Residents across the Queenstown Lakes district could face a hefty rates hike.
At a meeting of the Queenstown Lakes District Council yesterday, councillors voted to adopt the draft annual plan which proposes a 4.25% increase.
Also on the cards is sorting traffic congestion, creating a town centre master plan, for which $2 million has been earmarked, and a revamped Wakatipu lakeside playground costing $680,000.
No member of the public commented, which appeared to come as a surprise to Mayor Jim Boult.
Met with silence on opening the public forum, he remarked, "Well that must be a first for this council."
However, an information leaflet, which will be distributed to homes next weekend, said the council was able to keep the rates increase below 5%, "by deferring both some debt repayment and the proposed Convention Centre project".
The 2017-2018 Annual Plan is now open for public consultation and residents have an opportunity to respond by April 28.
The council also moved to amend fees and charges for resource consents, building consents and resource management engineering.
A monitoring charge of $215 has been added to every land use consent category, an administration charge of $90 has been added for creating a pre-application request, connecting to council services has been upped from $250 to $280 and a $1500 pre-application meeting fee has been removed.
Before the final seal of approval was given, Cr Craig Ferguson, questioned Tony Avery, the council’s planning and development general manager, on whether an increase would improve service levels.
Mr Avery’s team was criticised last year due to building consent delays outside a 20-day timeframe. It also faced hard questions from International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ), the Crown entity responsible for building control authority accreditation.
Speaking in the meeting, Cr Ferguson recognised the department was "under the pump for obvious reasons".
Responding to concerns, Mr Avery explained it was working on the problem.
"The challenge is very much understood ... we are getting things under control."
It was bringing on more staff, had conducted an internal review and was confident issues would be resolved. One item which got councillors talking was the Coronet Forest Management Plan 2017.
Crs Scott Stevens (Arrowtown), Ella Lawton (Wanaka) and Ferguson volunteered to lead public hearings.
Cr Lawton raised concerns over the long term "vision" of the project and said the council missed an opportunity to engage with the public. She said plans could have included predator-free fencing, a community hub or illustrations on how the various options would affect the community.
Mr Boult said, "People will have strong feelings about this."
Cr Lawton’s concerns were addressed and the council agreed to consider them when looking at illustration budgets.
At the start of the meeting, Mr Boult acknowledged Cr Lawton’s mother, Otago regional councillor Maggie Lawton, who died this month.
He described her "wonderful life" and said she was highly regarded by everyone around the table.
"It is an enormous loss to the district and she will be missed."
