Far North businesses urged to submit to NRC draft annual plan

Far North businesses are urged to make submissions against a Northland Regional Council intention to impose two new rates and more than double land management rates drawn from the District this financial year.

The Far North District Council will be making its own views known at the NRC draft annual plan hearings in Kaeo next month and Mayor Wayne Brown is encouraging Far North businesses to get involved also. The plans are available from www.nrc.govt.nz/annualplan and the opportunity for public comment ends on Tuesday 13 May.

“As well as doubling the land management rate take, the regional council proposes two new rates – a targeted infrastructure rate and a Kaeo River rate,” he said.

“This amounts to separate rates for their core business which I find an extraordinary idea,” he added. “It makes me wonder what they think they are here to do. We could do with less policy and more real stuff, such as helping make our flood-prone towns safer to live in. This is the NRC’s responsibility.”

Mayor Brown says that Kaeo, with its State Highway 10 location, affects the district and the region as a whole when the main road floods, so the district and the region should both contribute to flood relief costs.

If the NRC’s draft plan remains unchallenged, Far North ratepayers will be paying $4.9million to the NRC in total rates this financial year, of which $3.6million is for land management and environment rates.

This is an increase of 47 per cent over the current year. By comparison the other two districts in the region are showing much smaller increases in their total rates – seven per cent for Kaipara and eight per cent for Whangarei, excluding the effect of targeted rates for flood relief in some areas.

Mayor Brown says the discrepancy is partly due to the total assessed land value in the Far North district, which has more than doubled this year, and there has been little effort by the NRC to make adjustments to cushion the effect.

The Far North District Council has requested a 30-minute slot when the NRC draft annual plan hearings are held in Kaeo early next month.