Councils Holding the Country to Ransom

[Perry]

Because the law says so, perhaps?

Categories of non-rateable land
Part 1
Land fully non-rateable
9 Land used solely or principally—
(a) as a place of religious worship

Or because a rapacious ACC thinks it's above the law?

[Wayne]

Because the law says so, perhaps?

So it becomes a test of what is 'principally' a place of worship.
So the chapel isn't rates but the ministers house could be.
Or do people worship in the carpark? Or the hall associated with, but not part of, the church?
This will be interesting!

[Perry]

It does seem like hair-splitting for financial advantage.

Maybe Goff needs a new statue?

[Wayne]

It does seem like hair-splitting for financial advantage.

Maybe Goff needs a new statue?

Maybe it is an edge that hasn't been noticed before (or no one has had the courage).
A lot of churches (or church groups) have a lot of property that isn't actually used for worship.

[Perry]

That schedule has other exemptions for things like Maraes, religious instruction institutions, schools and so on.

The Minister's house has probably escaped the net until now, though.

It still seems like hair-splitting.

A by-product of ACC poking their noses where they're neither needed nor wanted?

A recent item from your neck of the woods suggests so:

Opinion: Council spends, spends, spends

Recent media reports suggest few if any New Zealanders feel they are represented in local body decision-making. Ratepayers feel disaffected, disconnected and used by empire builders using ratepayers as an endless money supply to fund pet projects. The same council criticism is levelled in every region of the country: Get back to basics. Keep basic infrastructure and council facilities maintained, forget the extravagance and get the rubbish picked up, city potholes fixed and keep the sewerage systems working. Forget everything else.

[Perry]

More, More, More

We need more from Ratepayers. Much more. And more besides. How else can we continue empire building?

Tasman District Council staff headcount climbs to 305
7 August 2018

Staff numbers at Tasman District Council topped 305 in the year to June, up from 290 a year earlier. The biggest jump over the past four years was an increase of 15 staff members between 2017 and 2018. Of those 15 new roles, seven were in the environment and planning department – two senior building technical officers, a deputy harbourmaster, a development contributions administrator, a consent planner, a policy planner and a growth co-ordinator.

There you have it. A special co-ordinator for the growth in Council's empire-building wage bill. And Rate demands - of course.

One thing the gNats did was to limit Councils, to a degree, to core services. Labour is reversing that, to allow councils to do any and everything they want.

[Wayne]

We need more from Ratepayers. Much more. And more besides. How else can we continue empire building?

Tasman District Council staff headcount climbs to 305
7 August 2018

There you have it. A special co-ordinator for the growth in Council's empire-building wage bill. And Rate demands - of course.

One thing the gNats did was to limit Councils, to a degree, to core services. Labour is reversing that, to allow councils to do any and everything they want.

It would be interesting to know what the growth coordinator does.
It could be that they coordinate the various council part to ensure that growth happens in a planned and cost effective manner.

What did the Nats constrain? Seems to me that we had huge rates inflation under the previous Govt and nothing has changed, yet, for the better.
We had the Govt wash their hands of several things and leave it to local govt to sort out.

[Perry]

The gNats constrained something I've heard referred to as "general competence," that had been put in by Labour. And is about to be re-instated.

Even though New Zealand First’s funding review is about to get underway, Labour has nevertheless gone ahead and introduced a new funding stream for councils through their Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill. By restoring the right of councils to collect development contributions from property developers, the Bill will push up the cost of housing, as developers add council costs onto the price of a new home. As a result, Labour will make the problem of unaffordable housing – that they pledged to fix if they were elected to Government – even worse.


As well as enabling councils to gain extra revenue from developers, the Well-being Bill, which is expected to be fast tracked into law just as the inquiry into local government funding begins, will also unshackle local government from the need to focus on the provision of infrastructure and core services, by restoring the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities as a core purpose.


Those well-beings, which were first introduced into local government by Helen Clark’s Labour-led Coalition in 2002, resulted in councils around the country embarking on a myriad of expensive projects that had little to do with infrastructure and core services. Some bought farms in Australia, while others tried to improve the literacy of children in their community, or reduce poverty.


National removed the wellbeing rights in 2012, replacing them with a requirement for local government to meet “the current and future needs of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions in a way that is most cost-effective for households and businesses.”


However, in spite of that constraint many councils have continued to try to be all things to all people, with some taking on increasingly activist roles.

Besides councils "sticking to their knitting," another obvious thing to do is to remove the Rates exemption for government depts.

[Wayne]

Oh dear!
Removal of the rates exemption for govt would be interesting (and good), I expect they'll try to rate the infrastructure like telecom and power cables in the ground, as well as street cabinets and poles etc.

As for development contributions I didn't realise that they were gone - seems they still collect them.

[Perry]

From the gummint web site:

Local Government (Community Well-being) Amendment Bill

Home Parliamentary Business Bills and Laws Bills (proposed laws)

The main objectives of this bill are to restore the purpose of local government to be "to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities"; to restore territorial authorities' power to collect development contributions for any public amenities needed as a consequence of development; and to make a minor modification to the development contributions power.

[Perry]

Anyone Else Watching This Comedy Of Errors?

26 Aug 2018
Bus nightmare: Wellington council officials face jeers and abuse at fiery meeting

Trust Us! We Know What We're Doing!

Yeah, right.

[Wayne]

26 Aug 2018
Bus nightmare: Wellington council officials face jeers and abuse at fiery meeting

Trust Us! We Know What We're Doing!

Yeah, right.

The interesting thing here (and Auckland at the moment it seems) is that the buses used to work well (or so I'm told by people I know i Wellington).
It needed more tuning as it grew but it seems that they tried to make a step change - a step in the wrong direction by all accounts.

[flyernzl]

The irresistible urge to fiddle with something that is already working OK.

[Wayne]

The irresistible urge to fiddle with something that is already working OK.

I think it needed 'fiddling' with (things change and can be improved) - in this case they seem to have fiddled to far

[Bob Kane]

It sounds like the introduction of hubs has been the killer mistake.
In theory and on paper it's a good idea.
But it only works if every bus runs like clockwork - on time.
One little delay by one bus and all the connecting buses miss their passengers.
It was never going to work in Wellington.