Key water infrastructure projects will be brought forward to meet the needs of the rapidly growing Horowhenua District, the 2023/2024 fees and charges schedule has been set and the Foxton Beach Freeholding Account will help fund the Foxton Pools upgrade.

These decisions were some of the important resolutions made as Council deliberated on the Long Term Plan 2021-2041 Amendment (LTPA) and Annual Plan (AP) 2023/2024 at its Ordinary Meeting on Wednesday 31 May.

The community were consulted on both the LTPA and AP between 27 March 2023 and 1 May 2023. The need to fast-track water infrastructure was one of the key topics discussed.

Water Infrastructure

An additional $75m will be spent in the next ten years on Three Waters infrastructure, and water meters will be installed to detect leaks and reduce water wastage.

Mayor Bernie Wanden says, “Our community has been rightly asking us to ensure we have a resilient drinking water solution for our district, and that we need to invest in stormwater and wastewater upgrades. The future of the Three Waters Reform Programme is uncertain. In this uncertain environment, the most responsible approach to take is to prepare to upgrade and renew our water infrastructure.”

“The strain on parts of our infrastructure was made particularly evident last year, when we experienced more annual rainfall in Horowhenua than we’ve had for 70 years. The upgrade and renewal of infrastructure needed to meet future demand requires a lot of initial effort for planning, design and consenting prior to any construction starting. Delaying this work could result in demand outstripping supply as soon as 2025 in some scenarios.”

In our last Long Term Plan (LTP), Council agreed to invest $121m into drinking water, $171m into wastewater and $29m into stormwater. This work was spread over the next 20 years to align with how much we thought the district would grow, when different pipes need renewing, and how soon we’d reach the limits for the water and wastewater treatment plants. This also helped make things more affordable for our community.

Alongside the need to keep up with the pace of growth, since adopting the LTP 2021-2041, costs have skyrocketed and we now know that key parts of our water infrastructure will reach capacity sooner than we expected, with some infrastructure coming to the end of its useful life.

As part of the LTPA, we proposed an additional $75m be spent in the next decade on three waters infrastructure. Our community were asked to consider four different options, and we received 259 submissions on this topic:

· Option 1 was Council’s preferred option, and the one favoured by the community. It suggested increasing the budget to deliver the projects we need.

· Option 2, a short-term solution, was reducing the programme of work to meet the current budget.

· Option 3 was increasing the budget to deliver the projects we need, excluding universal water metering for leak detection.

· Option 4 was the same as Option 2 but excluding water meters.

Options 1 and 2 both included using water meters to detect leaks and further reduce water losses. Water is a precious resource and should be treated as such. We currently lose between 300 and 500 litres per connection per day which is putting unnecessary pressure on our water infrastructure.

“Water resiliency is an important topic in Horowhenua and we’re grateful to everyone who joined the kōrero around this issue. Our growth is three times faster than the rest of Aotearoa and we need to ensure our district is ready for this growth, and that the needs of our current population are met. There has been robust discussion with our community in the LTPA consultation process, and we thank everyone who engaged with us.”

“There are still decisions to be made around water meters – what the roll-out will look like, and whether to invest in manual or automatic meters. We will continue to engage with the community around these decisions.”

Foxton Beach Freeholding Account

Council is reviewing how the Foxton Beach Freeholding Account (the Freeholding Account) is handled, allowing the minimum balance to go below $5 million and for funds to be used for the Foxton Pools Redevelopment Project.

Mayor Bernie says, “We acknowledge that this is inconsistent with Council’s Policy. There has been extensive consultation around the issue and I thank everyone who engaged with us on the matter. The Foxton Pools upgrade will benefit not just the people living in Foxton. Foxton Beach, surrounding areas and visitors will also enjoy the new inbuilt spa pool, reception area, ventilation systems and future proofing for further development. If the funding did not come from the Freeholding Account it would need to be loan funded or come out of existing budgets, which is detrimental to ratepayers.”

$500,000 from the fund will be used towards the Foxton Pools upgrade, a decision supported by 62.5% of people who made a submission on this topic.

Set up when councils amalgamated in 1989, the Freeholding Account manages money made from leasing and selling off endowment land. When it was first set up all assets and money specific to Foxton Freehold interests were pooled to spend for the benefit of the district, but this unique account was kept separate by the Local Government Commissioner specifically for the Foxton Beach community.

How this account is managed is set out in the Foxton Beach Freeholding Account Policy. This policy requires Council to have a minimum balance of $5 million cash in the account at all times. If all current planned projects for the year go ahead, the account will drop to $4.2 million. A breach of policy is not ideal, but this breach would not have any legislative consequences.

Fees and Charges

During the LTPA and AP Deliberations, fees and charges were set for the 2023/2024 financial year.

We use fees and charges when Council believes it’s fair to ask individual users to pay a bit extra. For example, we charge for the use of a public pool to help pay for some of the costs of running it. We call this the public/private split and it’s guided by our Revenue and Financing Policy.

Mayor Bernie says, “When completing last year’s Annual Plan, we found some user fees and charges weren’t consistent with the policy so, after consulting with the community, we have made a few changes to how Dog and Animal Control, Health Licencing and the Building and Resource Consenting fees are set.”

One of the key changes to fees and charges relates to costs associated with dog ownership.

The Dog Control and Animal Control activity has been separated in the Revenue and Financing Policy to reduce the public funding component. Moving forward, through dog registration fees and related increased charges, dog owners will pay a higher percentage of the costs for these services to ease the burden on ratepayers who do not own canines.

Dog registration fees will increase so that owners pay for 80-90% of Dog Control services as most of the benefit is ‘private’, making it consistent with our policy.

People who own four or more stock dogs will receive a $10 discount per dog.

A full list of the updated fees and charges will be made available on horowhenua.govt.nz once the LTPA and AP are adopted on Wednesday 28 June 2023.

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