LONG TERM PLAN CONSULTATIONS
By Chrys Horn
Both Environment Canterbury (ECan) and Christchurch
City Council have released their long-term plans for comment by ratepayers.
What is a long-term plan?
Long-term plans are legally required documents that
set the budget and the work plan of each council for the next ten years. Long term plans are revised every three years
so expenditure over the next three years is probably the most critical part of
the plan, while the rest of the plan gives an indication of the direction the
Council expects to be going.
Once a long
term plan is in place, the council uses it as the basis for developing a more
detailed annual plan each year. Your
rates bill is calculated from that. In
general, most (85-90%) of the rates bill that you receive each year (or pay
rent on, so your landlord pays them) comes from Christchurch City Council.
Between 10 and 15% of the bill comes from Environment Canterbury.
You can access the plans online, the links to
the consultation forms and documents are below this article. You can look at the summaries of both
council’s plans of delve into the full plan in more detail.
City Council long term plan
ECan long term Plan
Rates Tool
This year, both councils have a great ‘rates tool’
which you can use to visually get an idea of how our rates are used. The picture below shows the overall budget of
the CCC and how the money and projects are allocated between 5 main areas
Each of the bubbles in the picture is a project and
the size of the bubble indicates the size of the spending on the project. As you can see, the CCC’s biggest spend over
the next ten years is going to be on our water and waste infrastructure.
You can click on each bubble and get the details of
each project. You can click on each area
and look at how it is divided up. It’s a
great tool and well worth playing with.
If you don’t have your own computer get into the library and ask a
librarian to help you find it!
Making a Submission
It is a good idea to submit on what you like and want to see,
as well as on what you don’t like. If
others don’t like something that you do and you haven’t mentioned it, then the
Council might decide that nobody likes it and cut it back or get rid of it
altogether. Remember too that
submissions do not need to be long.
Submissions are usually written – you can either write a
letter or you can fill in the online form.
It is also possible to send in a video saying what you want to say.
Below are links to a number of
Public Consultations.
Hard copies and summary brochures
are available at Te Hāpua.
For more on the ECan Plan click here
