West Coast One Plan costs soar

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Lois Williams:

The costs of creating a combined District Plan for the West Coast are soaring as the process moves into the hearings stage.

Councils, iwi and planners have been working since 2019 on Te Tai o Poutini Plan, one document to cover the planning rules for all three district councils – Buller, Grey and Westland.

The job has been managed and funded by the West Coast Regional Council, and so far it has cost ratepayers $2.6 million - close to half a million dollars a year. West Coast Regional Council has funded most of the remainder by borrowing about $2.5m.

Project manager Jo Armstrong gave the TTPP committee a heads-up this month that expenses are about to rise sharply.

“It is anticipated that the hearing commissioner budget will produce a sizeable overspend by the end of the financial year,” Armstrong reported.

In the first two months of the financial year, the council paid out $200,601 to the four Hearing Commissioners, and $219,057 to consultant planners and contractors.

Almost two-thirds of the annual budget for consultant and contractors had already been used, Armstrong said.

“This expenditure is necessary and not unexpected,” she told the committee.

“Up until now we have met all our budgets, with no unexpected additional borrowing - but last financial year was the first of a larger amount of spending due to the hearings process.”

The planning team had to pull in additional resources for the hearings, contracting out related work, including writing reports and giving expert evidence.

“So expenses for this year and last year are up."

The commissioners themselves were working tirelessly, making site visits from one end of the Coast to the other to inform themselves about the places referred to in the proposed plan, Armstrong said.

“They are brilliant – thoughtful, intelligent - they understand what’s happening on the West Coast and what it is we’re trying to achieve.”

Armstrong said at this stage of the plan project it was useful to recap how it came about and how it was funded.

In 2018, after a petition from Westland ratepayers, the Local Government Commission held an inquiry into the Coast’s three-district council set-up.

It ruled out amalgamation but said the three councils should share one District Plan, and in 2019 that was ordained by the Government.

It also established the TTPP Committee and its membership, set up the Technical Advisory Team (planners), and decreed that the Plan project would be funded by a Regional rate.

That amounted to a ‘hospital pass’, WCRC chairperson Peter Haddock commented, at the TTPP meeting.

But Grey mayor Tania Gibson challenged that - the regional council leadership at the time had lobbied hard to be in control of the plan project.

The Westland and regional councils each put in $25,000 towards costs in the first year.

Grey and Buller councils did not contribute - saying the regional rate was the correct way to fund the Plan.

In 2019, the planning team began the task of reviewing all the rules in the Coast’s three District Plan and the TTPP committee scrutinised and debated them for three years, holding public meetings and drop-in sessions to engage the community.

In 2021-22, the councils agreed to top up the regional rate by borrowing to fund the Plan over its 10-year life.

That had enabled TTPP development to continue at a steady pace through the costly research and hearings phases, Armstrong said.

In January 2022 the TTPP team put out a first (exposure) draft and a companion volume on the controversial Natural Hazards chapter.

After another round of submissions, the proposed plan was formally notified in July 2022, final submissions closed in May 2023 and hearings began in October last year.

To date, the whole process has cost $5.6m. Ratepayers have contributed $2.8m, and the Regional Council has funded most of the remainder by borrowings of $2.5m.

The hearings continue this year and next and commissioners Dean Chrystal, Anton Becker, Sharon McGarRy and Moira Bartlett, are expected to deliver their final report in June 2025.

The TTPP committee must then make their final decisions with the aim of making the Plan operative by October nest year.

* LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.