FAQs
How does this plan fit in with our climate emergency or goal to be a zero carbon capital?
This is our first LTP review since Council declared a climate change emergency and so it will feature a number of initiatives to make progress on our goal of being a zero carbon city.
Getting to zero carbon is an ambitious goal and so we won't have all the answers in this plan, and we can't do it alone, but we will lay down the foundations to achieving our climate goals.
Other FAQ's
When will the 2021 - 2031 LTP become available?
We will be consulting on the proposals in the long-term plan in April 2021. Following that the final plan is due to be adopted by Council by the end of June 2021 and will then be available on our website from July 2021.
Where is this money coming from?
Council has a range of sources of funding, the main one being rates. A key issues for this LTP will be the affordability of our plans and the options that we present for consultation will carefully outline the rates impacts of different options.
I’ve read in the paper that we will have a 20% or more rates rise next year- why is that?
Very early budget numbers identified that the rates rise for 2021/2022 could be as much as 23%. This was just the first cut of the budget and since then further work has resulted in a draft budget with a 2021/22 rates rise of 13.5%.
The first year of the draft LTP has a relatively high rates increase compared with previous years, mainly because of the effects of COVID-19. In our last Annual Plan we kept the rates rise in 2020/21 low to manage the impacts of COVID-19, this included short-term borrowing to make up for reduced revenue. Next year we will need to begin repaying these borrowings and fund any ongoing COVID-19 impacts through rates rather than new borrowing.