Urban rates may go higher

With the local council between a financial rock and hard place, Mayor Martin Connelly is hinting urban ratepayers may be facing much steeper rates bills come end of June decision-time.

“The (rates) consultation feedback is that urban rates should go up to closer to 29 percent,” he told The Martinborough Star.  “Most respondents don’t want to go with the least expensive option.”

Already commercial rates are proposed to rise 9.2 percent, urban 10.9 percent and rural rates 29.0 percent, plans which have been consulted on for the past month. 

That 29.0 percent figure is the amount of increase earlier signalled by SWDC that only rural ratepayers face from July 1.

“It’s a stark issue for ratepayers. It’s what you need to pay for urban water” and many other services he said, adding the council “has been completely blindsided by the sewerage problem.” 

SWDC has been issued a cease-and-desist notice, and advised no more sewer connections should be made to its 50-year-old treatment plant.

“A place (community) this size is quickly getting to the point of being unable to afford what we need,” Connelly said.

He warns the previous council held down the level of rates required to provide the services needed, while mis-spending up to $3.4 million on a water project and a gymnasium complex never built. 

“There is a long list of expenditures from the last three years which is totally wasted money,” Connelly said.

“This time we’re being up front, as one of my (election) promises is that rates should be affordable,” he added.

The council was taking “a resasonably pragmatic stance” but rural roading repairs for the area’s 660 kilometers of rural roads has gotten a “lot more costly in the past year,” particularly with climate change.

The end result is it’s quite expensive to keep roading in good condition at this time, Connelly said.