Most readers will remember this was one of Mayor Rowan’s expensive grand notions, which proved less than satisfactory in reality.
And the District Plan process just keeps on going, costing big money…
every swimmer at the Paraparaumu Aquatic Centre is subsidized $9.33 by Ratepayers plus another $0.49 each at the café
11 Sunday Aug 2019
Posted in Uncategorized
Another nail in the coffin of KCDC yearly high rates rises 🙁
Hardly a nail in the coffin! Thank you for posting this Geoffrey, it is amazing to see the reduction in legal costs. The PDP appeals are an unavoidable curse on Kapiti given most of the objections are brought by the ‘Bull Elephants in the Paraparaumu town centre war’ Coastlands, Kapiti Airport, Helliers Group and C.R.U over the Coastal hazard lines. I am delighted ordinary litigation of old, council verses ratepayers is reduced so much since the days of a certain Mayor who told ratepayers to ‘Lawyer Up’ in 2012. We have been paying for it ever since.
What “amazing… reduction in legal costs” are you referring to Jacqueline? If you mean the YTD costs on PDP appeals are $34,000 under those forecast, I’m not quite sure I’d call that “amazing”.
But more to the point, the three corporate entities that you refer to as “Bull elephants” employ a significant number of citizens in the District. For that they should be applauded and welcomed. Additionally, CRU’s appeals to the District Plan have nothing to do with coastal hazard lines, as there are no new coastal hazard lines in the District Plan. Those proposed by the Council were withdrawn before the plan hearings even began.
Your final statement, that you are “…delighted [that] ordinary litigation of old, council verses [sic] ratepayers is reduced so much…” makes no sense whatsoever, as you are implying that the corporate entities mentioned + CRU are not ratepayers – and that is clearly incorrect.
If what you mean is that the individual homeowners are not the ones taking the appeals, that is quite normal in plan change processes under the RMA. Normally, individual homeowners with a common interest group together – which is completely normal/acceptable… and again should be welcomed by a local authority, as it is much easier to work with a single entity on a single issue, thereby solving a large community of interests problems all in one go.
Lastly, either patronage at the Aquatic Centre needs to go up to bring the subsidy down, or the user-charges need to be raised. Simple business principles need to be applied.
As per comments to the Facebook page discussion on the Aquatic Centre, the agreed funding ration for the aquatic facilities is 30% private (user pays) and 70% public (ratepayer pays). The policy is contained in this document;
https://www.kapiticoast.govt.nz/media/22310/final-203-revenue-and-financing-policy-2018-38-ltp-web-version.pdf
So, the question regards performance is twofold – is this an equitable funding ratio (if not, it can be changed via the LTP/Annual Plan processes) and secondly, are the Council currently meeting that 30% private (user pay) cost recovery. If not, user charges need to be adjusted either up or down.
Another unaffordable white elephant. It should be sold off to the highest bidder asap – with no ongoing subsidisation.