Palmerston North City Council adopts long-term plan for next decade
Published on 26 June 2024
After a record amount of public feedback, Council has today adopted the city’s long-term plan, outlining the focus areas for Palmerston North for the next decade.
The long-term plan is the roadmap which shows the services, projects and priorities for taking care of our city and community for the next decade. Our plan helps us determine what work the Council needs to do, when, and how much it will cost.
The adoption of the plan is the culmination of 18 months of work to pull together the plan to help prepare our city and community’s future.
In April, we consulted on the draft plan, which included asking key questions about whether we change our rating system, whether our plan for key seismic upgrades to city landmarks was right, as well as asking about new or proposed upgrades to 6 community facilities.
Record submissions helped shape final decisions
Following 35-plus face-to-face meetings and virtual engagement opportunities during the consultation period alone, a record 1,441 submissions were received and considered by elected members.
Elected members have also confirmed our vision: Small city benefits, big city ambition and our Oranga Papaioea City Strategy, which encompasses our four goals and associated plans for achieving our vision and strategy.
Mayor Grant Smith said the public feedback helped shape the final plan.
“We’ve been thrilled to see such a large amount of people getting involved in our long-term plan and having their say, including many first timers. Whether it was a formal submission, on our Facebook live, during public engagement sessions, drawings, poems, videos, public meetings, face-to-face or over email, it was just fabulous to see people having their say on the future of our city. This feedback was crucial in helping elected members make decisions on the final plan. Our plan shows we have listened to our community and made decisions that reflect their concerns.”
New rating system to come into effect over 3 years
During consultation we asked for feedback on a new rating system, including options on status quo, a capital value system or a hybrid 70% land, 30% capital model.
Mayor Grant Smith says there was a large range of feedback on all the options.
“One of the key points raised by all submitters was a matter of fairness and how we could make our rating system fair for all ratepayers – whether residential, rural, commercial or otherwise. We heard that loud and clear and have adopted a new rating system which will see rates determined 50% on land value and 50% on capital value, to be phased in over 3 years.”
The first stage of the new rating system will come into effect from 1 July, with information about the system coming in the annual rates invoice booklet to all property owners in August. People can see their rates for this coming year on our website now.
Mayor Smith says elected members also made changes for rural lifestyle ratepayers. We had proposed reducing the discount rural lifestyle ratepayers get. We are still proceeding with that, but in a staged process and to a lesser extent than what was proposed.
Currently there is a 37% discount or differential to the general rate for these ratepayers. During consultation we proposed that discount should be lowered to 17%. Elected members voted to stage this, making the discount 30% in Year 1 (July 2024 to June 2025), and 25% from Year 2 (July 2025 to June 2026).
We’re taking another look at Nature Calls
During consultation, we explained that our Nature Calls resource water or wastewater project could cost $647 million including inflation. As a result of feedback, elected members have voted to reduce that budget to $480 million excluding inflation and that staff review and report back to Council about whether there are any new or better best practicable options for our treatment and discharge for the future.
Minor changes made to seismic strengthening programme
Seismic upgrades for Central Library, Te Manawa and the Regent Theatre will be pushed back one year. That decision comes from submissions on these projects and also wider feedback on reducing rates, especially in the next year. We’re also proceeding with looking at options for how we get co-funding for these projects.
Changes made to proposals for community facilities
Our proposed new Multicultural Centre will now be built within the Council’s main city centre office, by reallocating staff space. This reduces both the initial construction costs and ongoing operational costs from not having an external commercial lease.
There have been significant budget cuts for the new Awapuni Community Library Hub, and changes to timeframes for this new project and upgrades to Te Pātikitiki, the library in Highbury. Elected members have also allocated $1.5M for Roslyn’s eastern library hub, which wasn’t proposed during consultation but came as a result of submissions during consultation. Work on Arena 5 (new indoor court space) at Central Energy Trust Arena will start earlier than planned, but all other work has been deferred. A new Rāngitane Civic Marae development at Te Motu o Poutoa Anzac Park and upgrades to the Pasifika Centre are set to continue based on what was proposed during consultation.
In terms of funding increases, Mayor Smith says elected members also agreed to increase funding, again staged over 3 years, for our community sector partners to help continue the great work they’re doing for our residents. He says there are also significant improvements to maintenance and renewal budgets, especially in our transport and water networks, which our community has been keen to see for some time.
Change is needed for local government funding
This long-term plan has been a case of striking a balance. This coming year, the total rates increase is 10.1%.
Mayor Grant Smith says elected members have worked hard to get it to that point with the number of legally required projects we’re facing, but appreciate that will still be hard for some in our community with current cost of living pressures.
“Our long-term plan, as well as most around the country, have demonstrated that the funding model for local government is broken and it needs to be sorted out as soon as possible. Councils are funding more and more each year, often as requirements from the government, but our community simply can’t afford to keep doing this.”
Mayor Smith says receiving an adverse opinion on our long-term plan from Audit is an example of this.
“We received an adverse opinion last time due to our wastewater project Nature Calls. This time around we still have some uncertainties about funding that project, as well as the co-funding required for legally required seismic upgrades. These projects do not have significant funding within the first 3 years of our long-term plan and will be subject to future community consultation and the next long-term plan in 3 years. We’ll also be continuing to look at ways we can provide more certainty regarding funding these projects for our community, and whether projects need to be deferred or reprioritised if the funding does not eventuate in line with our plan. We’ll also be reiterating these concerns to the government, as both Nature Calls and the seismic upgrades need to occur to meet legislative timeframes.”
Community urged to keep feeding into decision making
Mayor Grant Smith says while the plan has now been adopted, it’s important our community continues to feed into decision making.
“It’s been great to see this many submissions, and we hope to see that continue. Many of the programmes in our plan will be subject to further feedback, engagement, co-design and ongoing consultation and we encourage people to get involved and keep providing feedback so we can ensure we’re all Palmy Proud.”
The full long-term plan will be available on our website next week, once minor amendments have been made.