Council prepares to share 20-year plan for community feedback

Nearly a year on from the Council’s first conversations with the community on its long term plan, the Council last week adopted a draft plan. This will be central to a month-long community conversation about its plans for the future and what’s important to Kapiti Coast residents.

Mayor K Gurunathan says we’ve heard that Kāpiti people want to build a stronger, more resilient community and this plan, which will become the roadmap for the years ahead, sets out how we’ll get there.

“Through our community consultation phase that kicks-off this Friday we’ll be inviting feedback on how we should distribute rates fairly across the district and whether we should take a new approach to stormwater, given the impacts flooding has had on families and businesses in our community.

“We’re also keen to hear people’s views on other projects and our plans for managing our finances and our infrastructure.”

The draft plan proposes an average rates increase of 4.7% across the district. This is an average increase so individual ratepayers will be impacted differently.

“We’ve worked hard to keep rates down despite increasing costs and the need to continue on our path of putting aside enough to ensure we can replace assets as they wear out,” says the Mayor.

“As with last year’s rates increase, the vast majority of this year’s rates rise is required to fund depreciation, including the need to make up for the years when we didn’t put money aside to fund it, and inflation.

“We recognise that people will be worried about how much they might have to pay and we’ll be writing to all ratepayers to ensure they are clear about what the changes could mean for them.”

Councillors and community board members will be out and about in the community, at scheduled ‘chat stops’ throughout the consultation period which runs from 23 March through to the 23 April.

“Kapiti Coast residents will be hearing a lot more from me and my elected members over the coming weeks, and I encourage everyone to get involved and tell us what they think.”

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