Our Fees and Charges cover everything from swimming pool entry fees to resource and building consent fees and everything in between. We review them every year to ensure they are kept up to date and reflect actual and reasonable costs and to make sure additional processes and new costs are fully covered.
For 2022/23 we are proposing to keep most fees the same or increase them, however, we are proposing some significant changes to the Building Consents and Monitoring fees to reflect actual costs.
The Building Consents and Monitoring activity is a 100% user pays activity - this means that the processing costs must be covered by those using the service (e.g. those applying for building consents and monitoring services).
The key fees that Council proposed to change included library fees, recreation facilities and heritage, building consents and monitoring, licensing and enforcement, resource consents and monitoring, roading, rubbish and recycling, customer services, and swimming pools.
These changes are identified in the draft Fees & Charges 2022/23 document following the consulation process:
Submissions
Council noted the following themes from the submissions received:
- People were not in agreement with an increase in the Fees & Charges. With the general increase to the cost of living, council’s Fees & Charges may cause further pressure to household finances.
- Three submissions opposed the proposal to increase commercial lane hire charges at Swim Zone facilities from $12 to $15. Submissions argued that any increase to the commercial lane hire fees will need to be passed on to students, potentially leading to swimming lessons becoming unaffordable for some families.
Decision
Taking into consideration all submissions received, Council requested the following changes to be made to the Fees & Charges 2022/23:
- Swim Zone Pools Commercial Lane: Fees would remain at $12 for 2022/23.
- Events at Firth Tower fee: Changes to event hire time, alcohol is no longer permitted and Council no longer offer wedding receptions at Firth Tower.
- Parks booking fees: A booking fee is applicable for all groups.
- Waharoa Aerodrome: Landing fees payable in cash, the cost of processing cash payments is currently greater than takings. Therefore this fee has increased with staff promoting direct debit as an option.
Fees & Charges with the above amendments will be submitted to Council in June 2022 for adoption and will be operational from 1 July 2022.
Council acknowledges that increased Fees & Charges will mean increased costs to our community and a decision to increase costs for these services is not taken lightly. However, Council is also facing an increase in costs and set fees. So we do appreciate, that service users are paying their contribution towards the cost of keeping our pools, parks and event facillties operating.
A majority of the submissions were received in relation to swimming pool fees. Council’s Revenue and Financing Policy states that 30-50% of the day to day operations of the running the pools will be covered by user fees.
Please read more on the Draft Fees and Charges 2022/23 below.
View the Statement of Proposal (summary of the proposed changes)