The Horowhenua District Council has at long last released their draft 2018-38 Long Term Plan. They’re asking for community input: submissions close on 26 March 2018 at 05:00 PM. There are items in here that are of enormous importance to our community.
If we have opinions on them we must make submissions, both individually and as a group. If we don’t tell the Council what we do or do not support then we may find ourselves stuck paying a lot of additional rates for something we don’t want, or missing out on things we do want.
Take a look at What’s our Future Horowhenua? on the Council’s website and download their linked documents. Two of the documents are also available here:
- Long Term Plan 2018-2038 Consultation Document (4MB PDF).
- Long Term Plan 2018-2038 Consultation Document – two-page spread (3MB PDF).
The Council say:
There are three key challenges that Council is particularly keen to get your feedback on, which are:
- the future of our Community Halls
- season length of the Foxton Pool
- providing water and wastewater infrastructure to our growing settlements.
…
Alongside this are two other topics that Council is keen to hear your opinions on:
Shannon Community Hub …
Water sustainability — Currently Horowhenua residents use more water than the national average, so Council is organising the installation of pressure-reducing valves, introducing monitoring, and fixing leaks. Should Council introduce water meters, as has occurred in many other parts of the country?
The Long Term Plan proposes an average rates increase of 6.53% ….
The proposal would increase the average cost of rates from $6.24 per day to $6.65 per day. You may experience a higher or lower rates increase depending on what rates you are subject to. See the Consultation Document for more information.
They also say:
Challenge #3: Providing water and wastewater infrastructure to our growing settlements
This includes the growing settlements of Waitārere Beach, Ōhau, Manakau, Waikawa Beach and Hōkio Beach — Council is considering three options, and its preferred option is provide water and wastewater infrastructure to both the existing settlement and growth areas of these locations over a 20-year period.
If you’re interested in finding out more on this challenge then see the Consultation Document.
If you have questions about this topic and would like to speak to a Council officer then phone (06) 366 0999 and ask to speak to Sarie Van der Walt, Asset Management Engineer.
We already have a discussion going on the water and wastewater infrastructure issue on this website. For that reason comments on this post are closed. Please visit the other post and add your views to the discussion there.