waitaki.
In the LTP document examples are given for rural towns such as Hampden of increases between 5.3% and 5.85% in the LTP, while Oamaru ratepayers based on a capital value of $591,429 could face an 8.83% increase in 2025-26.
North Otago Federated Farmers president Otto Dogterom said rural ratepayers were facing rises far higher: anywhere between 15% and 25%.
He described this as "a huge increase".
"There’s not a reasonable explanation why," he said.
Nigel Billings for Federated Farmers also underscored the point about transparency in the consultation document in terms of rates.
If the council was indicating this as the benchmark for the rural sector — with rates going up by a quarter in one year — then Federated Farmers would have expected the LTP consultation document to "provide some indication why that was", Mr Billings said.
"Without a rates funding impact statement [in the LTP] we weren’t able to figure out what had happened — whether it was a change to the rating system or something big happening under the general rate," Mr Billings said.
Cr Tim Blackler had already questioned council staff around that but was told it was not due to a change in rates-setting methodology.
Cr John McCone said it did raise the ongoing issue of rates increases disproportionately impacting some sectors of the district.
The council needed to operate "as a council for the whole district" and it was time for real change on that front, he said.
Cr Jim Thomson, a Waihemo farmer, went further.
He said the rural economy was Waitaki’s mainstay but was not necessarily reflected in council investment.
"I think we need to be very cognisant of the fact that the rural community has been gradually disadvantaged by central and local government decisions over a long period of time.
"We invested in an economic study a couple of years ago, and it still sticks in my mind that 4% of the economy is driven by tourism and 40% by the rural sector.
"I find it very uncomfortable to drive on roads that are substandard when I know those roads are carrying cash cows out of the district in terms of generating our incomes — so we really need to get our thinking caps on," Cr Thomson said.
Among other Federated Farmers LTP points was a preference to permanently close Beach Rd as "the best option". Mr Dogterom said $14m spending over the next 30 years to secure the road was "a lot of money for a couple of properties".
"Sometimes we’ve got to make choices," he said.
It also queried the role of tourism promotion levies, which at least needed to be on "a cost-benefit" basis.
"A lot of money is getting spent but we don’t have a clear view what the returns are for the community," Mr Dogterom said.
