At the meeting this week, Mackenzie District Councillors voted to adopt the Annual Plan for 2023/24.
Chief Executive Angela Oosthuizen says ‘This the third year of Mackenzie District Council’s Long Term Plan and we are continuing on the direction set.
Inflation rates remain high and increasing interest rates are creating challenges for all New Zealanders. Council faces the same cost pressures, and our elected members and team have worked really hard to limit any further increases in rates. We budgeted on just over 2% inflation and so keeping our average rate increase of 10.2% which is slightly lower than what we had signalled in our Long Term Plan.
The plan focuses on actively progressing key projects:
- Completing the earthquake strengthening for the Fairlie Civic building and addressing fire risks to keep our team and public safe.
- Continuing to progress the review of the District Plan to enable our outdated District Plan to better respond to the effects of growth, bring it into line with national and regional planning instruments, and implement the newly created Mackenzie Spatial Plans.
- Capital costs of $7,100,000 for the Twizel water meter installation project and the Fairlie water supply upgrade.
- Capital costs of $940,000 for the Lake Tekapo wastewater treatment plant upgrade and district wide inlet screens.
- Investments in our public spaces:
- Tekapo Domain and Lakeside Playgrounds in Tekapo
- Lake front enhancement in Tekapo
- Lake Ruataniwha project in Twizel
- Continuing the Peace Avenue tree maintenance
- Fairlie Village Green development
- Community development is a new focus area and the plans sees us engaging with Tekapo, Twizel and Fairlie to identify the community needs and scope projects for inclusion in the next 10 year plan.
- Continuing to work with central agencies and organisations to address wilding pine spread in the Mackenzie.
In previous consultations our residents have told us that things like safe, well-maintained roads, good quality drinking water, and community facilities are important for our quality of life and environmental protection — so we’re keeping our focus on these areas.
As a District this plan makes the right decisions for our people, our environment, and our future generations.
We want to strike the balance between planning responsibly for our community now and into the future, while working hard to keep rates as affordable as possible.’
The Mackenzie District Council Annual Plan 2023/24 is available on Council’s website at mackenzie.govt.nz > Council > Strategies, Plans and Reports > Annual Plan.