Queenstown Lakes District Councillors have voted to adopt the Long Term Plan 2024-2034 which includes a ten year programme of capital investment and service delivery across the district.

The final plan has been amended following an extensive community consultation process, public hearings and deliberations on the draft plan during July and August this year.

Its adoption at today’s Full Council meeting confirmed a $2.4b capital expenditure programme, with the first three years predominantly focused on delivering essential three-water infrastructure across the district. It also confirmed an average increase in Council rates across the district of 15.8%.

Mayor Glyn Lewers said this level of increase is tough for everyone and not something Councillors have considered lightly.

“Like many businesses and individuals, Councils across the country are finding themselves in a very challenging financial position. Rising costs across the board, combined with the government’s continued expectation on local communities to fund their own infrastructure creates a significant financial burden on ratepayers.”

“The governments new Local Water Done Well plans mean we are obliged to make substantive investment into the water sector to achieve compliance, and this plan places QLDC in a great position to achieve this with its planned and funded investment programme,” he said.

Council received wide-ranging feedback on its key consultation topics and following Councillor consideration and deliberations, the outcomes on these topics were:

• Approval to introduce a targeted rate on Queenstown Town Centre properties to recover costs associated with the Queenstown town centre street upgrades from 2024-2025, as proposed in the consultation document.
• Approval to recover costs associated with the Queenstown Town Centre Arterial from the wider Whakatipu roading rate from 2025-2026, rather than applying a targeted rate on Town Centre properties.
• Approval to bring forward funding to invest in community and sports facilities in Queenstown and Wānaka. This investment also includes clean energy upgrades at our Aquatic facilities, in line with action 1.16 in the Climate and Biodiversity Plan.

As well as feedback on the key consultation topics, other themes that emerged during the consultation process included requests for investment in Cardrona-based Snow Farm facilities and services, Upper Clutha sports facilities, Wānaka performing arts and cultural centre, climate and biodiversity, Council spending and infrastructure projects, and active travel.

Mayor Lewers extended his personal thanks to everyone who participated in the LTP process.

“The enthusiasm from community and volunteer groups reflects the passion our people have for their local facilities, environment and a connected community, and this was illustrated through the submissions and requests for funding,” he said.

“Unfortunately, it is never possible for Council to support all the funding requests from the community, particularly those with significant price tags and long-term operational requirements in the current financial climate. These requests speak to a community need and we will continue to work alongside the many groups who have engaged with us through this process – the time and energy they continuously put into improving our district is second to none and we will do what we can to continue to support their efforts,” he said.

Mayor Lewers noted that the latter half of the LTP created more opportunity for Council to invest into its community infrastructure in line with growing demand and community need.

All submitters will receive a response letter in the coming weeks.

The Long Term Plan 2024-2034 can be viewed on the Council website: https://www.qldc.govt.nz/media/k4ucoazu/1a-att-a-qldc_long-term-plan_2024-2034c.pdf

FURTHER INFORMATION 

Council received 939 submissions on its draft Long Term Plan 2024-2034 and 97 members of the community chose to speak at submission hearings on 26-27 August held in Queenstown and Wānaka.

A revised Significance and Engagement policy and Development Contributions policy was also adopted as part of this process.

The draft Long Term Plan 2024-2034 proposed an average rates increase of 15.6% for 2024-2025, after allowing for 3.5% growth in the rating database. Actual growth has now been confirmed at 3.3% district-wide lifting the average rates increase to 15.8%. The impact of this change is not even across the district. In Wānaka-Upper Clutha growth has been 4.3% meaning the actual rates increase will be lower than forecast. For Whakatipu, actual growth was a little lower at 2.7% meaning the rates increase will be slightly higher than forecast, depending on property type and location. Rates invoices will be sent at the end of September.

The ten year capital investment programme is valued at $2.4b. 34% of this investment is tagged to the Wanaka-Upper Clutha ward (34.5% of residents) and 66% is tagged to Whakatipu wards (65.5% of residents).

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