Council debt still preferred for big projects

May 21st, 2012
[by David Armstrong]

Tasman District Council will continue to fund large infrastructure projects through debt, despite pleas by groups such as Grey Power to urgently reduce the debt burden that causes rate increases.

Mayor Richard Kempthorne told Grey Power Motueka members at their annual general meeting on Saturday that this was the fairest way to spread major costs over generations rather than expecting current ratepayers to foot the bill entirely through present rates.

"Debt levels will be retained, but used only for long-term projects," he told the meeting of 21 people as the guest speaker. "If these projects were funded without debt, all our rates would rapidly rise."

This assertion was in response to a question from the floor, which followed up on comments by the acting president, Arthur Walker's report to the AGM. In it he wrote, "We believe the ever increasing cost of our rates is the biggest problem for us in Motueka. ... We made very strong representations to TDC recently in our submission to the Long Term Plan. Particularly about TDC's debts, the interest on these is adding several hundred dollars to our annual rates bill".

Mayor Kempthorne spoke to the meeting about where he saw Motueka's future, and in particular what large-scale infrastructure projects were in the pipeline. These included the Motueka West rezoning and planning work, projects around water - drinking supply, wastewater and stormwater - and transport and roading.

He said the council is tackling the issue of rapid growth in the Nelson/Tasman area, which is the third fastest growing region per capita in New Zealand. For Motueka, this meant developing the West Motueka area west of High Street and between Whakarewa and King Edward streets to open up land close to town for industrial, residential and mixed-business use.

He revisited the status of water reticulation projects, particularly with regard to the town supply and the proposed coastal pipeline to Mapua. He emphasised that the latter is not going ahead at present, and that if it did then it was unlikely that Motueka ratepayers would pay much towards it. He said the recent Environment Court decision meant they could use the water, but at present the project is on hold due to lack of money.

Richard also touched on transport issues and work that is being done behind the scenes with NZTA to address issues around congestion and safety in High Street, which NZTA owns.

He also explained what is to happen in the medium-term future with regard to service levels in the TDC area on road maintenance. As central government had capped its subsidy for road works regardless of cost inflation, TDC will effectively have less money for maintenance of existing roading, as well as new roads.

This means, for example, that apart from the Turners Bluff problem it is unlikely that the Kaiteriteri Road will be widened anytime soon and is off the 10-year plan. And we can expect to see less regular maintenance on roads for now.

At the Grey Power AGM, Ed Dadson was elected as the new president, following the departure from the town of the previous president, Valerie Rae.

The treasurer reported a healthy closing balance of $11,901.08, following an operating surplus for the year of almost $5000. Membership has declined a little, but the group is still in very good health.

One announcement which sparked considerable interest came from Roy Reid, Grey Power's Federation president, who had addressed the meeting on the outcomes of the recent federation AGM in Invercargill. He said the members were in discussions and planning to start a retail electricity operation selling power to GP members at a discount through bulk buying arrangements with existing retailers.

As part of this planning, and as another option, they were investigating possibilities around solar power generation, especially those units which can store energy during daylight hours and feed them back into the grid during the night for income. The cost of photovoltaic power production equipment is rapidly dropping at present so such possibilities are becoming economically viable.

Outcomes from these discussions should be announced in the next few months, Roy said.

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