Waikato District Council has confirmed an 11.9% general rate revenue increase.
Council received 227 submissions on the Annual Plan, with around 20 submitters speaking to them in person in mid May.
Mayor Jacqui Church said they heard loud and clear the community’s concerns about the proposed 13.75% general rate increase and were unanimous in finding ways to reduce it. Deferring projects and costs to future years seems to have been a popular solution to this problem.
While the general rate gets all the headlines there are several targeted rates which, for most people in Raglan, will make up the bulk of their actual rates bill at a total of $2760.
$1372 of this is for the wastewater targeted rate alone. Many commentators, experts and institutions have said that the country is facing an infrastructure crisis with costs for this service in particular becoming too much for ratepayers to bear. The previous government’s 3-waters proposal was a plan to deal with the problem but it was overshadowed by co-governance fears and unfortunately the new government had no actual plan to deal with these spiraling costs and has put them back on the ratepayer.
Hamilton City Council is the latest to join the criticism with a press release last week that was full of technical criticisms of the new government legislation and especially of the fact that there are still more legislative changes to come which make decision making almost impossible for councils.
See Raglan23 website for a full breakdown of the targeted rates bill for Raglan Ratepayers
The average value of residential housing in the district has increased by around 21%, for many property owners, this could further impact the affordability of rates,” according to the Mayor - although it should be noted the impact is in comparison to the average house price in the district so your mileage may vary depending on where you live.
The average residential property value is now $721,000, while the corresponding average residential land value has increased by 22% to a new average of $401,000.
This Matariki will again see multiple celebrations around Whaingaroa with the Old School also hosting a film festival. The Matariki ki tua o nga whetu festival of film will run from 28 June to 5 July showing films about Matariki, Waitangi day, decolonisation, the Whanganui River and traditional ways of growing and storing Kumara. Most of the films will also be accompanied by local inspirational speakers covering the issues raised in the films. Tickets can be booked at raglanartscentre.co.nz
In local sport from the weekend the Roosters football team had a bye and both the league teams were playing away last weekend, The Whaingaroa Whai Wahine had a close loss to the Taharoa Steelers 12-18 and the men had an even closer loss going down 16-18 to Turangawaewae in a tough fought match. Players of the day were; Hayden Williams with 1 point, Marke Heta with 2 and Justin Brown with 3.