The indoor recreation centre spending has been slotted into the 2022-23 and 2023-24 years of the 10-year plan draft financial forecasts made public before today's council meeting.
The 154-page Waitaki District Sport and Recreation Needs Assessment and Indoor Recreation Centre feasibility study released last year showed options for the centre if it were to be built in 2020, ranging up to $24.6 million.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said the option the council had decided to put forward for public consultation was not the ``Rolls Royce'' option.
``It won't do absolutely everything, but it will be enough courts that we can look at bringing netball indoors. It's the chance to have all basketball being played on one night together - various things like that - but also as a function centre and an events centre to have something that is big enough that's going to look after pretty much everything that we would want it to,'' Mr Kircher said.
The proposed recreation centre would require $7 million from the council, likely internal loans and $7 million from external funding bodies and would not be a council project until years five and six of the 2018-28 long-term plan.
``We're pretty mindful of what we've got on our plate at the moment,'' Mr Kircher said. ``But also that is five years to do detailed planning and basically to be able to go out to funders to secure the external funding which is required.''
In a statement last week, the council said the long-term plan's focus, after business-as-usual items, was ``creating opportunities that will help continue building a stronger and more resilient Waitaki district''.
Among those projects linked to the district's economic development were ``investment in our roading network, investigating the feasibility of attaining World Heritage Status, the development of a Unesco global geopark, and dredging the Oamaru Harbour''.
The first three years of the draft proposal's projected rates revenues indicate a 2018-19 rates rise of 3.8%, a 2019-20 rise of 3.8% and a 2020-21 rise of 5%.
Mr Kircher said the information released last week before today's council meeting was ``realistic''.
``This isn't about sugar-coating anything, this is about getting something out there that's realistic and giving people the chance to comment on it,'' he said. ``I certainly don't want to see the next three years with those [rates] increases, and there's definitely more that we will do the next year and the year after to get those increases down.''
