FEEDBACK REGARDING ROTORUA LAKES COUNCIL’S DRAFT LONG-TERM PLAN 2021-2031

 

Submitted by Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers Inc.

 

Contact: Faye Jensen, Secretary, 1 Maraeroa Road, Mamaku, 0217 476 4711, cloyna@hotmail.com.au

 

Final Draft, submitted 30 April 2021

 

 

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

Introduction

 

Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers (RDRR) independently consulted its 700+ members, associates, and friends about the Rotorua Lakes Council’s (Council’s) draft Long-Term Plan 2021-2031[1] and its associated Financial Strategy.[2]

 

Members found these two documents to be somewhat incoherent, fragmented, relying on vague aspirational policies for justification and as lacking implementation details that should have explained and justified spending forecasts. This feedback is necessarily lengthy to cover the implications of both documents.

 

Overall, RDRR members urge Council to face reality. The sudden contraction in tourism, the surge in homelessness, deepening poverty, climate change, growing crime and drug abuse, and the coming loss of up to 30 percent of Council’s responsibilities, assets, debt, and income (due to the Three Waters reforms) means that Vision 2030 is obsolete. Te Tatau o Te Arawa’s Vision 2050 is seen as retrospective inclusion because its aspirations were embedded into Council’s LTP 2018-2028 prior to its symbolic adoption into the draft LTP 2021-2031.

 

In sharp contrast, RDRR’s members have a vision of healthy interculturalism, greater equity and growing prosperity in an inclusive democracy.

 

Goal Statements

 

The first ‘Goal Statement’ in the Financial Strategy, ‘community resilience,’ is worthy but is being undermined by poverty, job loss, reputational damage, and many interest groups being marginalized by Council’s partnership with Te Arawa.

 

The second goal, ’homes that match needs,’ is impractical, implausible, and inappropriate because, except for pensioner flats, housing is not a Council responsibility and housing needs vastly exceed Council’s capacity to meet them.

 

The third, ‘outstanding places to play,’ is extravagant because the maintenance of current facilities and opportunities would be adequate in the current financial context and must not threaten the socio-cultural value and future of clubs as proposed by the Westbrook proposal.

 

The fourth goal, ‘a vibrant city heart,’ is appropriate providing it respects our multicultural heritage, successful interculturalism and implements the Greg Brown Report.

 

The fifth goal, ‘business innovation and prosperity,’ requires Council to recognize its limited expertise and engage only in ‘light and temporary partnering’ to ‘front load’ infrastructure. It does not justify establishing a Developer Council Controlled Organization (CCO) which would compete with the private sector and create conflicts of interests with Council’s regulatory and compliance responsibilities.

 

There is ambivalence in RDRR about the sixth goal, ‘employment choices,’ because of the muddled central and local responsibilities involved. The seventh goal, ‘a balanced environment,’ is significantly underdeveloped given the urgency of the climate change crisis.

 

Key Strategies

 

It is not clear which of the five key strategies in the Financial Strategy are intended to achieve which goals. Most strategies appear have their own intrinsic goals and lack the details to justify their proposed budgets.

 

The first key strategy, ‘community safety,’ appears unlikely to be achieved unless the intervention and support models used by the Police, Ministry of Social Development (MSD), other central government agencies and Council are reviewed, and functions better integrated.

 

The second and related key strategy, ‘housing and thriving communities,’ is limited in scope to housing. However, since it remains a central government responsibility but plagued by policy incoherence, it is implausible as a key strategy for Rotorua Council.

 

The third key strategy, ‘economic development,’ needs to be fundamentally revised – it comprises a failed tourism ‘recovery’ approach when business reconstruction in the sector is warranted, piggy backing on national initiatives in forestry and wood processing, and a stalled central housing development policy.

 

This muddle over key strategies is compounded by six additional ‘priorities’ being presented in the draft LTP 2021-2031 that are intrinsic to Rotorua’s economic development: climate change mitigation and adaptation, infrastructure investment, all-of-government action, Three Waters reforms, and roads and footpaths.

 

The mitigation and adaptation methods proposed in the Climate Change Action Plan 2021 to meet central government targets (that are intended to ensure sustainability) make good sense to RDRR members.

 

The 30-Year Infrastructure Strategy appears to be a coherent response to the multiple challenges of asset maintenance, future demands, rising standards, respecting cultural values, climate change and the environment, and system and personnel resilience. The catch is that the Infrastructure Strategy is likely to be rendered redundant by the Three Waters Reforms and offer significant opportunities for organisational rationalization and debt reduction in Council.

 

The Council’s All-of-Government Action Plan describes the need for much more effective intergovernmental cooperation and coordination, but without agreed implementation plans, is unlikely to achieve serious improvement. RDRR members believe that Council should lead economic reconstruction by example, especially by rebuilding essential service delivery at grassroots levels, such as sealing and maintaining local roads and providing and refurbishing footpaths.

 

Focus Areas

 

The Financial Strategy proposes that ‘Focus Areas’ be funded for the coming three years. It is not clear how a ‘focus area’ differs from a ‘priority’ or how they relate to key strategies and will give effect to goal statements. It implies that priorities, key strategies and goal statements will not be funded in the coming three years and are political rhetoric. The internal coherence between the draft LTP 2021-2031 and the proposed Financial Strategy is modest.

 

Regarding its general approach, RDRR urges Council to renew its commitment to the provision of basic infrastructure. Legislation requiring attention to the four well beings, albeit worthy in intention, was subsequently unfunded by central government. This led to a diffusion of attention hitherto given to Council’s basic responsibilities that now must be rectified.

 

The first ‘focus area’ is the Whakarewarewa Forest Project. Council is investing public money in the Redwoods Information Centre redevelopment and the Hub 2 project to build tourism assets on Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao land, including maintenance in perpetuity. RDRR members ask Council to review these ‘investments’ in the light of potential duplication of Scion’s café services, no returns to ratepayers, the sharp contraction in tourism, the poverty in the District and because the joint project is an example of crony capitalism.

 

The second ‘focus area’ is the redevelopment of the Sir Howard Morrison Performing Arts Centre (SHMPAC). Given the Covid Depression, growing poverty and the rates affordability crisis, this redevelopment project is regarded as wasteful. RDRR members would have preferred restoration with earthquake proofing to a business operating standard, to restart cash flows. The so-called redevelopment is also regarded as architectural vandalism and cultural elitism in a multicultural and democratic community because it signals racial superiority.

 

The third ‘focus area’ is the redevelopment of the Museum. RDRR members would have preferred restoration with earthquake proofing to a business operating standard. The project is also regarded by RDRR members as exemplifying reverse cultural imperialism. The museum’s purpose has been changed from being a community museum, that houses the valued artefacts of our multicultural community, to being just Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa (the treasure house of Te Arawa).

 

The fourth ‘focus area’ is Council’s joint Lakefront redevelopment project with Pukeroa Lakefront Holdings (PLH) Ltd., using $41M of public money. There will be no returns to taxpayers and ratepayers from the investments into tourism assets that will be managed by PLH. There has also been a major loss of amenity values, especially viewing by the elderly and handicapped who are often vehicle bound, in favour of improving the sight lines of the Wai Ariki Hot Springs and Spa and Queen Elizabeth II Hospital. Specialist wood scientists and providers contest the claim that a New Zealand alternative was not available to building the boardwalk with tonka timber from Peru (that cost $250,000 excl GST, along with creating a huge carbon footprint).

 

The fifth ‘focus area’ is the Aquatic Centre. RDRR members advise that the new 50m pool and a $8M repair bill is what our community can barely afford right now. The $17.4M upgrades should wait for better times, they argue, and help take the pressure off stressed ratepayers. The $24.8M redevelopment option is considered outrageous when families are struggling to stay together and feed their children, and when businesses are battling to survive.

 

The sixth ‘focus area,’ the ‘Out of the Forest Spray Irrigation Consent and Options,’ otherwise known at the Kawaneta Proposal, is provisionally supported by RDRR members. Their proviso is that Council seriously considers additional biological methods of further and measurably reducing remnants of Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P) in the discharged treated wastewater prior to it entering streams, using treated wastewater in commercial activities to save fresh water for domestic use, and reduce the volume of wastewater to be treated and discharged.

 

The seventh ‘focus area’ is the ‘Rotorua Wastewater Upgrade’. RDRR members continue to support the planned upgrades to Rotorua’s wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) although it opposed outsourcing the management of the wastewater system to Trility. The aged pipes and misconnections allowing undue amounts of stormwater to enter the wastewater system must be replaced far more urgently than the Trility contract provides for. RDRR members living in Rotoma point out that the sewerage connection cost of $14K, with an annual $500 for maintenance, means that the proposed 17.8 per cent rates increase has become unaffordable for many.

 

The eighth and final ‘focus area’ is the ‘Tarawera Sewerage Scheme.’ RDRR members living in the Tarawera catchment are concerned that the planning process has been underway for decades without resolution. The roadside pumping route to connect Tarawera with the Rotorua WWTP via Okareka is supported.

 

The 446 households in Tarawera were, however, offered an estimated full-cost connection for $33,000 on the understanding that the project would go ahead if 75 per cent accepted the offer. Given the reported 65 per cent acceptance rate, RRDR’s members living in Tarawera now support the proposed reticulation scheme on health and environmental grounds providing Council offers a range of additional financing options and for the design phase to be moved up into Year 1 of the Long-Term Plan, which starts 1 July 2021.

 

Transformative Initiatives

 

Seven ‘transformational initiatives’ were presented in the draft LTP 2021-2031 although it is not clear how they differ from a ‘focus area’ or a ‘key strategy’. They appeared, to RDRR members, to be part project and part spin. Again, this suggests the importance of corporate leadership that coordinates and improves the development of draft strategic plans.

 

The first ‘transformational initiative’ is ‘1,000 New Homes’ although 2,000 homes were promised elsewhere in the draft LTP 2021-2031 with budget allocations of $5M and $20M. These arbitrary estimates are wildly at variance with Infometrics’ population projections and could prompt cynicism, especially in a context of confused and confusing central government housing policy announcements. There appears little chance of ‘transformative’ housing outcomes in Rotorua, apart from a much needed and additional provision of pensioner flats.

 

The second ‘transformational initiative’ is ‘25 ha of New Industrial Parks.’ RDRR members indicated provisional support in principle and yet doubts because the Airport CCO has been given a series of grants to advance its annual but unfulfilled promises of land commercialization and is yet to reconstruct the Airport’s business case since Covid.

 

The third ‘transformational initiative’ is ‘Two Inner City Apartment Buildings.’ While supportive of this objective, RDRR members are wary of the proposal[3] that Council “leads development of investment proposals and seeks to partner with investors to bring more residential land and inner city living to market.” RDRR’s members are opposed to the establishment of a Developer CCO because it would compete in the private sector, operate on loans at great risk to ratepayers, generate few returns, and offer low public accountability to ratepayers, its base clients. They believe that two apartment buildings can best be achieved by Council reforming its consenting practices and encouraging the private sector, as exemplified by Rotoma No. 1’s plans for a hotel and apartment block in Arawa Street.

 

The fourth ‘transformational initiative’ is ‘Community Service Hubs (Eastside, Westside, Ngongotaha).’ RDRR members advise that service hubs will not be needed if Council coordinates service delivery properly from the Civic Centre or via its CCOs. The shortage of appointments in planning and consenting is seen as a major impediment.

 

Community Service Hubs could become bureaucratic outreach, waste money on distributed offices that would better spent on improving services and install another bureaucratic layer resistant to public accountability.

 

RDRR members are also sceptical of the so-called ‘Wellness Plans’ because they have been based on consultations with selected groups that are not representative of groups of suburbs. The outcomes to date appear to be symbolic legitimation of an implementation plan that does not have the informed and expressed support of most residents in the Eastside, Westside or Ngongotaha.

 

The fifth ‘transformational initiative’ proposed is a ‘Neighbourhood Co-creation and Investment Programme (Eastside, Westside, Ngongotaha).’ RDRR members are wary of this proposal because it appears to be driven by single interest groups that usually do not recognize the need to hold culturally sensitive consultations of all stakeholders and who not appreciate the socio-economic and cultural diversity of their neighbourhoods.

 

They are also wary because it could waste precious resources by duplicating services best coordinated from the Civic Centre or delivered by a CCO. RDRR’s members endorse instead targeted support for community development projects in our villages, such as Ngongotaha, Mamaku and Reporoa, and on marae.

 

It is crucial that neighbourhood demand is both well understood and represented by elected members and transformed into practical development plans by Council providing process facilitators for community planning. RDRR would prefer to see the reintroduction of wards to improve the communication of needs from neighbourhoods and more direct accountabilities back to them.

 

The sixth ‘transformational initiative’ is a ‘Neighbourhood Safety Programme.’ It appears to duplicate the proposed Community Safety Programme above and could waste rates. RDRR members feel that their neighbourhoods have become far less inclusive, safe and liveable because people have become more withdrawn. This means that the base preconditions for such a programme to be successful are not in place. RDRR members would prefer that its recommendations about the Community Safety Programme be considered.

 

The seventh ‘transformational initiative’ is a ‘Leadership Centre (Government, Iwi and Council – Civic Centre).’ RDRR members can see the potential is having a one-stop-intergovernmental-shop that delivers integrated services, excluding Three Waters.

 

One potential danger is that it could consolidate the power of central govt agencies, iwi and Council officials, further disempower elected members, and fail to improve the level of service while significantly increasing costs. Council has no competitors and no discipline behind closed doors. RDRR members are most unhappy about the pervasive secrecy and the lack of democratic debate on Council that should be refreshed by public hearings, and by having ideas debated and blended in the public interest.

 

Capital Expenditure Programme

 

The Ten-Year Capital Expenditure Programme document classifies projects within each ‘LTP Activity’ group as either ‘Growth’, ‘LOS’ (Level of Service), or ‘Renewal’. Presumably ‘Growth’ justifies the budget proposed for each project as being due to population growth, although it is not clear which of Infometrics’ three scenarios were used.[4]

 

It is also not clear what ‘LOS’ refers to – either restoring or developing levels of service. Renewal appears to imply replacement or restoration, which overlaps with the LOS classification.

 

In the absence of integrated project plans that clarify aims, objectives, phases, reporting, budgets and evaluation, it is not possible for RDRR members to provide sophisticated feedback on the quality of projects and the appropriateness of the proposed capex.

 

Nevertheless, the imminence of the Three Waters reforms suggests that a most urgent issue is for Council to develop contingency plans regarding opex and capex. The advice of many RDRR members is that it is time for Council to ‘get real’ and cut a new 10-year plan with downsized budgets and a debt reduction strategy.

Fees and Charges

 

Fees and charges have been declining as a proportion of income since 2015, imposing increasingly on ratepayers to pay operating costs to avoid additional debt funding.

 

Regarding this as a prudent approach mistakenly assumes the affordability of rates rises to ratepayers in perpetuity. It is not clear how limiting rates revenue to not more than 85 per cent of all income will affect the ‘user pays’ policy when the Three Waters project will remove up to 30 per cent of Council’s income.

 

RDRR members familiar with the need for frugality in hard times therefore agree with the Council’s continuing ‘user pays’ policy regarding fees and charges.

 

The exception widely supported is for free parking to be provided in the central business district (CBD) in addition to implementing the Greg Brown Report.

 

Rates

 

The affordability of proposed rates increases to ratepayers was by far the most concerning issue to RDRR respondents. This concern straddled the issues of sustainability, front loading and false promises of levelling, the impact on the poor and elderly, the absence of cost compression, under investment in core infrastructure, and over investment in iwi partnerships and tourism.

 

A major theme in the advice from RDRR members concerned the morally offensive injustice evident in comparative rates rises. Some high value rural properties have been given significant rates reductions, elite suburbs have been given a 2 per cent increase and the poorest suburbs have been given a 14-15 per cent increase.[5] Justification for these allocations must be provided in a context of previous years’ allocations because, as they stand, they constitute continuous and regressive wealth distribution.

 

Others reflected on the false financial equivalence of some proposed rates rises. For example, rural residence owners complained at rates rises when they get neither services nor rates relief for land lost while complying with PC10.

 

The few RDRR members that responded to the proposed reduction of the UAGC by $50 argued that it was relatively trivial and should stay at $475 per annum to maintain equity to all ratepayers for uniform services.

 

Most RDRR members attributed the rates rises directly to the Mayor and most elected members being ‘out of touch’ and advised them to ‘face the facts’ of the Covid Depression, climate change, homeless and rates affordability crisis.

 

They blamed the Council for putting vanity and legacy projects and iwi partnerships ahead of service renewal and replacements that have resulted in the deterioration of infrastructure.

 

When all feedback from RDRR members on rates was categorised, seven major themes emerged; unsustainable impositions, untrustworthy promises of levelling in Years 2-10, the impact of rates rises on ratepayers, the absence of cost compression, under investment in core infrastructure, over investment in iwi partnerships, and Council’s fixation on ‘push marketing’ tourism.

 

External Funding

 

Council has proved effective at obtaining substantial external funding and those involved are to be congratulated.

 

On the other hand, RDRR members warn Council that such windfall grants in future will be vulnerable to erratic political and economic winds in central government as New Zealand comes out of the Covid Depression.

 

Capital Investment

 

The Financial Strategy for 2021-2031 proposes that $732M be invested in capital works, specifically in the Museum, Lakefront, Performing Arts Centre, Whakarewarewa Forest, Rotoiti/Rotoma WWTP, Tarawera sewerage, Aquatic Centre, stormwater and roading projects.

 

RDRR members advised that these proposals should be revised in the light of,

 

• The Three Waters decisions,
• Asking iwi partners to take a greater role in financing capex and maintenance and all responsibility for opex,
• Withdrawing the $61M Westbrook proposal in favour of designing a Community and Sports Centre in Fordlands,
• Switching the Crankworx subsidy into the development of an International Golfing Destination Strategy,
• contractCost compression and effective project management in all projects,
• Moving Tarawera’s reticulation design phase up into Year 1 of the draft LTP, and
• Adding the design phase of a CBD rescue strategy based on the Greg Brown Report to Year 1 of the LTP.

 

Debt

 

RDRR members recognized that the Financial Strategy proposed for 2021-2031 is planned to hold debt below the permissible ceiling of 250 per cent of revenue. They asked that the recommended cuts to capex above be used to lower the proposed increase to borrowings of $180M.

 

RDRR members strongly advise Council to develop a debt retirement strategy, including methods used in other public service organizations to challenge project and programme budgets, such as cost compression and formative evaluation.

 

 

 

 

BACKGROUND

 

Elected members of Council approved a draft Long-Term Plan (LTP) for 2021-2031 for consultation on 25 March 2021. Its consultation programme from 30 March to 30 April comprised two structured feedback sessions in the Council Chamber, three in villages and three at marae.

 

RDRR conducted an independent consultation process. Initial feedback was collected by phone and email and at a drop-in workshop at the Springfield Golf Club on 8 April. The structure of the Council’s draft LTP and the policy development overview in the Financial Strategy (p.4) presented on 25 March[6] were used to collect and present feedback from RDRR’s members, associates, and friends.

 

RDRR’s respondents reported incoherence within and between these two documents as well as an unreasonable expectation that they become familiar with (a) the 10-Year Capital Expenditure Programme[7] only available as a meeting attachment, and (b) with a range of separate, complex and associated policies, often only at aspirational level. Further, many spending proposals lacked project or programme plans to explain and justify capex and/ or opex forecasts.

 

In contrast, Hamilton City Council’s draft LTP 2021-2031[8] exhibits clear priorities, high internal and external coherence, and the rationales and costs of projects and programmes in tightly interconnected documents. RDRR members recommend that Council overhaul its strategic planning services to its elected members and community.

 

The first and second drafts of RDRR’s submission were emailed to over 700 members, associates, and friends to invite more ideas and gain agreement. The third and final draft was signed off by Committee members. RDRR does not have the capacity to translate its feedback into te reo Māori.

 

The RDRR is an interest group that speaks for residents and ratepayers in the district. It was launched on 25th September 2015, replacing its predecessor, the Rotorua Pro-Democracy Society, with a wider mandate. The RDRR has campaigned since for the restoration of democracy, the rule of law, financial responsibility and policy making power to elected representatives. It focuses on the quality of democratic and effective decision making, which is required by the Local Government Act, and the financial management of Council. It currently has about 740 members of multiple ethnicities that reside in Rotorua City and in rural and lakes areas.

 

VISION

 

Council’s Vision 2030

 

The proposed Financial Strategy began by describing Vision 2030 as ‘The Rotorua Way: A Partnership with Te Arawa and all of Government.’ Vision 2030 is legitimated using two main slogans; ‘Tatau Tatau – We Together’ and ‘Build back Better.’

 

RDRR rejects Council limiting governance to partnerships with mana whenua (Te Arawa) elites and central government agencies. It contradicts the Council’s obligation in the Local Government Act to deliver on a democratic contract with all district residents and ratepayers.

 

The outcome unacceptable to RDRR is that most residents and ratepayers, farmers and mātawaka (non-Te Arawa Maori) have been marginalized since 2013. Hence, for many, the ‘Tatau Tatau’ slogan is regarded as cynical, coercive and shrouding a political reality of divisive racism and elitism.

 

The ‘Build Back Better’ slogan is also rejected. It is not original. It has been co-opted by the Council to justify an aim of ‘recovery’ from the Covid-19 crisis; to recover our community’s sense of wellbeing and resiliency in an effective and efficient way. The RDRR regards ‘recovery’ as an impractical and reactionary political promise.

 

It proposes instead innovative economic reconstruction from the new base towards achieving social, cultural, economic and environmental wellbeing by providing core infrastructure.

 

The fundamental justification given for the LTP 2021-2031 is to implement Council’s Vision 2030, without significant change. Presentations to elected members stressed repeatedly that “the kaupapa has not changed.”

 

Most elected members have accepted this predetermined position uncritically, despite fundamental changes to our community and its economy:

 

1. Covid-19 ended Rotorua’s international tourist annual income of $300M per annum, further limited employment options in a low wage economy with high unemployment rates and exposed a lack of developed land with appropriate infrastructure that is needed for commercial and industrial development.
2. There is a widening acceptance across our community that the global climate crisis will require significant and urgent changes in local and central government priorities.
3. Housing about 2,200 homeless in most of Rotorua’s 85+ motels has all but ended Rotorua’s $500M per annum domestic tourism revenue, saved the motels from bankruptcy but destabilized local perceptions of community safety and undermined our brand value as a safe destination.
4. Despite these challenges, the forestry and wood processing and agribusiness sectors have thrived and helped limit Rotorua’s drop in GDP and employment, and yet remain marginalized in the Council’s economic development strategy which remains focused on ‘recovering’ tourism.

 

Instead of facing the economic reality that much of Vision 2030 is now obsolete, Council endorsed the draft LTP 2021-2031 for consultation.

 

RDRR members have concluded that most elected members and senior officials refuse to adapt in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.

 

They also believe that Council’s symbolic adoption of Te Tatau o Te Arawa’s Vision 2050 is not evolutionary but retrospective inclusion because Te Arawa’s priorities were embedded into the LTP 2018-2028 and reappear in the draft LTP 2021-2031.

 

Te Arawa’s Vision 2050

 

Te Arawa’s Vision 2050 was a new long-term strategy developed by the Te Arawa iwi (federation), for the iwi, hapū (tribes) and whānau (families).[9] The Council uncritically adopted Vision 2050 without reviewing its own Vision 2030, claiming that its partnership with Te Arawa resembles a waka hourua (twin-hulled canoe). This imagery does not qualify as a sophisticated justification for Council’s policy of co-governance which violates the ‘votes have equal value’ principal of democracy.

 

RDRR consulted its members about Te Arawa’s Vision 2050. It requested feedback by email to two draft responses and then provided written and direct feedback to Te Tatau.[10] RDRR was very respectful of Vision 2050 and appreciated the opportunity to provide feedback. It identified the extensive common ground between the two interest groups and accepted the high-level aspirational goals as being the legitimate expressions of Te Arawa’s interests in local government, and indeed, supported most of them in principle because they apply to everyone.

 

On the other hand, RDRR also pointed out that Te Arawa’s use of alliances with central politicians and non-democratic community decision-making to achieve the goals of Vision 2050 may result in a political culture of entitlement in Te Arawa. Further, this could generate a counter political narrative stressing political equity and interculturalism.

 

RDRR warned that Council’s management of public investment into iwi private development projects was creating political divisions in our community. It was boosting a perception of separatism and creating friction between interest groups. It also noted that Council’s current partnerships are perceived to favour the interests of the 40 per cent Māori minority over those of the 60 per cent non-Māori majority, especially so when it is acknowledged that the 40 per cent minority includes a substantial number of largely apolitical mātawaka (non-Te Arawa Māori) who have not been given the places promised on Te Tatau o Te Arawa.

 

Finally, it was noted with regret that Council’s investments of ratepayer’s funds into iwi projects, by way of capital contributions and guaranteeing maintenance in perpetuity, probably qualifies as a misappropriation of public funds.

 

RDRR’s draft Vision 2024-2034

It is RDRR’s view that Council’s vision needs to be refreshed with all stakeholders in the Rotorua District community. The next opportunity to do this is following the local authority elections due in October 2022. A new mandate is needed to set fresh priorities and to develop a new financial strategy for the next LTP 2024-2034.

 

A fresh vision for 2024-2034 is also needed to counter the effects of the Covid Depression, most especially the downward mobility experienced by Rotorua’s working- and middle-class Kiwis. RDRR’s proactive vision identifies economic reconstruction as a major means toward achieving long-term and equitable social, cultural, economic, and environmental wellbeing.

 

The current and predictable problems in Rotorua’s economy include a continued contraction in tourism, immigration of homeless people, persistent poverty, climate change, crime and addictions, and the coming loss of up to 30 percent of Council’s responsibilities, assets, debt, and income due to the Three Waters reforms.

 

RDRR members therefore call for a return to democratic processes, especially so that Council’s conversations with the public are not biased through exclusions, agenda control and by processes being manipulated. They want public hearings and debates to be reintroduced to encourage the hearing, sharing and public testing of diverse ideas. Elected members must be discouraged from using personal attacks and the Code of Conduct for Elected Members to suppress critical feedback and freedom of speech in social media.

 

Instead of virtue-signaling rhetoric and seeing all problems as race-based, RDRR want pragmatic public discourse that aims to restore prosperity and all other forms of well-being. It wants leadership that maintains the difference between governance and management, gives all elected representatives a fair hearing, recognizes experience and qualifications, and enables debate that generates consensus.

 

RDRR would not be averse to the reintroduction of wards to boost the quality of public representation and accountability. It has a vision of healthy interculturalism, greater equity and growing prosperity in an inclusive democracy.

 

 

 

 

GOAL STATEMENTS

 

The seven Goal Statements in the Financial Strategy (p.4) are reproduced verbatim, as subheadings, prior to general feedback from RDRR members.

 

1. A Resilient Community – Inclusive, liveable and safe neighbourhoods give us a sense of place, and confidence to be involved and connected.

 

The goal of resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. It is supported by all members of RDRR in a Covid context. Given the context of multiple crises, and the challenges being endured by people and businesses, it is regarded as a primary criterion for evaluating Council’s performance.

 

‘Build back Better’ is regarded by RDRR as an empty promise. Recovery of the past is implausible. Reconstruction, however, provides pragmatic pathways towards survival, prosperity, and well-being.

 

Sadly, community resilience is being undermined by poverty, job loss, reputational damage, and many interest groups being marginalized by Council’s partnership with Te Arawa. Many RDRR members report feeling like powerless outsiders in our community, by being repeatedly targeted by accumulating rates rises and by not being heard by Council.

 

The residents of Glenholme recently made it clear that they have lost their sense of neighbourhood security. Residents from Ngapuna, Fordlands and Ngongotaha have since confirmed that this has been their experience for some time. RDRR members share this view, almost irrespective of suburb, and confirm that their sense of belonging, their willingness to be connected and involved in community affairs has been badly eroded in recent years.

 

They regard the Council, especially most elected members and senior officials, as being in concerted denial about this widespread perception. They despair at not being heard, or, when very few attend ‘consultation’ opportunities, they report encountering processes that deflect, suppress, control or otherwise manipulate their feedback. Trust is low.

 

2. Homes That Match Needs – Quality, affordable homes are safe and warm, and available to meet everyone’s needs.

 

This goal of ‘homes matching needs’ is defined as a new equilibrium in the housing market that supplies safe, warm and affordable homes. RDRR regards this goal as implausible because it is not a Council responsibility, and the policy levers are with central government. It is therefore not an appropriate criterion for evaluating the Council’s performance.

 

Despite this, Council continues to give this goal top priority, and consistently overreaches its authority and capacity. To illustrate, the 2017 Housing Accord,[11] the Special Housing Areas initiative,[12] and the Council’s Strategy for Homes and Thriving Communities[13] each lacked a coherent and funded implementation plan. Similarly, the Council’s current Housing Programme[14] is not a programme because it lacks aims, objectives, delivery phases, outcome indicators, a budget and staffing. It is time for Council to take a reality check.

 

The collapse of confidence in the central government’s recent housing policy announcement[15] suggests that there will be no significant improvement to housing supply or prices any time soon. Cancelling interest deductibility and introducing a capital gains tax on sales under 10 years will not discourage land banking, accelerate building after consents, or boost the building of affordable homes on Māori land for the homeless.

 

In this muddled policy context, Council has repeatedly confirmed that the district is short of about 1700 homes and that the shortage has been developing for many years. Expecting Council to match the supply of homes to need in this context is impractical, implausible, and inappropriate.

 

One exception is that Council successfully maintains 152 pensioner flats,[16] plans to refurbish 11 in 2021/22 and to add another 11 during 2021/22. This provision is believed to be significantly less than the numbers on the waiting list but is unmentioned in the draft LTP 2021-2031. Urgent attention is called for.

 

3. Outstanding Places to Play – Recreation opportunities are part of our lifestyle; connecting us, transporting us, and surrounding us.

 

RDRR regards this proposed goal as extravagant. In the post Covid era Rotorua does not need to build new facilities or offer outstanding opportunities. Maintaining current facilities and opportunities will be adequate. Once amended, this goal is regarded as a primary criterion for evaluating the Council’s performance.

 

Council is advised by RDRR to continue to coordinate the development and maintenance of recreation facilities in each of our city suburbs and wider communities. They must enable suburban engagement and local ownership, by code. Suburban and village sports clubs must be respected and enabled as dearly beloved local cultural centres.

 

Accordingly, RDRR is opposed to the Westbrook Sports and Recreation Precinct proposal which would see the back nine holes of the Springfield Golf Course sold for high-density (presumably affordable), medium-density and low-density homes, with the front nine converted to car parks and sports fields. The urge to centralize codes on Westbrook is ill advised because it disrespects long standing cultural values related to local parks, such as Hunt Park, Puketewhero Park, etc., and to local sports clubs that are central to social affiliation and resilience.

 

Instead of proposing to spend $61M on creating a ‘dream recreational project’ around the International Stadium, RDRR members would emphasise the need to maintain and upgrade current facilities, and to develop fresh business plans for each, with host clubs.

 

For example, the Springfield Golf Club on Council land is one of the few sports or recreation clubs that has members organized to deliver voluntary services that result in the club paying substantial annual rates. This example is to be emulated not scrapped. Further, the subsidies paid by ratepayers to build Crankworx into an international mountain biking destination have done their work and should now be switched into creating an international golfing destination.

 

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BOPRC) and Council’s joint control of public buses must be driven by demand, not by projected population growth, to end the ongoing wasteful level of service provision.

 

4. Vibrant City heart – Our inviting and thriving inner city reflects our unique heritage and lakeside location.

 

This goal is warmly supported by RDRR providing our ‘unique heritage’ is interpreted to mean our multicultural heritage and successful wellbeing over many decades being attributed to cooperative interculturalism.

 

This goal is regarded by RDRR members as indicating a major and continuing failure of policy making and implementation by Council. They are puzzled as to why the Greg Brown Report, which recommended the systematic redevelopment of the CBD, has not been adopted and costed as a major project in the draft LTP 2021-2031.

 

Among the many recommendations of the Greg Brown Report favoured by RDRR members are the private sector development of high-rise flats, consenting to achieve repopulation, pedestrianizing Tutanekai Street, encouraging themed precincts, encouraging the redecorating or recycling of buildings, and converting the CBD cycleway back into parking and diverting East-West cyclists along the lakefront.

 

The strength of public feeling about rescuing the CBD should not be underestimated. RDRR members who have returned to Rotorua to retire after many years away have observed how badly the CBD has deteriorated. Some have concluded that the CBD is in a ‘death spiral’ that must be reversed. A retired couple who gave up hope and moved to Taupo explained that:

 

We are quite pleased that we no longer reside in an area that appears to be in a real shambolic state.  Taupo’s Mayor is all for making the CBD area very vibrant – which it is already – but the changes that they are about to implement will make it even more so.  By the way, Parking is free here and there are 2 large free car parks that are easily within two blocks of the main CBD.

 

CBD business owners are frustrated with the Council to the point where some have despaired and sold up. Their repeated attempts to have free parking seriously considered by Council, including a petition signed by thousands, have been ignored. The current price of parking established by the Rotorua Mall, and replicated at the Trade Central and other suburban convenience shopping centres, is $0. This means the parking charges in the CBD, and the annoyances of using the parking machines, combine to redirect customers elsewhere.

 

The key impediments to the reconstruction of the CBD appear to be some elected members and senior officials being impervious to market signals and advice from retailers, the iPark outsourcing contract which does not expire until 2026, and feather bedding – where the pink parking zone around the Civic Centre provides subsidized parking to Council employees. It might have been more public spirited and commercially smart to improve parking for the growing number of elderly drivers.

 

Repeated complaints about the state of public toilets in the CBD are ineffective and constitute another reason for customers to migrate from the CBD to the ‘big box’ stores.

 

5. Business Innovation and Prosperity – We boast a diverse and sustainable economy energised by our natural resources and innovative people.

 

This goal is strongly supported by RDRR for evaluating the performance of Council but more for its facilitation of business innovation and economic growth rather than for its interventions in the fragile retail market. RDRR commends Council’s supportive but hands-off relationship with Scion, a national research institute with an international reputation for high quality knowledge production and commercialization.

 

On the other hand, this goal is where the Council is believed by RDRR to have failed most consistently and the area where it is in deepest denial about its own performance. It has a string of business disasters to its credit including Terax, Mudtopia, the Airport, and Destination Rotorua. Not one of these ventures have created the profits, rates relief or strategic advantages on the scale promised, and those that have not collapsed are dependent on ongoing subsidies.

 

RDRR members were therefore alarmed to read that the draft LTP 2021-2031 proposes (p. 9) that Council add more ‘light partnering’ (in what appear to be public-private partnerships (PPPs)) to its long-standing and controversial role, and uneven performance, in regulation and compliance. Council still has much to do to incentivize development and discourage land banking while avoiding any duplication of central government responsibilities and accountabilities.

 

It is the RDRR’s view that it is only in recent times that significant progress has started to be made on the pace of consenting, infill rules, fast tracking social housing with Kainga Ora, their relationship with developers, incentives for developments, supporting private plan changes and completing Council plan changes. It is far too early for Council to assume that these preliminary reforms have matured into successful organizational routines and development.

 

To be clear, the ‘light partnering’ proposed would authorise Council to ‘front load’ construction of infrastructure both inside and outside each development area, allegedly to accelerate development. The example given is the Wharenui Project in collaboration with Ngati Whakaue Tribal Lands (NWTL) Ltd whereby PGF grants are being managed by the Council to provide the three waters infrastructure as well as roading and footpaths. There is no evidence of acceleration having been provided.

 

However, there is evidence of how ‘light partnering’ is distracting Council from core service delivery, such as rural road maintenance, and from related public accountability. To illustrate, one RDRR member reported that recent complaints about (a) the poor quality “rushed” mowing and weed spraying that was done on the Paradise Valley Road late last year and (b) how the recent 46 ml rainstorm had flooded the road gutters due to no maintenance being done for years, had no discernable effect.

 

Hence, adding Council’s uneven project and programme supervisory expertise above or beside NWTL’s project management will potentially add costs and delays, and retard organisational learning in NWTL – which has many generations of independent housing development ahead of it. Furthermore, an active role for Council in ‘front loading’ the construction of infrastructure through contract management, creates a conflict of interest with its own regulatory and compliance functions.

 

RDRR members were shocked to read that the draft LTP 2021-2031 proposes that Council increasingly move into joint venture partnerships to invest in residential, industrial and inner-city apartments, and further, to establish a Developer CCO so that it could become a fully-fledged developer in the private sector.

 

These additional joint venture and developer roles for Council are unacceptable to RDRR. There would be a steep increase in costs and risks to ratepayers. The conflicts of interest between private sector values and public sector principles would escalate at each step. RDRR has little confidence in Council’s business expertise that would guarantee successful outcomes in a competitive business economy. Further, its presence in the market would distort market signals and retard capacity building across the local economy as businesses looked to profit from their relationship with Council – the greatest danger of crony capitalism – instead of innovation to improve their competitive productivity.

 

RDRR also suggests that Council stop repetitive and cost-plus spending on its programmes and upgrading projects, and either contribute capacity building to the private sector or sell any going concerns they create, in each case to help retire debt. Council is a public service organisation and should restrict itself to ‘light and temporary partnering’ with businesses in the private sector.

 

6. Employment Choices – We are a prosperous connected community; growing our education, training and employment opportunities.

 

There is ambivalence in RDRR about this being a Council goal, even though creating job opportunities through education and training would be helpful although they are not local government responsibilities.

 

To clarify, employment policy and related implementation programmes are with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry of Social Development. Education and training policy and implementation programmes are with the Ministry of Education, schools, tertiary sector institutions, private training establishments and industry training organisations.

 

On the other, there are district and regional challenges and priorities that can be effectively and efficiently attended to by encouraging local links and temporary delivery systems built in collaboration with sector partners. It is also the case that central government agencies find it functionally effective to develop joint delivery programmes with district and regional authorities.

 

One example is Infracore’s ‘make work’ employment scheme in collaboration with MSD. It offers relatively short-term bridging and morale-boosting employment to those keen to re-enter the workforce. While RDRR is strongly supportive of this and like temporary schemes to assist with post-Covid reconstruction and unemployment, it is felt crucial that Council and its CCOs refocus sharply on the needs of its primary clients, residents and ratepayers, in the longer term.

 

7. Balanced environment – We are known globally for our clean, natural environment, air quality and healthy lakes.

 

This aim is only provisionally supported by the RDRR because it needs to be significantly and urgently developed to respond effectively to climate change.

 

The report card on Council’s performance in this area is impressive although uneven, in RDRR’s opinion. Lakes water quality and air quality have been significantly improved over decades by a range of trusts and societies, and through plan changes and joint programmes with the BOPRC, and yet there is much more to be done. BOPRC’s Plan Change 10 on nutrient management is impacting steadily.

 

Council’s Wood First policy, however, lacks an effective implementation plan and real national support. RDRR hopes that local implementation will start with a real Christmas tree in the City Focus/ Manawa to replace the Village Green Christmas Tree recently bulldozed on the Lakefront.

 

Geo-thermal energy policy development continues to be significantly under-developed, currently languishes at regional level and should be moved to a national authority that is tasked to create innovative applications locally.

 

In general, however, the concern expressed about climate change does not reach to the self-evident conclusion that it constitutes an emergency. Had that happened, none of the projects that assume and encourage international tourists to visit would be still on the table.

 

KEY STRATEGIES

 

The five key strategies proposed are each summarised using verbatim descriptors from the Financial Strategy (p.4) before RDRR’s feedback is provided and investment is recommended.

 

An immediate problem for RDRR members is the loose connections between the goals above and the key strategies that follow. It is not clear which strategies are intended to achieve which goals, and most strategies appear to have their own intrinsic goals. As indicated above, this suggests the need for better policy development coordination at corporate level in Council.

 

1. Community Safety Strategy

 

RDRR members believe that the safety of citizens is the first responsibility of governments. Rotorua’s citizens have a right to safety. Safety is a pre-condition of order and democratic decision making in a decent society that the Police must guarantee.

 

Council is right to be concerned about an increase in anti-social and criminal behaviour that is affecting residents’ and visitors’ experiences in Rotorua. The draft LTP 2021-2031 accurately described issues contributing to the increased concern about community safety: anti-social behaviour, relatively high crime statistics, a culture of drinking and violence, clusters of motels used as emergency and transitional housing, and gang culture attracting young people with associated fighting, intimidation, and drug abuse.

The solutions proposed in the draft LTP include enhanced CCTV/ electronic tools and community patrols, ‘Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design’ (CPTED) assessment and treatment of ‘hot-spot’ places, Community Centre Hubs that deliver social and other services, supporting community group initiatives and programmes that connect people through positive activities, and supporting community resilience and safety programmes (that ensure our children and young people have the social and life skills that enable positive participation in school, work and social life).

 

RDRR members are troubled that there has not been a sophisticated evaluation of these intervention models, alone or in combination. For example, the proposed extension of CCTV will be limited in effect by how well the data collected is used. The supposed effectiveness of the CPTED methodology is sharply at odds with Rotorua having achieved notoriety as the crime capital of New Zealand. The proposed social development functions of Community Centre Hubs might be better delivered by school-based integrated wellbeing centres. Recall, Rotorua’s high schools pioneered the international development of school-based integrated health centres. Converting ‘health’ to ‘wellbeing’ would be a natural role extension and build on pre-existing curriculum and intervention structures.

 

Hence, RDRR takes the view that before there is any transferring of responsibility to Community Centre Hubs (to presumably expand community policing, or grant scarce resources to support community group initiatives that promise to improve community safety), there needs to be an evidence-based plan developed that is understood and supported by all responsible agencies.

 

Another key problem is that the agencies involved appear to have struggled with using a whole-of-government approach. For example, the current and independent Police policy of ‘arrest by exception’ appears to RDRR to enable a gradual deterioration in what is regarded as acceptable behaviour, rather than ‘arrest to achieve law and order’ to re-affirm acceptable standards. Another example is that MSD branches elsewhere enable the homeless to nominate Rotorua as a preferred destination, worsening our public safety crisis, actual and perceived. The widely rumoured upshot is that only about 200 of the 2,200 allegedly being accommodated in motels are affiliated to Te Arawa.

 

In sum, until the intervention and support models used by the Police, MSD, other central government agencies and Council are critically reviewed and integrated in a sophisticated way there is little prospect of community safety being significantly improved in Rotorua and being seen to have been improved. There is no evidence that spending an additional $500K or $1M will make a significant difference to community safety. They appear to be numbers snatched out of the sky. Hence, none of the three options is acceptable to the RDRR as they are presented.

 

2. Housing and Thriving Communities Strategy

 

The draft LTP 2021-2031 was correct to acknowledge that Rotorua has a serious shortage of houses, many barriers to land development and that “our houses do not meet the needs of our people.” On the other hand, as in the past, it then over promised on delivery (p. 6);

• Accelerate 2,000 new home builds
• Enable 3,000 sections coming to market
• Develop the inner city, including two inner city apartment buildings
• Establish community service hubs at Eastside, Westside and Ngongotahā, with neighbourhood cocreation and investment programmes at each of these locations.
• Facilitate neighbourhood safety projects, and
• Partner with iwi, developers and central Government to help enable and deliver infrastructure and community projects that support the development of thriving communities.

 

The Council’s proposed Housing and Thriving Communities Strategy[17] is limited in scope to housing, that is, it has relatively little to say on related job creation and on economic development that enables communities to thrive. The Strategy also appears to assume that social deprivation is caused by race, because of high association, whereas RDRR members believe that other factors, such as family breakdowns, educational failure and intergenerational welfare dependency generate and recreate social deprivation across generations.

 

The other major limitation to Council’s housing strategy is that housing remains a central government responsibility but whose housing policy has little credibility. Council has also had a string of failed strategies. The scale of the challenge has long been well beyond the Council’s capacity to remediate within its debt ceiling.

 

It was noted above that RDRR members are adamantly opposed to Council establishing a Developer CCO. The primary reason given was “to alleviate market failure created by the lack of land sections for housing options” (p. 9). This proposed CCO solution, however, will not address the supposed market failure.

 

Much of the potential land for major housing developments around Rotorua is owned by Māori trusts who intend to retain ownership in perpetuity and, in many cases, to develop housing on their own terms. They will be indifferent to the presence of a Developer CCO, unless it becomes a route for public investment at significantly better terms although at cost and risk to ratepayers. If so, this would replicate the Council’s investment of ratepayers’ wealth into the Lakefront and Whaka Forest Hub 2 projects that primarily benefit their iwi partners.

 

The development of the remaining potential land has not been retarded so much by the unwillingness of owners to develop their land but by Council’s own regulatory and compliance regimes. It was therefore helpful that the draft LTP recognized that there must be significant improvement in the pace of consenting, streamlining infill rules, fast tracking social housing (with Kainga ora), improving relationships with developers, incentivizing development (presumably while disincentivizing land banking), accelerating private plan changes and completing Council plan changes.

 

Finally, RDRR is also concerned that the draft LTP 2021-2031 does not reveal the latest thinking in Council regarding their Housing and Thriving Communities Strategy. The most recent briefing of elected members about housing strategy development was held with the public excluded. This both prevents the public getting access to the latest options, and the private sector weighing up their competing rationales, and precludes elected members sharing what are defined as confidential matters. This approach must end because it runs counter to the public interest.

 

3. Economic Development Strategy Framework

 

The draft LTP 2021-2031 reproduces the three ‘agreed priorities’ of the Council’s Draft Economic Development Strategy; [18] Rotorua as a place of choice, as the future of forestry, and as ready for business. It is notable that implementing each of these three priorities requires collaboration with and funding from central government agencies, and that implementation plans that are yet to be developed.

 

For example, the first priority cites Rotorua’s economic success in tourism in the past to indicate that a Destination Management Plan will soon set out opportunities for transformation. This ‘push marketing’ of tourism products is shown below to be ill conceived.

 

As argued above, the RDRR also considers this approach obsolete because it fails to accept the impact of Covid-19, the resultant depression and the growth of homelessness. It is also morally offensive to RDRR members that the continued investment in iwi partnership projects (that will primarily benefit tribal elites) is to be funded by disproportionately raising the rates of the poor – who are mostly Māori and the elderly on CPI-indexed pensions.

 

The second priority recalls Rotorua’s dominant position in New Zealand’s forestry, wood processing, research and forest carbon management, and reports that central Government is focusing resources on timber industry transformation and zero carbon initiatives, along with a Forestry Futures Action Plan of transformative initiatives. RDRR concludes that the Council proposes to rely solely on central government to generate economic development in this sector.

 

The third priority (Rotorua, ready for business) is a response to the deficit of 1500-1750 homes, that 85 per cent of households in emergency housing in Rotorua identify as Māori and that about 390 children and 180 parants are currently housed in motels alongside 501s (persons convicted in Australia with New Zealand citizenship being expatriated). The actions proposed include “unlocking housing, accelerating land development and investment,” and an Inner-City Plan that will “set out opportunities for transformation.” It is not clear what this rhetoric means in practical terms.

 

In sum, to this point, Rotorua’s economic development strategy comprises a failed tourism recovery approach, piggy backing on national initiatives in forestry and wood processing, and a stalled central housing development policy.

 

The draft LTP 2021-2031 then muddled matters further by adding additional priorities that will inevitably impact Rotorua’s economic development: climate change mitigation and adaptation, infrastructure investment, all-of-government actions, Three Waters reforms, sewerage, stormwater, and roads and footpaths. Brief advice on each of these priorities has been provided from RDRR members.

 

Climate Change Plan

The Climate Change Action Plan 2021[19] is provisionally supported by RDRR members. However, in their view, the ‘modal shift’ campaign (getting people out of carbon-emitting vehicles onto bikes, walking more and into electric vehicles) has become far too coercive in style and needs to use more subtle, normative and re-educative approaches.

 

Using population growth projections to develop the public bus system should be replaced by rigorous demand indicators to avoid waste. The low-carbon urban design criteria, converting to LED lighting and organic waste collection are all supported. The adaptation methods proposed in the LTP to ensure sustainability make good sense to residents and ratepayers.

 

Infrastructure Investment and Three Waters reforms

The 30-Year Infrastructure Strategy[20] appears to be a coherent response to the multiple challenges of asset maintenance, future demands, rising standards, respecting cultural values, climate change and the environment, and system and personnel resilience.

 

What is not clear is the organisational impact on Council when the Three Waters reforms transfer between 25-30 per cent of related income, expenditure, debt and contracts (like Trility) to supra-regional entities. RDRR notes the imperatives and opportunities for organisational rationalization and cost compression that the transfer will enable.

 

Roading and Footpaths

Overall, RDRR members believe that Council should lead economic reconstruction by example, especially by rebuilding essential service delivery at grassroots levels, such as sealing local roads and providing and refurbishing footpaths.

 

Regarding the currently dominant issue of housing provisions, members advise Council to develop productive relationships with developers and landlords to avoid undermining private investment, development expertise and the affordability of rents. It needs to abandon or downscale overly ambitious partnerships on private property to end wasteful expenditure that could encourage crony capitalism.

 

RDRR members believe that an economic reconstruction strategy should start with the forestry and wood processing industry, food production and the use of geo-thermal energy.

 

The Wood First policy should be revised and relaunched in a context of climate change to boost demand in construction, including laminates, and showcase local products instead of importing exotic wood at huge cost plus carbon footprint to the centre of New Zealand’s forestry and wood processing industry.

 

Many RDRR members have taken the view that farmers have the most compelling reasons to be environmentally responsible and that they should be encouraged and respected as leaders in climate mitigation. They regard the antagonism between Council and the agribusiness sector as inappropriate because it is not in the public interest.

 

All-of-Government Action Plan

The Council’s All-of-Government Action Plan appears to be meta-organisational rhetoric that describes the need for much more effective intergovernmental cooperation and coordination.

 

RDRR advises that, without implementation plans that specify interdependent responsibilities, leadership roles, and public accountabilities for each project or programme, there is unlikely to be serious improvement.

FOCUS AREAS

 

It is not clear how a ‘focus area’ differs from a ‘priority’. It appears, in the Financial Strategy,[21] that ‘Focus Areas’ are actually the projects that will be funded or continue to be funded in the coming three years. How they relate to key strategies and given effect to goal statements is not clear. This implies that other priorities, key strategies and goal statement are merely virtue signalling and will not be funded. It also suggests that the policy making model being used by Council to integrate the draft LTP with the proposed Financial Strategy needs review to improve internal coherence.

 

Regarding approach, RDRR urges Council to review its commitment to the provision of basic infrastructure. The legislation enabling attention to the four well beings (social, cultural, economic and environmental), albeit worthy in intention, was subsequently unfunded by central government.

 

This led to a diffusion of attention hitherto given to Council’s basic responsibilities for rubbish collection, potable water, stormwater, wastewater, reserves, recreation facilities, civic leadership and non-arterial roads and footpaths. More is proposed to be spent on Arts and Culture than on Water Supply or Stormwater in the Financial Strategy.

 

Brief feedback from RDRR follows on the Focus Areas listed in the Financial Strategy (p.4).

 

1. Whakarewarewa Forest Project

 

SCION has just built the $18M Te Whare nui o Tuteata building, including purpose-built spaces for a café (privately fitted out by Eastwood), using public money, on Titokorangi Drive (ex-Long Mile Road). Council should review funding another café about 400m away within the proposed $7M Information Centre being redeveloped at the Redwoods.

 

A 400-car carpark, toilets and reception facilities has just been built at the Whaka Forest Hub 2 including three-phase power for future commercial uses, at cost to ratepayers. It has been proposed that Council spend many millions to build more facilities at Hub 2.

 

Both the Redwoods development and the Waka Forest Hub 2 project are on Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao land and is a joint iwi/ Council project that includes maintenance in perpetuity.

 

Council is asked by RDRR members to review the wisdom of these two proposed ‘investments’ in the light of the contraction in tourism, the growing perception that both projects are examples of crony capitalism, and the growing poverty in the District. There is considerable scope for savings.

 

2. Sir Howard Morrison Performing Arts Centre

 

The redevelopment of SHMPAC, instead of restoration with earthquake proofing to a business operating standard, is regarded by RDRR as unaffordable given the rates affordability crisis. It is regarded as ill-advised given Rotorua’s more pressing priority to alleviate poverty. At the very least the project should now be subjected to rigorous cost compression.

 

The redevelopment of SHMPAC is also regarded by RDRR members as architectural vandalism because currently dominant cultural tastes are being imposed on a building considered graceful in another era with the design modelled on a grand piano. This cultural elitism is particularly offensive in a multicultural and democratic community because it signals racial superiority.

 

3. Museum

 

The redevelopment of the Museum, instead of restoration with earthquake proofing to a business operating standard, is regarded by RDRR members as unaffordable – given the rates affordability crisis and that it will now not be reopened until 2025.

 

It is also regarded as ill-advised given Rotorua’s more pressing challenge of alleviating poverty. The project should now be subjected to rigorous cost compression with savings going into rates reductions. The appointment of a Director five years before the Museum is now due to be reopened is widely regarded as wasteful.

 

The redevelopment of the Museum is increasingly regarded by RDRR members as exemplifying reverse cultural imperialism. Its purpose has been changed from being a community museum that houses the valued artefacts of our multicultural community to being Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa – The Treasure House of Te Arawa.

 

4. Lakefront

 

It is confirmed on p. 17 of the draft LTP 2021-2031 that $2M was allocated in the 2020/21 Annual Plan to plan a Rotorua Lakefront commercial and hospitality building. Elsewhere it is described as a café and communication center.

 

Presumably, in the absence of further detail in the LTP, Pukeroa Lakefront Holdings (PLH) Ltd will plan to offer leases for a café and retail outlets, in addition to service outlets offered to the four current tourism operators.

 

From the outset of the Lakefront Redevelopment Project the Council has partnered with PLH, a subsidiary of Pukaroa Oruawhata Trust (POT) that manages Ngāti Whakaue’s assets. Council and PLH co-planned the spending of $41M granted via the Council and the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) from ratepayers and taxpayers.

 

However, no returns to taxpayers and ratepayers are envisaged and maintenance has been guaranteed in perpetuity by the Council. These investment structures qualify the project as crony capitalism because PLH’s profits will rely not on commercial risk in an open market but on a favourable relationship with the Council and on closed access.

 

RDRR advises against crony capitalism because it uses state power to establish monopolistic conditions that can encourage profiteering through rent seeking, stifling competition and innovation that would add value to transactions over time, and potentially corrupting public-serving economic, political, and social ideals.

 

The most common complaint about the Lakefront Redevelopment Project is the loss of public parking to view Lake Rotorua and Mokoia Island. This sharp reduction in public amenity values is bitterly resented, especially by the elderly and handicapped who are often vehicle bound.

 

A related complaint is the loss of vehicle access from the Lake Road/ Rangiuru Street roundabout along the lakefront to the Memorial Drive roundabout and along Oruawhata Drive to the Government Gardens. These road closures are intensely disliked. They are commonly attributed to the preferences of the PHL and Council co-planners and to POT that now controls the redevelopment of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as well as the building of a luxury spa and wellness centre, Wai Ariki Hot Springs and Spa.

 

With Oruawhata Drive closed, both developments enjoy exclusive and unimpeded views of Lake Rotorua and Mokoia Island that were once a warmly valued public amenity. RDRR suggests that Council actively explore alternative free car park/ viewing platforms further along the lakefront to ameliorate public anger and their reasonable expectations.

 

Another public concern is the design and cost of the lakefront walkway, as well as health and safety issues. LGOIMA questions from RDRR confirmed that it is being constructed using concrete with a boardwalk made of tonka wood from Peru that cost $250,000 (excl GST). A New Zealand solution (including a laminate solution) that met strength, quality and availability could not allegedly be found. Specialist wood scientists and providers contest this claim.

 

Other RDRR members argued that local laminated wood, and eucalyptus harvested to measure, are strong enough to build bridges that take tractors and trucks, and are therefore well able to take foot traffic. The costs of maintenance were undisclosed. Finally, importing wood from Peru must have added tons of carbon emissions while local specialty timber growers would have relished the opportunity to showcase their products.

 

Aquatic Centre

 

The Aquatic Centre has just been given a new 50m pool, a major improvement to its ‘level of service’ to the community. This reflected the commitment in the LTP 2018-2028 which proposed a three-stage redevelopment for the Aquatic Centre. This was, however, prior to the impact of Covid and the Depression in our local economy which seriously undermined the prosperity of our people and their capacity to fund the latter stages of this project at this time.

 

The draft LTP 2021-2031 identifies three options.

• Option 1 ($8M) includes replacing the pool hall roof, replacing the ventilation and upgrading safety systems and painting the changing rooms.
• Option 2 ($17.4M) includes the replacement of the annex roof, building controls, concourse, glazing and landscaping; as well as refurbishing the changing rooms and poolside showers; and, renovating the foyer and vapor control, with no addition to services.
• Option 3 ($28.3M and Council’s recommended option) includes new services including a new learn-to-swim pool; new play lido; new bombing pool; a new café; upgrading of the spas; and seeking partner-funding to co-fund assets such as a new hydro-slide, splash pad and, new fitness centre.

 

The RDRR’s view is that $8M repairs is what our community can barely afford right now. The $17.4M upgrades can wait for better times. Council must cut its cloth, they argue, and take the pressure off stressed ratepayers.

 

Further, the $24.8M redevelopment option is considered ‘way over the top’ when families are struggling to stay together and feed their children, and where businesses are battling to survive – with some closing every week.

 

 

5. Out of the Forest Spray Irrigation Consent and Options

 

RDRR has supported all parts of the recommended wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) upgrade and system overhaul since 2013 except the direct discharge of treated wastewater into Lake Rotorua. Along with over 60 other community organisations, RDRR gained s274 status in the Environment Court to contest the direct discharge of treated wastewater into the Lake on cultural, commercial, and scientific grounds.

 

RDRR provisionally supported the Council’s decision to withdraw its application from the Environment Court and consulted its members early in 2021[22] on the alternative known as the Kawaneta Proposal. It included;

1. Increasing the capacity and provision for stormwater flow storage
2. Removing additional phosphorus (P)
3. Ultra-filtration using Membrane BioReactor (MBR) technology to remove Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorous (P)
4. The sludge going to Kawerau to be composted
5. Ultraviolet disinfection technology to neutralize pathogens, and
6. Discharging the treated wastewater to the environment over a land contact bed in the Whakarewarewa Forest by the water storage ponds.

RDRR’s members, associates and friends remain strongly of the view that;

1. The planned upgrades to the WWTP, especially the installation of ultraviolet technology, are critical to restoring the wellbeing of the water, prior to switching over to the relocated land contact bed.
2. The rigorous measurement of N, P and E-coli at WWTP discharge and stream entry points remain crucial to the achievement of water wellbeing targets – to ensure that Lake Rotorua is swimmable and clear in the future, has a low bacterial content, and is both odour free and life-bearing.
3. The excessive amount of stormwater entering the wastewater system through aged pipes and misconnections is a major challenge that needs to be addressed with urgency.
4. Additional biological methods of further reducing N and P in discharged treated wastewater should be explored urgently to provide commercial opportunities and to sustain preferred wellbeing outcomes.

 

In scientific terms, land contact beds do not significantly improve the quality of the treated wastewater, other than add a little to the level of oxygenation. Moving the contact bed further away from Lake Rotorua may help resolve Māori cultural objections and help rectify unfortunate optics in a tourist city. However, RDRR would urge Council to consider additional biological methods of further and measurably reducing remnants of N and P in the discharged treated wastewater prior to it entering streams.

 

Additional commercial opportunities using biological methods, such as algae farming, water cress and market gardening, and hemp cropping, will help extract the remnants of N and P from treated wastewater. These and other options do not appear to have been explored. Recycling options also need serious investigation to reduce treatment volumes.

 

Treated wastewater (that will remain at less than drinking standard) could also be used in commercial activities, such as industrial cleaning (e.g. forestry truck washdowns) and irrigation (e.g.s sports fields, market gardens), and thereby save fresh water for domestic use and reduce the volume of wastewater to be treated and discharged.

 

6. Rotorua Wastewater Upgrade Underway

 

The RDRR, along with most other submitters at the Council’s public hearings, unsuccessfully opposed outsourcing the management of the wastewater system. It preferred the retention of profits in the local economy during the Covid Depression, internal capacity building, minimising risk to ratepayers of budget blowouts, high levels of public accountability, and avoiding any association (through Chinese ownership of Trility) with a regime that has a repugnant human rights record.

 

As noted above, the RDRR continues to strongly support the planned upgrades to the WWTP on specific conditions. To restate those conditions, the ultraviolet upgrade is critical to removing pathogens before release over the relocated land contact bed. The measurement of N, P and E-coli at discharge and stream entry points remains crucial to maintaining the ‘swimmability,’ clarity, low bacterial content, odour free and life-bearing status of Lake Rotorua.

The aged pipes and misconnections allowing undue amounts of stormwater to enter the wastewater system must be replaced more urgently than the Trility contract provides for. Council must explore additional biological methods of further reducing N and P in discharged treated wastewater urgently to provide commercial opportunities and to sustain preferred wellbeing outcomes.

With the proposed transfer of potable, storm and wastewater responsibilities from Council (including income, debts and assets) to a supra-regional entity by the central government’s Three Waters Reforms, RDRR asks that its conditions for policy support are made known to the new supra-regional entities.

Finally, RDRR members living in Rotoma point out that sewerage connection and upgrade costs are rising. A connection costs $14K, and with an annual $500 for maintenance, the proposed 17.8 per cent rates increase has become unaffordable for many.

 

7. Tarawera Sewerage Scheme Underway

 

It is an exaggeration to claim that this proposed sewerage reticulation scheme is underway. It would be more accurate to claim that the planning process has been underway for decades and that it has identified a preferred roadside pumping route to connect Tarawera to the Rotorua WWTP via Okareka.

 

The 446 households in Tarawera were, however, offered an estimated full-cost connection for $33,000 on the understanding that the project would go ahead if 75 per cent accept the offer. Given the reported 65 per cent acceptance rate, RRDR’s members living in Tarawera now support the proposed reticulation scheme on health and environmental grounds providing Council offers a range of additional financing options and for the design phase to be moved up into Year 1 of the Long-Term Plan, which starts 1 July 2021, to revise estimates.

 

TRANSFORMATIONAL INITIATIVES

 

It is not clear what qualifies as a ‘transformational initiative’ or how it differs from a ‘focus area’ or a ‘priority’. It would have been more helpful to RDRR members if the draft LTP 2021-2031 had used less hyperbole. Again, this suggests the importance of corporate leadership closely coordinating the development and presentattion of draft strategic plans in the Rotorua Lakes District.

 

1. 1,000 New Homes

 

2,000 homes are promised elsewhere in the draft LTP 2021-2031 with budget allocations stated as both $5M and $20M. They appear to be arbitrary estimates.

 

RDRR has been sceptical of such promises since the Twyford era, scepticism that has intensified with the latest central Government’s housing policy announcements that have illogically doubled the Bright Line test, cancelled the deductibility of loan interest payments, and alienated investors and developers.[23]

 

As noted above, the reality is that Council does not build homes, apart from owning 152 pensioner flats which are being professionally managed on a non-profit basis. Council is generally reliant on iwi to redeploy lands (without sales) to enable major housing developments, and on the private sector to recycle the current housing stock and to manage housing developments on private land.

 

The provision of housing is a central government responsibility. Council’s role is largely limited to planning and consenting using RMA rules which may well be revised. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the pace of consenting. RDRR members stress that Council needs to reduce disincentives to ‘opening up’ untenanted properties as rentals or for refurbishment.

 

In sum, there is a greater chance of confused and confusing actions continuing than ‘transformative’ initiatives about housing occurring in Rotorua. RDRR would urge steadily increasing the provision of pensioner flats from the current 11 planned for 2021/2022.

 

2. 25 ha of New Industrial Parks

 

RDRR is broadly but only provisionally supportive of the vague description on p.16 of the draft LTP 2021-2031 document which indicates “The Partnering with iwi/landowners to unlock 25ha of greenfield industrial and business park land to support business relocation and expansion.” Infrastructure grants are dependent on central government handouts. A RDRR members has asked, “Why is there a cost to unlocking land for development?”

 

Members are increasingly concerned about the uneven performance of the Airport CCO before Covid, the absence of a fresh business case for the reconstruction of the CCO since Covid, the continuing provision of additional planning grants, the annual but unfulfilled promises of land commercialization and the campaign for additional investment, when the industrial park across the road is nowhere near capacity.

 

3. Two Inner City Apartment Buildings

 

RDRR is broadly but barely and provisionally supportive of the vague description on p.16 of the draft LTP 2021-2031 document to “Create an Inner City Plan to build investor and development confidence in our CBD [and] Develop incentives policy to support inner city residential development.”

 

Members consider that boosting footfall is long overdue in the CBD so that businesses might flourish. They are also aware of many business owners in the CBD that are unwilling to invest any more time in Council’s planning processes that lead nowhere. RDRR members were appalled when the Greg Brown Report, for example, was not proposed for implementation in the draft LTP 2021-2031. Confidence in Council’s CBD planning processes has evaporated.

 

RDRR is therefore extremely wary of the proposal (ibid, p. 9) that Council “leads development of investment proposals and seeks to partner with investors to bring more residential land and inner city living to market.” There are widespread doubts about the competence of officials and risks to ratepayers should Council become a developer by establishing another CCO. RDRR is opposed to a Developer CCO because it would operate at great risk, generate low rewards, and provide low public accountability to ratepayers, its base clients.

 

The proposal that Council will ‘develop incentives policy’ is equally alarming to ratepayers who have noted the proposed redistribution of rates on p. 39 that will dramatically favour medium and upper capital value farms, upper urban CV residences and all businesses at direct cost to the owners of rural residences and lower and medium urban residences. Will these proposed gross inequities be further extended to offer ‘incentives?

 

Worse, RDRR’s members recall it was the Council’s Inner City Revitalisation Programme, originally funded at $10M over 10 years, that destroyed the City Focus and accelerated the deterioration of CBD businesses already threatened by the advent of ‘big box’ stores and online retailing. Council has since rejected attempts by businesses and the public to boost the footfall in the CBD by trialling free parking.

 

It is also RDRR’s view that the desirable outcomes – of having many newer or converted apartment buildings in the CBD – can best be achieved by Council reforming its consenting practices and encouraging the private sector. For example, the Rotoma No. 1 Inc.’s plans for a hotel and apartment block in Arawa Street are on hold out of an abundance of caution due to Covid but might be encouraged to restart their project.

 

4. Community Service Hubs (Eastside, Westside, Ngongotaha)

 

The blunt advice from RDRR members is that service hubs are not needed if Council coordinates services properly from the Civic Centre in Rotorua. The proposal could also lead to simply being bureaucratic outreach and waste money better spent on improving services.

 

Council’s adoption of the Eastside Wellness Plan was premature. The RDRR is sceptical of this proposal because of the planning methodology used to date and the bureaucratic expansionism potentially involved.

 

Council developed the Te Oranga Nui – Rāwhiti Mai: Eastside Community Wellness Plan[24] in consultation with the Tatau Pounamu Collective, a group that is not representative of the Eastside. The two outcomes are symbolic legitimation and a detailed implementation plan that does not have the expressed support of the residents of Lynmore and Ngapuna.

 

It is therefore of concern that the planning methodology is to be replicated with the “co-creation of Westside Wellness and regeneration plan.” [25] RDRR members living on the Westside and in Ngongotaha have explained that they prefer open and public invitations to participate in consultations, and that confidential engagement with chosen partners is offensive.

 

They respect the fact that some communities prefer marae-style consultations on issues of importance to them, but that in our multi-cultural community, there are many different preferences regarding appropriate consultations that should be respected and catered for.

 

 

 

 

5. Neighbourhood Co-creation and Investment Programme (Eastside, Westside, Ngongotaha)

 

This proposal is ill considered, possibly driven by interest groups that do not recognize the need to hold culturally sensitive consultations of all stakeholders and who not appreciate the diversity of most neighbourhoods.

 

RDRR members are also wary that it could waste precious resources by duplicating services best coordinated from the Civic Centre or those potentially delivered by a CCO (e.g Infracore).

 

A possibly wiser solution to the challenge of how to nurture and target neighbourhood regeneration, through Council investment, is to ensure that neighbourhood demand is well understood and represented by elected members. RDRR would prefer to see the reintroduction of wards to improve the communication of needs from neighbourhoods and more direct accountabilities to them.

 

6. Neighbourhood Safety Programme

 

This proposal appears to duplicate the Community Safety Programme and could be a waste of rates.

 

The other factor is that RDRR members feel that their neighbourhoods are far less inclusive, safe and liveable because people have become withdrawn. This means that the base preconditions for such a programme to be successful are not in place.

 

RDRR members would prefer that the recommendations above about the Community Safety Programme be considered.

 

7. Leadership Centre (Government, Iwi and Council – Civic Centre)

 

RDRR can see the potential is having a one-stop-intergovernmental-shop that delivers integrated all-of-government services, excluding Three Waters. A potential danger is that it could consolidate the power of central govt agencies, iwi and Council without improving the level of service and significantly increase costs.

 

The problem here seen by RDRR members is that Council has no competitors and appears to have no discipline behind closed doors. Members are most unhappy about the pervasive secrecy and the lack of democratic debate on Council among elected members that should be freshened with public hearings.

 

 

 

 

 

CAPITAL WORKS

 

1. Sewerage and Sewage $172M

 

The problems in this area and RDRR’s views on them have been rehearsed above. The Three Waters reforms could also render any advice given in this area redundant.

 

2. Sports, Recreation and Recreation $159M

 

The Westbrook Precinct at $61M is not needed and this amount should be saved and used to retire debt or partly used to design a Community and Sports Centre in Fordlands.

 

RDRR members stress that we do need green spaces, trees, high value golfing tourists and ratepayers to enjoy their environment. The current sports fields are adequate. Springfield Golf Club pays its way, with members providing much voluntary labour, and should have its lease renewed at least three years before the expiry date in 2027.

 

The Aquatic Centre restoration should be left at maintenance and repairs until financial hardship and the affordability of rates rises in Rotorua have been restored. Option 3 is ‘over the top’ when folks are struggling to hold their families together, businesses are closing, and tourism has contracted. Adopt the repairs option only to save ratepayers money.

 

The Aquatic Centre has new 50m pool, RDRR members advise, so “please complete the roof, ventilation, safety improvements and paint the changing rooms for $8m. It will have to do because it all we can afford.” “Upgradings costing $17.4M can wait for better times. Recut our cloth and take pressure off ratepayers.”

 

3. Roads and Footpaths

 

There were too many complaints from RDRR members about the state of local roads and footpaths to record here. It is a generic priority challenge that bespeaks the need for Council to get back to providing basic or core infrastructure.

 

Two respondents spoke for many. One noted that there is “No footpath on my side of the road. Wheelchairs have to cross over to be safe.” Another noted that “The mowing and weed spraying up Paradise Valley Road is rushed. Blackberries flourish.”

 

4. Arts and Culture

 

Several RDRR members suggested that this area should be a low priority until economic reconstruction becomes self-evident. They also want infrastructure for future affordable housing to take priority over arts and culture spending.

 

 

5. Stormwater $75M

 

The view of some RDRR members is that it is taking too long to fix faults. They also believe that ageing pipes are being given low priority for replacement. Contractors seem to be slow and create problems for others.

 

A widespread view is that legacy and vanity projects should be curtailed, and the Lakefront and Hub 2 projects should be subjected to cost compression, in order to transfer resources back into the stormwater pipe replacement programme. On the other hand, this programme could be redundant if responsibility is transferred to a supra-regional entity under the Three Waters reforms.

 

6. Community Leadership $65M

 

In a context where elected members are responsible for providing community leadership, this proposed budget allocation makes little sense to RDRR members. The proposed spending should contribute towards debt reduction.

 

The structural remediation of poor community leadership, they suggest, is to reintroduce wards for all elected members on Council.

 

7. Water Supplies $51M

 

Two issues of concern were raised. Can two springs supply 7351 homes by 2051? What impact will climate change have on water demand and springs safety?

 

This budget allocation could be redundant with the Three Waters reforms and should contribute towards debt reduction.

 

8. District development $1.9M

 

The basic problem here identified by many RDRR members is that consenting is slow and discourages district development, compared to other districts.

 

Whole-of-district development is already provided for by the annual planning, three-year district planning, the ten-year or long-term planning and spatial planning cycles and the governance budget.

 

9. Planning and Regulatory $1.2M

 

Again, RDRR members consider that the development of subdividable land is possible but regulatory conditions are too costly and RMA requirements cause major delays and confusion.

 

 

FINANCIAL STRATEGY

 

Introduction

 

The Financial Strategy in the draft LTP 2021-2031 has the following objectives: [26]

• Achieving Vision 2030 in a financially prudent and sustainable way
• Maintaining existing infrastructure so it is fit-for-purpose now and into the future
• Providing infrastructure to accommodate a growing district
• Investing in the future of the district, and
• Keeping rates affordable and managing debt.

 

A presentation at the 25 March meeting of Council[27] reiterated that the Financial Strategy presumes that all projects started under the banner of Vision 2030 will be completed and that there will be additional investment in community and housing development. This ten-year financial strategy will require an average rise in rates of 9.2 per cent in Year 1 with debt rising from $261M at year end 2021 to $440M at year end 2031.

 

This is a financial strategy of sustained expansionism. It is justified by a projected population growth into 4,000 properties over the next ten years, the continuing suppression of financing costs, and sustained investment from other government agencies (such as MBIE and MFE) and private funders, over and above Council revenues. Each of these assumptions is problematic.

 

Infometrics has forecasted[28] a baseline scenario where Rotorua’s population will grow at an average rate of 0.6 per cent pa from 76,200 in 2020 to 90,800 in 2055, that is, increasing by an annual average of 457 people. However, if the main current and predictable problems in Rotorua’s economy as listed above (p.4) persist as disincentives to population growth, then Infometrics’ low growth scenario will become much more likely. It projects the population to grow by 3,900 people to 80,000 in 2051, that is average about 111 more people per annum that will require about 100 new properties in each of the next ten years.

 

The other three key factors causing uncertainty is the collapse in confidence in the central government’s housing strategy, coupled with the reality of Council’s largely symbolic housing programme (apart from the pensioner flats programme), and the arrival of many more homeless people. The vaccination programmes internationally can be expected to end the Covid Depression in time and cause the central government agencies to end windfall grants and low interest rates on debt. In part or together they are highly likely to render the proposed financial strategy redundant.

 

Further, as noted above, absent from the proposed Financial Strategy is the impact of losing up to 30 per cent of Council’s functions to a new Three Waters entity. The Minister of Local Government made it clear[29] some time ago that the assets, debt, governance, management, and rates related to the Three Waters are to leave Councils.

 

The proposed Financial Strategy therefore should have anticipated the loss of all water related assets, revenue, and debt from the Council’s balance sheet, and explored commensurate organizational rescaling to match the estimated 25-30 per cent reduction in Council’s functions. They should also have discussed the consequent lowering of the debt ceiling well as programme right sizing and cost compression strategies.

 

The most urgent issue now is for Council to develop preliminary plans to cope with this combination of imminent changes. The advice of many RDRR members is that it is time for Council to ‘get real’ and cut a new 10-year plan and downsized capex budget with a debt reduction strategy.

Fees and Charges

 

The draft Financial Strategy noted that revenue from fees and charges has been declining as a proportion of income since 2015. This has imposed a growing burden on ratepayers “to pay operating costs and this reliance on rates is high compared to some other Councils.” (p. 2)

 

While accurate, this leads on to a false assumption being made that this approach is prudent because it establishes “a stable revenue base with which to maintain essential services without requiring debt funding,” (loc cit.). The so-called prudence involved wrongly assumes the affordability of rates rises to ratepayers in perpetuity.

 

Limiting rates revenue to not more than 85 per cent of all income over the term of the LTP, and requiring fees and charges to cover the balance, could perversely affect the ‘user pays’ policy when the Three Waters Programme removes up to 30 per cent of Council’s income.

 

RDRR is deeply concerned with Council’s management of fees and charges after the Kaikoura earthquake on 14 November 2016 damaged and closed the Museum and the Performing Arts Centre. Instead of adopting a restoration and earthquake-proofing strategy – to restore revenue raising capacity in both of these buildings – Council decided to invest heavily into two iwi partnership projects; the Lakefront Redevelopment with Ngāti Whakaue and the Whakarewarewa project with Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao.

 

Neither of these latter projects will contribute fees and charges to the Council budget and are regarded by RDRR as examples of crony capitalism. The upshot is that fees and charges have had to be raised elsewhere to sustain the planned increases to the rates take.

 

RDRR members are familiar with the need for frugality in hard times and therefore agree with the ‘user pays’ sentiment that lies behind the policy that

 

Any increase to fees and charges is to ensure that those who directly generate a need for, and gain the highest benefit from a service, will pay for that service and associated benefit.

 

Rates

 

The affordability of proposed rates increases to ratepayers are the primary concern to RDRR respondents. 82 submissions were received on rates rises alone. This concern straddled the issues of sustainability, front loading and false promises, the impact on the poor and elderly, the absence of cost compression, under investment in core infrastructure, and over investment in iwi partnerships and tourism.

 

The general advice on rates from RDRR members stressed the urgent need for prudence: “Limit spending to income, compress costs of programs, get a new social contract to set priorities and develop a new financial strategy.” “Rates rises reflect spending on the Lakefront, Museum, Theatre, bike hubs, the statue, road works, Crankworx, Aquatic Centre and the skatepark.” “Demonstrate belt tightening and make major savings. The rates rises = sickening greed, so hold Council accountable.” “Cut costs to CPI. The 14-15 per cent increase in urban rates do not compare to the cost of living, acknowledge job losses, or low interest on savings.”

 

A second major theme in the advice from RDRR members concerned the morally offensive injustice of comparative rates rises. “The injustice of the poor cross subsidizing the rich sickens me.” “Most of the poor have no means of increasing their income so they slip into poverty.” “Why does Council ignore financial distress?” “I want infrastructure for my rates, no frills, no vanity or legacy projects, just infrastructure.” “The higher rates go the more Council can borrow to pay for their crazy projects.” “Rates rises will force poor people out of their homes faster that rich people.” “A 15 per cent hit on the poor is disgusting – they need a break. It will create more hardship and poverty.”

 

Others reflected on the equivalence of rates rises. “Rates increases are not equivalent to families’ incomes or minimum living standards. Minimal increases on high value homes is immoral.” “The minimum wage going up to $20 and benefits up by CPI don’t match rates rises so the poor get poorer.” “Promises of rates rises levelling out after Year 1 last LTP were not honoured.” “Please, no more Mudtopias, HEMOs, cut the waste. Stop the subsidies to Crankworx and to tourism killed by Covid.”

 

Rural residence owners pointed out that their rates will rise by 15.5 per cent but they get no services or rates relief for land lost while complying with PC10. They pointed out their limited access to education, training and other services. Some farmers are paying $20-$100K in rates but getting few services. Their rates rises hugely exceed any improved levels of service – their roads and kerbing are poor or non-existent with some roads going back to dirt. Since 2013, their rates have gone up by 39 per cent compared to CPI rises totalling 5.7 per cent. One RDRR member reported that his property valuation had gone up 58 per cent without any improvements.

 

The few RDRR members that responded to the proposed changes to the UAGC argued that it should stay at $475 per annum to uphold uniformity and equity to all ratepayers for uniform services.

 

The Auditor’s Report (pp. 11, 29) noted important long-term risks and conditions of uncertainty around the external funding of capital projects. Decisions to raise rates, he confirmed, wrongly attributed them to revaluations and engendered a sense of false prosperity. Rates rises, he emphasized, were driven by spending priorities and cost-plus budgeting of continuing projects and programmes. Revaluations were exploited, he said, to justify rates rises.

 

RDRR members almost universally attributed the rates rises to the Mayor and elected members being ‘out of touch’. They were deeply offended by reports that the Mayor and her followers cheered the decision to consult on the LTP with its proposed rates rises. It was concluded by one RDRR member that “they believe their own spin.”

 

Most members advised elected members to ‘face the facts’ of the Covid Depression, climate change and the implications of homelessness. They blamed the Council for putting vanity and legacy projects and iwi partnerships ahead of service renewal and replacements that resulted in the deterioration of infrastructure.

 

Finally, when the feedback from RDRR members on rates was categorised, seven major themes emerged; unsustainable proposals, front loading and false promises, the impact of rates rises on ratepayers, the absence of cost compression, under investment in core infrastructure, over investment in iwi partnerships, and Council’s fixation on marketing tourism. They are now each briefly discussed.

 

Unsustainable Proposals

As the Auditor noted, it is commonly but mistakenly believed that rates rises are caused by increased valuations. It is a myth. Rates rises are associated with but are not actually caused by revaluations. The draft LTP Financial Strategy accurately clarified the actual drivers of rates rises (p. 2):

 

Rate increases will be at a rate that matches the increase to our cost base. Changes to Council’s cost base are mainly driven by new or increased service levels, inflation and changes to interest expenses and depreciation resulting from the investment into capital expenditure (capex) over the 10 year plan.

 

Put simply, rates rises are caused by Council increasing its spending. The proposed percentage increases in rates have been projected in Table 1 overleaf over the term of the LTP (loc cit.) considering the Tarawera reticulated sewerage decision.

 

Table 1: Rates Rises projected in the draft LTP Financial Strategy, 2021-2031^[30]

 

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031	Total
Proposed Rates increases ( per cent)*	9.15	5.23	4.21	4.85	3.47	1.85	2.95	4.56	4.80	2.48	43.55
Quantified Limit on Rates increases ( per cent)*	9.15	5.50	4.40	5.10	3.80	2.00	3.20	5.20	5.50	2.80
*Excluding Tarawera
	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
Proposed Rates increases ( per cent)**	9.15	5.23	5.98	8.94	2.71	-2.90	2.95	4.56	4.80	2.48	43.90
Quantified Limit on Rates increases ( per cent)**	9.15	5.46	6.30	9.35	2.97	-2.90	3.20	5.20	5.50	2.80
**Including Tarawera

 

The general justification given for the proposed 9.15 per cent increase in rates in Year 1 is that it needs to “cover locality and district planning to drive housing, digital transformation, compliance requirements, go live of new assets, depreciation and financing.” [31]

 

RDRR challenges this justification as probably inflated because it incorporates unspecified budgets, especially for locality and district planning – even though the provision of housing is not a Council responsibility – and has not factored in the Three Waters reforms.

 

Front Loading and False Promises

The most alarming aspect of Table 1 is that rates were proposed to rise by over 43 per cent by 2031, whatever the Tarawera decision. It was also proposed that the average rates increase across Years 2-10 would be 3.8 per cent.

 

RDRR challenges both proposals because they vastly exceed likely projections of CPI increases that define actual affordability to ratepayers and seek to ingratiate the 9.15 percent increase by falsely promising subsequent relief. Council must accept that both the 9.15 rise in Year 1 and the average rise of 3.8 per cent in Years 2-10 exceeds the financial capacity of increasing numbers of ratepayers. RDRR also challenges the peak loading in 2022 because it suggests an unwillingness in Council to defer capex to ‘level out’ the impact on ratepayers over ten years.

 

It was claimed that the disproportionate rise in Year 1, referred to as ‘front loading’, would be offset by significantly less increases in Years 2-10. RDRR notes with regret that this promised offset promise should not be trusted. The excerpt from the Council’s magazine Tatau Tatau overleaf[32] provides a matching promise given in March 2018 for the the LTP 2018-2028, a promise that was not subsequently honoured.

 

 

This excerpt shows that the 2021 rates increase in 2021 in the LTP 2018-2028 was projected to be marginally over 4 per cent and that the 2022 rates increase was projected to be slightly more, but both well less than half the 9.12 per cent average rates rise that has been proposed for 2021/ 2022. RDRR members’ conclusion is that such promised projections are not to be trusted.

 

The Impact of Rates Rises on Ratepayers

The draft LTP Financial Strategy fails to evaluate the impact of proposed rates rises on ratepayers. There are many approaches available. None were used despite repeated requests from elected members since October 2019 – that they take real account of financial distress that rates rises actually cause.

 

It is now widely assumed among RDRR members that most elected members and senior officials are indifferent to the financial predicament that many residents and ratepayers find themselves in.

 

A socio-economic evaluation would have confirmed that the proposed 9.15 per cent increase in rates is extremely ill timed for residents and ratepayers. They have been tightening their belts and struggling to preserve their jobs and businesses due to Covid-19. There was a widespread expectation that Council would take similarly prudent action to reduce debt and to eliminate wasteful spending. The draft LTP 2021-2031 is extremely disappointing to them in this regard.

 

Instead, Table 2 overleaf shows that Council’s total rates take has been accelerating at nearly seven times the increases in the disposable and CPI-indexed incomes of beneficiaries since 2014.

 

Table 2: Actual Annual Increases in Rotorua District’s Rates Take compared to Annual Increases in New Zealand’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), for years ending June 2014-2020, 000s

 

	2014[33]	2015[34]	2016[35]	2017[36]	2018[37]	2019[38]	2020[39]
Total Rates Take incl water $	71,387	73,363	80,159	82,136	85,885	91,722	96,826
Total Revenue $	105,909	104,778	112,821	118,048	125,193	144,001	142,534
Total Rates per cent of Total Revenue	67.3	70.0	71.0	69.6	68.6	63.7	69.3
Total Rates Take Increase $	148	1,976	6,796	5,227	7,145	5,837	5,104
Annual Rates Take per cent Increase	2.08	2.77	9.26	6.52	6.05	6.80	5.56
Compounding Rates Take per cent	2.08	4.85	14.11	20.63	26.68	33.48	39.04
Annual CPI Increase per cent	0.3[40]	0.4[41]	0.4[42]	0.0[43]	1.5[44]	1.7[45]	1.4[46]
Compounding CPI Increase per cent	0.3	0.7	1.1	1.1	2.6	4.3	5.7

 

The differences between the accumulating rates take and the incomes of those on CPI-indexed pensions have had to come out of pensioners’ standard of living. If they have no other income, accumulating rates takes are pressing recipients further towards poverty. This is a regressive policy that RDRR members believe Council should be deeply ashamed of.

 

The impact of the proposed 9.15 per cent increase in rates on ratepayers can also be seen from an individual’s perspective.

 

Grant Chapman’s analysis in Table 3 overleaf relates to his property at 10 Wharenui Road, Owhata.

 

 

 

Table 3: Rates increases at 10 Wharenui Road compared to Capital Values, Inflation, the Adult Minimum Wage and Superannuation

Year	Capital Value	Capital Value per cent Incr on Previous Year	Capital Value per cent Incr from 2014/15	Council Rates Demand, not incl BOPRC	Council Annual Rates per cent Incr on Previous Year	Council Annual Rates Running Total per cent Incr from 2014/15	Ann Infl Rate per cent Per Year[47]	Ann Infl Rate Accum per cent each Year from 2014/15	Min Adult wage by Year[48]	Ann Min Wage per cent Incr Per Year	Min Wage per cent Incr YOY from 2014/15	National Super Single Live Alone Weekly Nett Tax Code M.[49]	Super per cent Incr by Year	Super per cent Incr Year on Year from 2014/15
2014/15	$272,000			$2,090.34			1.22		$14.25			$366.94
2015/16	$275,000	1.10	1.10	$2,291.67	9.6314	9.6314	0.29	1.51	$14.75	3.50	3.50	$374.53	2.15	2.15
2016/17	$275,000	0.00	0.00	$2,338.20	2.0304	11.6618	0.65	2.16	$15.25	3.40	6.90	$384.76	2.75	4.90
2017/18	$275,000	0.00	0.00	$2,440.29	4.3662	16.0280	1.85	4.01	$15.75	3.30	10.20	$390.20	1.40	6.30
2018/19	$407,000	48.00	49.65	$2,659.04	8.9641	24.9921	1.60	5.61	$16.50	4.75	14.95	$400.87	2.75	9.05 per cent
2019/20	$407,000	0.00	0.00	$2,789.91	4.9217	29.9138	1.62	7.23	$17.70	7.25	22.20	$411.15	2.60	11.65
2020/21	$407,000	0.00	0.00	$2,919.80	4.6557	34.5695	1.71	8.94	$18.90	6.80	29.00	$423.83	3.10	14.75
2021/22	$635,000	56.02	133.50

 

 

A key implication of Table 3 is that, while inflation has accumulated between 2014/15 and 2019/2020 by 8.94 per cent, the rates payable on 10 Wharenui Road have increased fourfold, by 34.56 per cent.

 

Another implication is that whether the affordability of rates rises to ratepayers is seen in a context of the Covid Depression, compared to national inflation rates and CPI-indexed benefits, or when related to the adult minimum wage and superannuation for an individual, that the affordability of rates rises to ratepayers has become a major crisis.

 

Unless a fresh approach is developed that seriously considers the affordability of rates to ratepayers, the patterns established since 2013 will be repeated in coming years and intensify what is already unacceptable to ratepayers and morally offensive to RDRR members.

 

The Absence of Cost Compression

Many objections to the proposed 9.15 per cent increase in rates stressed that there is no evidence of cost compression in the LTP related to Council’s projects and programmes. There is, instead, regular evidence of vanity and legacy projects being funded, and profligate solutions being adopted, irrespective of the dramatically changed financial context and intensifying pressure on ratepayers.

 

The most extreme examples are the Museum and the Performing Arts Centre being significantly redeveloped at great cost, instead of merely being earthquake proofed and opened for operations to produce cash flows and then progressively improved.

 

The Lakefront Redevelopment is often cited by RDRR’s members as a project that attracts supplementary funding from ratepayers via Council for decorations and co-planning at the whim of the co-planners; Council officials and PLH Ltd.

 

The Whaka Forest Hub 2 project has installed a 400-car carpark with 24-hour lighting that highlights how little use it has, a few miles from the Blue Lake where weekend water sports attract hundreds of participants that must park on the grass.

 

Under Investment in Core Infrastructure, Over Investment in Iwi Partnerships

Council proposes to sustain heavy investment into the Lakefront Redevelopment and the Whaka Forest Hub 2 project when there is a reciprocal history of under investment in the core infrastructure (the rationale for the Three Waters intervention). These investments of rates and taxes are justified by reference to partnerships with iwi corporations.

 

RDRR members regard these investments as inappropriate examples of crony capitalism; defined as an economic system in which businesses thrive not because of innovation and risk taking, but rather as a return on money amassed through an advantageous nexus between a business class and a political class.^[50]

 

A crony capitalist economy becomes increasingly fragile due to the loss of market signals and increasingly vulnerable to capture by elites and then to severe disruptions when the political context changes dramatically – instead of incremental improvements through systematic and cyclical evaluations boosting business productivity.

 

Other Rotorua business owners have also pointed out that this type of investment adds to the unfair advantage created by the iwi corporate income tax rate of 17.5 per cent compared to the standard 28 per cent tax rate charged to other New Zealand companies.

 

They are also concerned about Council investments in startups via subsidies tend to create dependencies that, as in the case of Crankworx, became an annual grant of $250,000 over five years. RDRR strongly urges Council to purge subsidies from its financial strategy well within the ten-year term, or better still, transfer them into constructing a high value golfing destination strategy.

 

 

Council’s Fixation on Marketing Tourism

The Chair of the Board of Rotorua Economic Development (RED) has accepted that homelessness and crime have impacted Rotorua’s brand value – both as a domestic as well as international destination.[51] He has tacitly admitted that high volume and low-priced tourism products are obsolete while housing remains “constipated” and yet that our “primary sector” is “doing pretty well.” RDRRs’ members agree.

 

Most also agree that ‘recovery’ will be retarded by tourism accommodation having switched to emergency housing in a context of “homelessness, social disorder and crime.” [52] But where does this leave RED? Why is RED holding on to the operational name of ‘Destination Rotorua’?

 

The answer was evident in RED’s recent ‘destination planning’ workshops primarily for local providers and stakeholders. They identified the major limitations to tourist business development as social deprivation, environmental stewardship, the run-down CBD, an ambiguous destination image, and MSD booking most motel accommodation.

 

A separate planning team of providers, all men, and a senior Council official have also been working in secret to refine a new ‘destination plan’ for Rotorua which will refine and ‘push market’ tourism products.

 

The approach both groups have been using is at odds with modern marketing which aims to satisfy customer needs, wants, and demands. Authentic relationship building with customers enables the construction of valued products, goods and services. Business transactions help develop market sectors around perceived value and inform productivity development.

 

Investment in ‘pull marketing’ then aims to convert perceived value into profitable brand values.

 

Four potential examples of this approach to marketing would aim to

• Satisfy international customer demands for high-value golfing tourism.
• Connect with growing national pressure for rugby league training and development.
• Meet global demand for intellectual property, technological expertise and skills development related to forestry and wood processing.
• Respond to the world-wide need for improved protein production in a hungry world, perhaps using geo-thermal energy.

 

The key point is that Rotorua needs a new ‘pull marketing mix’ centered on wood and food, sports, and ‘price, place, and promotion’. Not ‘push marketing’ stakeholders’ preferences and providers’ tourism products.

External Funding

 

Council has proved effective at obtaining substantial external funding and those involved are to be congratulated. The estimated $180M in subsidies in 2021-2031 from external sources currently appears reasonable. They comprise:

• $60M from NZTA to support roading investments
• $20M for CIP projects (stormwater and roading)
• $9M supporting Three Waters reform
• With the remainder ($91M) covering completion of the Museum, SHMPAC, Lakefront, Rotoiti/Rotoma, or
• Requiring additional sources if need be (e.g. Aquatic Centre, option 3).

 

RDRR members remind Council of the risks involved because all these subsidies are windfall grants that in future will continue to be vulnerable to political winds in central government.

 

Capital Investment

 

The Financial Strategy for 2021-2031 proposes that $732M be invested in capital works, specifically in the Museum, Lakefront, Performing Arts Centre, Whakarewarewa Forest, Rotoiti/Rotoma WWTP, Tarawera sewerage, Aquatic Centre, stormwater and roading projects.

 

These proposals will have to be revised in the light of Three Waters decisions.

 

Debt

 

The Financial Strategy proposed for 2021-2031 is planned to hold debt below the permissible ceiling of 250 per cent of revenue. It proposes an increase to borrowings of $180M to fund capital investments, not including operational expenditure which will continue to be funded solely from revenue. It proposes that the debt/income ratio to increase from 2021 estimate of 174 per cent to 224 per cent in 2031 and to peak at 238 per cent in years 2027-2028.

 

It is alarming to RDRR members that absent from the draft LTP 201-031 is any plan to retire debt or constrain expenditure. There is no reference to the standard methods used in other organizations to challenge project and program budgets, such as cost compression techniques and formative evaluation.

 

One RDRR member spoke for many when she advised that

 

We need to get debt down to give our mokos choices. We do not have the right to spend their money and blow their future. The interest bill will accelerate in a few years. If Three Waters reduces Council’s income by 30 per cent how will debt be reduced to the permitted ceiling? We must get back to basics. Clean the tourists’ toilets. We live in a paradise ruined by a selfish Council that will not stop spending. Future debt interest will impoverish us even more.

 

Summary

 

This independent submission is on behalf of over 700 members, associates and friends of Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers.

 

They were unconvinced by the Council’s draft Long-Term Plan 2021-2031 and associated Financial Strategy due to incoherence, fragmentation, reliance on many aspirational policies and few implementation details that explained and justified spending forecasts.

 

This submission urges Council to face the realities that have rendered much of Vision 2030 and Te Tatau o Te Arawa’s Vision 2050 obsolete. RDRR’s members have an alternative vision of healthy interculturalism, greater equity and growing prosperity in an inclusive democracy.

[1] Rotorua Lakes Council (25 March 2021) Mahi: 2021-2031 Long-Term Plan Consultation, Author.

[2] Thomas Colle (15 March 2021) Financial Strategy, presentation to the Rotorua Lakes Council, available at https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2021/Council%202021/LTP%202021%20-%20Section%20%20%20%20Financial%20strategy%20DRAFT%20-%20220321.pdf

[2] https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018787692/centralisation-of-water-services-nanaia-mahuta

[2] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2021/Council%202021/Ten-year%20CAPEX%20programme%20-%2016%20March%202021.pdf

[2] https://www.hamilton.govt.nz/our-council/10-year-plan/Pages/default.aspx

 

[3] Rotorua Lakes Council (25 March 2021) Mahi: 2021-2031 Long-Term Plan Consultation, p. 9.

 

[4] Infometrics (March, 2020) Rotorua District Employment, Population, Household and Visitor Projections for Rotorua Lakes Council, p. 19.

[5] Rotorua Lakes Council (25 March 2021) Mahi: 2021-2031 Long-Term Plan Consultation, p. 39.

[6] Thomas Colle (15 March 2021) Financial Strategy, presentation to the Rotorua Lakes Council, available at https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2021/Council%202021/LTP%202021%20-%20Section%20%20%20%20Financial%20strategy%20DRAFT%20-%20220321.pdf

[6] https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018787692/centralisation-of-water-services-nanaia-mahuta

[7] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2021/Council%202021/Ten-year%20CAPEX%20programme%20-%2016%20March%202021.pdf

[8] https://www.hamilton.govt.nz/our-council/10-year-plan/Pages/default.aspx

[9] Jenny Rini and Anaha Hiini (July 2020). Te Arawa 2050: Te Arawa Vision, Mauri Tū, Maui Ora, Te Arawa E!, Rotorua: Red Spot.

[10] RDRR (29 August, 2020) Response to Te Tatau o Te Arawa by Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers re Te Arawa’s Vision 2050, third draft.

 

[11] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/news/Pages/default.aspx?newsItem=7634

[12] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/specialhousingareas/Pages/default.aspx

[13] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/news/Pages/default.aspx?newsItem=8638

[14] https://visiontoaction.nz/rotorua-housing-programme/ 20 February 2021

[15] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/political-roundup-housing-announcement-a-blow-for-those-at-the-bottom/6LWN2MRSOGXTAV32QRJ6F5NH6I/

[16] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/news/Pages/default.aspx?newsItem=8637

[17] https://letstalk.rotorualakescouncil.nz/a-strategy-for-homes-and-thriving-communities

[18] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2020/Council/Attach%201%20-%20Draft%20Economic%20Development%20Strategy%20Framework.pdf

[19] https://letstalk.rotorualakescouncil.nz/mahere-tauhohe-huarere-rotorua-climate-action-plan

[20] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2021/Strategy,%20Policy%20and%20Finance%20Committee/Rotorua%20Lakes%20Council%2030%20Year%20Infrastructure%20Strategy%202021-2051%20-%20Final%20Draft.pdf

[21] Thomas Colle (15 March 2021) Financial Strategy, loc cit., p. 4.

 

[22] Reynold Macpherson and Lachlan McKenzie (5 February 2021) The Kawenata Proposal about Discharging Treated Wastewater, Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers policy paper. Available at https://rdrr.nz/archive/

 

[23] Troy Bowker (3 April 2021 ) Govt playing Capital Games on Housing, Rotorua Daily Post, p. 9.

[24] https://letstalk.rotorualakescouncil.nz/eastside-structure-wellness-plan

[25] Rotorua Lakes Council (25 March) LTP 2021-2031 Mahi Consultation document, p. 7.

[26] Rotorua Lakes Council (25 March 2021) Mahi: 2021-2031 Long-Term Plan Consultation, Author, p. 27.

[27] Thomas Colle (15 March 2021) Financial Strategy, presentation to the Rotorua Lakes Council, 25 March 2021, available at https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2021/Council%202021/LTP%202021%20-%20Section%20%20%20%20Financial%20strategy%20DRAFT%20-%20220321.pdf

[28] Infometrics (March, 2020) Rotorua District Employment, Population, Household and Visitor Projections for Rotorua Lakes Council, p. 19.

[29] https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018787692/centralisation-of-water-services-nanaia-mahuta

[30] Thomas Colle (25 March 2021) Financial Strategy 2021-2031, presentation to Council, available at https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Pages/default.aspx

[31] Loc cit.

[32] Tatau Tatau (March, 2018) Rotorua Long-Term Plan, Rotorua Lakes Council magazine, p. 15.

[33] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/council-publications/Annualreports/Documents/Annual-Report-2013-14.pdf

[34] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/council-publications/Annualreports/Documents/Annual%20Report%202014-2015.pdf

[35] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/council-publications/Annualreports/Documents/Annual_Report_2016.pdf

[36] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/council-publications/Annualreports/Documents/Annual_Plan_2017/RLC_AR_2017_SML_SZ.pdf

[37] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/council-publications/Annualreports/Documents/Annual-Report-2018.pdf

[38] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/council-publications/Annualreports/Documents/Annual-Report-2019.pdf

[39] https://www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/our-council/agendas-and-minutes/livestream/Documents/2020/Council/RLC_Annual_Report_2020%20Attachment%201.pdf

[40]http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/CPI_inflation/ConsumersPriceIndex_HOTPJun14qtr.aspx

[41]http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/CPI_inflation/ConsumersPriceIndex_HOTPJun15qtr.aspx

[42]http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/CPI_inflation/ConsumersPriceIndex_MRJun16qtr.aspx

[43]http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/CPI_inflation/ConsumersPriceIndex_HOTPJun17qtr.aspx

[44] https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/consumers-price-index-cpi?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIp-DGw6qR5gIVwYqPCh0Xpgf1EAAYASAAEgK0K_D_BwE

[45] https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/consumers-price-index-cpi?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIp-DGw6qR5gIVwYqPCh0Xpgf1EAAYASAAEgK0K_D_BwE

[46] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/cpi_01132021.pdf

[47] https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/new-zealand-historical-inflation-rate and https://www.statista.com/statistics/375265/inflation-rate-in-new-zealand

[48] https://www.employment.govt.nz/hours-and-wages/pay/minimum-wage/previous-rates

[49] https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/products/index.html

[50] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

[51] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/438676/homelessness-impacting-rotorua-s-tourism-brand-development-agency?fbclid=IwAR1DTom2q4tR1TbBcCYEm6leJq3XMD1ybonV25pmk33pDLQHO4HGvqaZtU4

[52] Loc cit.