28 June 2023
Media: Local Democracy Reporter
Topic: High lake levels (Rotoma/Rotoehu)
Enquiry
I am writing a bigger piece on the situation with the lake levels and while I'll send few some questions a bit later, I was wondering if I could please get a bit of info about the incident management team?
Was thinking it would be good to have a wee bit explaining what it is doing for the short term and what it is all about
What is its purpose? What can it help with?
Who is involved?
How many calls has it taken for help or information since it was formed? Where from? (When was it formed?)
What kinds of things are the community worried about at the moment and how is this expected to change?
Any message to the impacted communities in the district?
Any chance of getting a pic with any of the team?
Response
We provided the following information:
Two groups have been established to manage the issues caused by the extremely high levels at Rotoehu and Rotomā.
The first is the Rotorua Lakes Council-led Rotoehu – Rotomā Response Team (RRRT). The team also has representatives from the Rotorua Lakes Community Board (represented by its chair Phill Thomass), Bay of Plenty Regional Council, Te Arawa Lakes Trust, local Iwi representation (Rotoma & Rotoehu catchment), Waka Kotahi.
The Team is focused on;
- Coordinating the response for requests for assistance from impacted residents, such as requests for sandbags or rates relief.
- Maintaining an overview of day-to-day, impacts and operational matters in respect of high lake levels in Rotoehu and Rotomā catchment.
2. Providing a ‘single point of contact’ for residents and property owners in Rotoehu and Rotomā. All requests should be made to Rotorua Lakes Council (07-348 4199). Council staff will triage calls and ensure callers are linked up with the appropriate service or agency, depending on their needs.
The team is following Coordinated Incident Management System (CIMS) principles in terms of the structure of the response effort.
Another working group has been established by the Te Arawa Lakes Strategy Group which oversees the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Programme partners [CLICK HERE] to scope foreseeable climate change effects on lake levels, to explore a range of possible interventions/approaches and based on a set of criteria including cost/benefit analysis develop adaptation and mitigation options for the Te Arawa lakes communities.
This group comprises representatives from the lakes programme partners Te Arawa Lakes Trust, Rotorua Lakes Council and Bay of Plenty Regional Council, plus regional leads for Crown agencies such as Waka Kotahi and representatives from local iwi groups.
The scope and terms of reference for this working group will be reported to the Strategy Group in September and its on-going progress reported regularly to the partners in the Strategy Group.
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Media: Local Democracy Reporter
Topic: Draft Future Development Strategy
Enquiry
Further to the reporter’s previous enquiry in relation to comments made by Hozumi Daiya of the Save Glenholme Group, she had the following further clarifications:
Can I ask if the below that is not attributable can still be used in the story, just written as a response from the council?
And also just to double check - I saw infometrics used Stats NZ data for its pop estimates on growth: https://ecoprofile.infometrics.co.nz/rotorua%2BDistrict/Population/Growth
It also has the last two years of data.
Can it please be clarified what data infometrics used to produce those predictions?
There is still a big difference in what is expected in the next 30 years, with stats nz saying 7400 more people under medium growth, and the council 14,400.
Response
We provided the following additional information and said if further clarification was required Mr Gaston would be happy to speak with her:
Information for clarification:
Determining future population projections is complex. Council employs professional companies using expert advice to provide projections for the future of Rotorua. We encourage any of the interested people in our community to make contact with us if they are misunderstanding the way projections are formulated.
Yesterday we advised that Council uses projections provided by Infometrics NZ. We do not use a singular stream of data i.e. the year on year population data provided by Statistics NZ.
You can see from the Infometrics Report (Rotorua District Employment, Population, Household, Visitor projections – April 2020) which was used to inform the HBA Technical Report, that Infometrics uses a particular methodology that incorporates economic, migration, demographic and existing population data (provided by Stats NZ from Census data) to develop their projected population and household numbers.
You will see in the HBA that both Infometrics and StatsNZ data is compared. Statistics NZ provides a good base line but does not take into account the nuance that Infometrics have built into their projection methodology. We have also provided an explanation for Council’s decision to procure customised projections below.
Looking at both population projections in the short term, they vary to only a limited extent. As you are aware the FDS is reviewed at three-yearly and six-yearly intervals and growth projections will continue to rely on both data sources.
Council has chosen to use the medium growth data rather than high or low. We have determined that this approach is prudent enough while ensuring that we will have enough growth capacity should population growth trends continue as they have over the past decade.
It is important to note that this is a long-term strategy that responded to data trends that are estimated over periods of time. It is not best practice to modify a strategy based on yearly changes as global/national events (i.e. COVID) can trigger short-term changes in the economy, migration, and population while trends show consistent long-term movement in data whether that is up or down.
In determining the extent of capacity required to accommodate growth, we note that it’s more prudent to prepare for what we may need and reduce that capacity if we don’t see the growth that is projected, then it is to take an overly cautious approach and find ourselves without enough development-ready land to support significant growth in the future should it occur.
Re the FDS having enough capacity over and above the required housing and business needs projected by Infometrics, this is to ensure we have enough contingent capacity in the long-term as we realise that not all the land we have signalled for development in the FDS will eventuate.
Available in the Rotorua Housing and Business Capacity Assessment 2021 technical report -
RLC went to market in 2019 (before NPS-UD guidance became available) to procure a projections provider.
These reasons for procuring customised projections included recognition that:
- Statistics New Zealand (“SNZ”) only produce population and household projections and the HBA would also require employment projections (and the need for these to be integrated with population and household growth assumptions).
- Past projections by SNZ have under-projected the population growth Rotorua has experienced.
- The release timing of the projections by SNZ would not line up with council planning cycles (for the Infrastructure Strategy, Long Term Plan, HBA and FDS).
- It would give RLC the ability to request new projections/updates in future as required to support these triennial planning cycles.
Available in the Rotorua District Employment, Population, Household, Visitor projections – April 2020
Overview
We apply a unique approach to projecting population, by first projecting employment, which in turn informs volumes of net migration. In this sense our population projections are informed by the economic prospects of the area. From here, we follow a conventional cohort component approach to project population and households, before translating changes in households into dwelling demand. This process is summarised in Figure 31.