Ashburton ratepayers face an 8.71 per cent rates increase, but residents will not get to speak up during a full consultation.
The Ashburton District Council completed its draft budgeting meetings, which were all recently live streamed for the first time.
The process started at the end of January at an initial starting point of 10.4 per cent, before agreeing on the lower draft figure.
Councillors will discuss the topic again at a council meeting on April 8.
Mayor Liz McMillan said the increase is split between 3.75 per cent for three waters services and 4.96 per cent for everything else.
The draft plan is in line with the long-term plan, so the majority of councillors felt it had already been consulted on, McMillan said.
A long-term plan sets out a council’s priorities and spending for the years ahead, including a draft rates rise.
“There hasn’t been a lot of deviation,’’ McMillan said.
There are some changes from year 3 of the long-term plan (2024-34), she said, but the average rates rise remains under the 11.9 per cent rise previously predicted.
The council will still engage with the community on what is in the plan before it is adopted, but without the around $30,000 price tag of a full consultation.
“The feeling was it will be better to focus on a really good consultation for the next long-term plan.”
That work will start later this year but first the focus is on finalising the annual plan.
The 4.96 per cent increase for “everything else” includes 2.47 per cent for the introduction of the food and organics waste collection (FOGO) – roll out of new green bins in September- and escalating costs of delivering solid waste services.
McMillan said the green bins were consulted in 2024 for LTP and had received 80 per cent support.
Another 1.07 per cent is servicing the $20 million loan toward the cost of the second bridge connecting road.
McMillan said that was just for the 2026/27 year, suggesting there could be additional costs in 2027/28.
The water services delivery plan, which was consulted on, essentially locks in the three waters work programme for a 10-year period, with Ashburton opting for an inhouse business unit to delivery it.
Ashburton’s work in the three waters space “mostly involves renewing old drinking water pipes and sewer pipes”.
The big-ticket items are a new irrigation system at Ocean Farm, the end point of Ashburton’s wasterweater treatment, and installing water meters on as many residential connections as possible, she said.
Under the Government’s water done well reforms, most councils are showing the rates information with the split between the three waters work, which will be exempt from the proposed rates cap, and everything else.
McMillan said it’s “hard to compare apples with apples though’’, because some councils have joined together to deliver water services and others have formed council controlled organisations.
Some council’s also retained stormwater but separated drinking and wastewater.
One example is Selwyn, with its new CCO Selwyn Water taking over drinking and waste water from July 1.
Selwyn council is consulting on a 5.4 per cent rates increase and Selwyn Water announced it has an draft 18 per cent increase in water charges.
