1 September 2022
Media: Local Democracy Reporter
Topic: Reserves proposal decision
Enquiry
I'm working on a story about the community's reaction to the reserves proposal decision, filing today.
I have some comments to provide for the right of reply below - that's both for the council organisation and mayor where appropriate.
I also have some questions:
- What are the next steps for the council with the reserves project - I understand the local bill has been drafted. When is it expected to be presented to Parliament?
- I understand Tāmati Coffey will present the bill to Parliament, as with the last local bill. Is that correct?
- How much has work on the reserves proposal cost to date (if this is too big a question for today, that's alright - we can break it off and extend the deadline to Monday 12pm and I'll just note in today's story the question has been asked)? Please break it down by lawyers, consultants, and so on. GST inclusive too please.
COMMENTS
Don Paterson said it was "pretty disappointing" the mayor "had to use her casting vote to push it through", in his view.
He said he intended to complain to the Ombudsman about the reserves proposal process.
“The whole thing was poorly run … from start to finish.”
He said that included letters taking too long to reach residents, not reaching enough residents, not holding meetings about the proposal in communities affected.
Paterson said the council’s housing information sessions earlier in the year didn’t count as they were not “directly” about the reserves proposal.
He was also disappointed with how speaking time was allocated to some people during the hearings, and a ruling that forbade questions of submitters from elected members.
Paterson said his focus was on the “next steps” to oppose the local bill.
He said a protest against the proposal last week had been rushed together and he believed there was a “good case for having another serious protest”.
Real estate agent Bryn Parry said he didn’t believe any of the reserve sites should be sold but he was “over the moon” two of the sites most “dear” to him had been removed from the proposal.
Those were Lee Rd Reserve and Coulter Rd Reserve.
He said it was good and showed the council had listened to feedback from ratepayers, but it had done itself “a disservice” by considering the reserves in bulk in the council meeting.
“They should have done it individually [by reserve].”
He hoped there was not “egg on the council’s face in the future” from deciding to revoke other reserves, however.
Parry said as a real estate agent he understood areas like Western Heights were likely to be intensified in coming years, and with smaller backyards people would need plentiful reserve provision.
“It’s very very short-sighted.”
Western Heights Community Association chairman Owen Roberts said the proposal’s approval was “unbelievable”.
“There’s got to be some way of turning it around.”
He said there was “a lot of disappointment” about the decision and he didn’t understand how the council could proceed when there was so much public opposition to it.
“It beggars belief, really.”
He said he would like to see a new council “pull it apart” and withdraw the local bill if it is submitted.
Rotorua MP Todd McClay said there was “deep disappointment” in the community about the decision, and “in some places, anger”.
He said the proposal should have been an election issue and campaigned on but it was “not too late”.
“Anything is reversible.”
He said community feedback on the proposal had been “clear” in its overwhelming opposition and he believed in his opinion Chadwick should not have used her casting vote to approve it.
In his view: “The council has said ‘we know best and we don’t care what local people think – we're going to do what we want anyway’.”
McClay said convention was that casting votes should support the status quo and as there was no council majority on the decision it should have “kept talking until it reached consensus”.
He said usually a local bill was presented to the local MP to introduce to Parliament, but he had not heard from the council on the matter.
If it was presented to him for consideration, he said usual process was it to be discussed by the MP with the party caucus.
He said if that were the case, he would make the “strongest recommendation” the caucus reject the bill’s presentation to Parliament.
Submitter John Pakes said the proposal should "never have gone to public consultation".
"In that arena, it was always guaranteed to be opposed due to the NIMBY effect."
He said the result of "polls of public opinion" was "always" skewed in opposition.
"Councils are elected to govern. In this instance ours did not. They do understand that the most pressing issues facing Rotorua are poverty and, through poverty, a drastic lack of affordable housing. The decision to go ahead with the local bill should have been a no brainer."
He said the issue had become "politicised" in the context of the local election.
Response
From RLC organisation:
Work is progressing on drafting of a local bill and communities around the reserve sites that have been part of the proposal will receive communications from council to inform them directly of the decisions made and the process now underway.
Re costs to date see below (all GST inclusive):
- Consultation collateral (newspaper information pages, drone footage, video): $10,085.96
- Legal: $34,709.05
- Consultants (survey work and land info checks): $29,053.00
Nothing from the council organisation re the views expressed in the comments you sent but thanks for checking.
Re Tamati Coffey, we informed reporter we needed to check that with a DCE who was out of the office and currently not able to be contacted and said we would send that info if/when we were able to get it.
From Mayor Chadwick:
Elected members are elected to make decisions and to make these in the best interests and for the benefit of the whole community.
The housing crisis is not going away and the reserves proposal is just one component of a much wider programme of work and collective efforts to enable more homes to be built.
Elected members gave unanimous support for staff to investigate the potential use of reserve sites that didn’t meet our reserve policy requirements for housing, to contribute towards addressing our housing crisis.
I took no comfort or pleasure in having been forced to use a casting vote since we ended up with just 10 elected members at the Council table. Where we have a substantive recommendation before us, we are required to make a decision and as was the case when we were voting on whether to take the reserves proposal out to community consultation and then when it came to final decision-making, a casting vote was needed in order to get a decision.