Environment Canterbury rates reflect public demand for better water and air quality

Environment Canterbury is proposing a 4.5% increase in the average rate in the 2015/16 financial year. Most of the additional targeted rate funding is going into improving the region’s water and air quality.

“Trying to balance the additional work in improving the region’s water and air quality that people keep telling us needs doing, along with the pressure to hold our spending, has resulted in a long, hard look at our priorities,” said Commissioner David Bedford. “If we want to carry out extra work, we have to make savings elsewhere.

“We propose to carry out additional work to improve water management, clean up the air over our worst-affected towns and cities, and increase the use of public transport. We also want to make it easier for people to access and understand vital information and data about Canterbury’s water, land and air,” Mr Bedford said.

“The extra work means we propose to spend an additional $4.6 million in these areas in 2016. To offset these costs, we have reduced expenditure in some areas, delayed some less urgent projects and increased efficiency across all our operations. We are proposing to make savings of just over $3 million in pest management, biodiversity, Canterbury Water Management Strategy facilitation and in consents.”

“When you add the inflationary effect of all our other ongoing work, there will be a $3.3 million increase on our total expenditure in 2016,” he said.

“The additional work we want to do, added to inflation and the need to preserve our reserves, would result in a 4.5% increase in the average rate in 2016. This is represented by a 0.6% increase in the average general rate and a 6.7% increase in the average targeted rate. (Targeted rates are levied on a specific rating area where people benefit most from the activity being funded by that rate.) Most targeted rates will go towards improving water and air quality.

The 2016 increase would be followed by a 5.2% increase in the average rate for 2017 and 4% in 2018.”

Targeted rates to pay for essential infrastructure, such as stopbanks or service improvements, and passenger transport may also affect some ratepayers benefitting from these services.

Mr Bedford said that these were only proposals at this stage and were open for discussion.

“We’d like to know what people think of our plans, and especially the priority areas of water, air, public transport and public accessibility to information,” he said.

“In 2016, the term of Environment Canterbury’s Commissioners will come to an end and new governance arrangements will be put in place,” he said. “In the meantime, we want to ensure that the programme of work we developed and have agreed with the Government is either completed or embedded in the Long-Term Plan.

“A lot of what we do is in response to national standards for air, freshwater, and environmental security and to laws affecting resource management and local government operations. We have to meet these obligations in a manner that responds to the needs and interests of Canterbury people. ”

In March, Environment Canterbury is delivering a booklet explaining its ten-year plan into every household in Canterbury.

“Please read it and let us know what you think. Because how we manage the region’s water, land and air affects everybody,” Mr Bedford said.

More detail on proposals

These are the main changes we are proposing in our Long-Term Plan:

Better water management

- Continuing to set and monitor new limits on the amount of nitrate and phosphate that can be leached from farmland and urban areas into our waterways.

- Encouraging and assisting the region’s farmers to develop and implement new farm environment plans to help improve water quality.

- Significant work is proposed to clean up rivers and streams in towns and cities, as nutrient limits apply in urban areas too.

Natural habitats

- We propose to spend $4.8 million next year (and an average of $5.9 million a year subsequently) on programmes that will restore and maintain the region’s natural habitats, particularly targeting waterway corridors and networks.

Public transport

- We propose to play a bigger role in getting more Christchurch and Timaru motorists out of their cars and onto public transport.

- During the next ten years we propose to extend the Total Mobility programme and help introduce more community vehicles for people with impaired mobility.

Air quality

- We propose several new initiatives, including support and advice for “better burning”, enforcing our air rules when warranted, encouraging the development of new ultra-low emission burners, and supporting warm homes initiatives.

- We are proposing to step up our efforts in South Canterbury and introduce tougher measures there in regards to home heating, similar to our air quality programme in Greater Christchurch, which will continue.

Safe from natural hazards

- There will be less emphasis on long established pests, such as possums, and more emphasis on new pest incursions such as Chilean Needle Grass, including curbing any pathways for pest-spread.

- We propose to introduce targeted rates for stopbank management in some areas so those people who benefit most will share the costs.

Setting the rules

- There will be a significant workload for our planning team to put through new regulations for five water catchments in the first year

- We will work with consent holders and resource users who are struggling to follow the rules and, where necessary we will take a tougher line.

- We will make consents and compliance data more accessible so people can find out more easily what rules apply to them and what property information we hold.

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