30 June 2021
Media: NZME (Rotorua Daily Post and BOP Times):
Topic: Government's 3 Waters reform update
Enquiry
Can I please have a response to my questions below regarding the Three Waters announcement today.
- How many council jobs will be affected by the proposal (i.e, how many people work with or in water infrastructure and management), and please specify how many could be lost as a result of this?
- Minister Mahuta has cited underinvestment as a key cause for this reform. Would you say your council has done a good job of investing in water infrastructure in recent years? If so how and why? If not, please explain.
- With this in mind, do you believe your council has let its residents down?
- How would you describe the state of your district’s water infrastructure?
If you have any additional comments or information you feel is important, please feel free to include this.
Response
From Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick:
Our council has been in the 3 waters reform conversation from the start to look after the best interests of our community, and we will continue to participate to get the best possible outcome for our district.
In recent years we have proactively elevated infrastructure investment and that will continue with $424 million of investment in infrastructure planned across the next 10 years.
As a Council we have recognised the need to address infrastructure challenges and have worked on this progressively and proactively during recent years.
Recognition of a scarcity of skills and ageing wastewater infrastructure resulted in a partnership with the Trility consortium to manage and maintain wastewater infrastructure, we continue to make good progress on wastewater reticulation in our lakes communities, are progressively renewing our stormwater network, and have upgraded all of our district water supplies.
We have been adamant throughout the reform discussions that we don’t want to lose the role of local leadership and local direction, and about the need to ensure the changes don’t compromise our strong partnerships with mana whenua to achieve good outcomes that benefit our whole community. Relationships matter and we don’t want to lose the gains for our community from these strong partnerships.
There’s no doubt that there would be advantages from the changes proposed and we need to continue to be involved in the discussions to enable us to negotiate on behalf of our community. We need to take Te Arawa’s interests into any negotiations.
Information re ongoing investment in infrastructure
- Council’s 2021-31 Long-term Plan that was adopted this week will see investment of $424m into core infrastructure over the next 10 years.
- That accounts for more than half of the proposed total capital spend for the term of the LTP.
- Planned 3 waters investment including: $170m for sewerage, including an upgraded wastewater treatment plant; $75m for stormwater; $52m for water supply.
Re How many council jobs will be affected by the proposal (ie, how many people work with or in water infrastructure and management), and please specify how many could be lost as a result of this?
From DCE Infrastructure and Environment Stavros Michael:
We currently have 27 FTEs in the 3 waters team. We anticipate staff working in 3 waters at council at the time of any transition to new entities would transition to the new entity.
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Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Rotorua CBD plans
Enquiry
I have been speaking with some business owners who have attended meetings with the council to discuss plans for the CBD.
As I understand it, my colleague Felix emailed you about this last week but specifically asking if the pedestrianisation of Tutanekai Street was being discussed.
I am a little confused as to the content of these meetings so was wondering if you could provide responses to the following questions before midday tomorrow:
1. Who from the council is involved in these meetings? Which sub-committee is involved?
2. How often do the meetings occur? Where are they being held?
3. When did these meetings start?
4. How does the council advertise the meeting? Who from the public can attend? Are the meetings attended by invitation-only?
5. Where can the public find out more about these meetings?
6. What has been discussed at these meetings?
7. What are the purposes that drive the meetings?
8. What information has been provided to meeting attendees? Would it be possible to receive a copy?
9. Just to clarify, has the topic of making Tutanekai Street pedestrian-only been discussed in any way, shape or form at these meetings?
Response
Reporter was informed that, as indicated the previous day via phonecall, council is not holding or hosting monthly meetings with businesses to discuss plans for the CBD and there is no proposal to make Tutanekai St pedestrian-only.
Reporter was further informed that:
Development of a CBD plan is part of the Draft Economic Development Strategy that council adopted last December but there is no proposed plan as yet as there is still a lot of work to be done before we get to that stage.
See below from JP Gaston which provides the process being undertaken for development of a plan that will hopefully provide some clarification.
Response from DCE District Development, Jean-Paul Gaston:
As part of the Draft Rotorua Economic Development Strategy Framework that was approved by Council in December last year we are working on the initial steps towards development of a long-term plan for the CBD.
We are some way from having a proposed plan at this point in time. Several pieces of work need to be completed first to provide guidelines for development of a proposed plan.
These include: working with mana whenua and Te Arawa on cultural foundations and working on an incentives policy to encourage inner city development. We have also had a review of all previous CBD plans to extract elements that have been consistent across these, to provide a framework as a starting point for the development of a new plan.
Work on the incentives policy is expected to involve the inner city sector group that was set up following the COVID-19 lockdown as part of economic recovery strategies. This process with be run through Council’s CCO Rotorua Economic Development (RED), which led engagement with the sector groups when they were set up.
Once all of the foundational pieces have been completed we can start working on developing a proposed plan and as part of that, we will engage with key CBD stakeholders to provide insights and input.
When we have a proposed plan ready it will be presented to elected members for their approval ahead of wider consultation.
Council staff have been invited to present to a few groups on work towards development of a CBD plan, and these presentations have included talking about the framework, but the framework is not the proposed plan for the CBD and there is no plan or proposal to make Tutanekai Street pedestrian-only.