FAQs
What plans are put in place for earthquake strengthening?
Our long term plan will include investment in a range of earthquake strengthening work that need to be undertaken on Council infrastructure and buildings. In addition Council has a range of guidance and support for building owners which can be found here.
Other FAQs
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.
How does the decision making process work?
The long-term plan is the City Council's plan- ultimately the Mayor and Councillors approve the final plan. The critical input into their decision making however is community feedback through consultation.
Councillors set a proposal for the long-term plan in early 2021 which then is provided to the public for consultation.
The consultation will lay out Council's proposal along with alternative options and the benefits, costs and risks of each. Councillors then review public feedback once it is in and make their final decision of what is or is not in the plan.
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.