Meeting on proposed Long-term Plan flood protection and rating changes

A public meeting is being held in Invercargill on Monday night (April 29) for people keen to find out more about the proposals in Environment Southland’s Long-term Plan.

The Environment Southland draft Long-term Plan consultation document, Investing in Southland Whakangao Ki Murihiku, is open for submissions until 5pm, 6 May.

The meeting is being held in the council chambers on the corner of Price St and North Rd in Invercargill, from 5.30pm for a cuppa—with the meeting to start at 6pm.

A short presentation from the Environment Southland team will be followed by a Q&A session. If you can't attend in person, you can watch the event live from 6pm by clicking here: www.es.govt.nz/live

Environment Southland chairman Nicol Horrell said there had been a lot of debate about the proposals at drop-in sessions around the region, at other events during the consultation period to date, and online.

“These are really significant proposals that will affect ratepayers across the region, and the public meeting is another opportunity for people to come along or join us online to hear what is being proposed,” he said.

The Council’s key proposal is for ongoing and greater investment in flood protection for Southland to improve community resilience through an increase in operating expenditure of $2.3m per annum to be funded by a new Flood Protection Infrastructure Rate.

The new rate would be based on capital value for all ratepayers and would replace 140 targeted rates to pay for improved flood mitigation.

“The Council wants to position Southland as well as we can to weather, and recover quickly from, the inevitable floods that will come our way,” he said.

There had been a wide range of feedback at consultation events to date with some strong themes emerging, he said.

“Affordability has been raised by many people, and as a Council we are aware of the high cost of living and higher interest rates that are affecting everyone.”

Nicol Horrell said that when significant changes were proposed people could feel uncertain and the Council wanted to reiterate that no decisions had been made, and that community feedback would be central to the Long-term Plan deliberations.

Balancing the need to invest in critical infrastructure to protect people and livelihoods against what was affordable required a significant amount of consideration, he said.

Councils around New Zealand were all facing challenges around maintaining and enhancing critical infrastructure. Environment Southland was part of continuing discussions with central Government around how to fund critical improvements, he said.

Environment Southland are proposing to use central Government co-funding (currently not secured) and debt to pay for current and future capital flood protection projects. The projected borrowing is within the borrowing limits as per the financial strategy.

Environment Southland has included an indicative timeline of borrowing in its consultation document that is projected to rise to $73.2 million in ten years’ time – but this would only happen if central Government funding was secured for the majority of the capital project costs.

“Environment Southland will not be borrowing that money if central government infrastructure funding is not secured,” he said.

People can find out more and give feedback at www.es.govt.nz/ltp. You can also pick up a copy of the consultation document from our office or local libraries or give us a call at 0800 76 88 45, and we will send you a copy.