The Council’s draft Long Term Plan is now out for feedback until Sunday 21 April.

If you want to hold your own in a discussion with a friend or family member about what the Draft Plan proposes, here’s your quick guide to the basics.

What is a Long Term Plan?
The Long Term Plan (LTP) outlines what the Council has planned for the next 10 years. It’s our contract with the community. It sets out the services we’ll provide and major projects we’ll undertake, what they’ll cost, how they’ll be funded and what rates will need to be for the next 10 years. Every local council in New Zealand has to do one every three years.

How much money are we spending?
We’re proposing a $16.8 billion budget over 10 years – $9.1 billion of that on the day-to-day services the Council provides like waste collection and libraries, and $6.5 billion of that on the Council’s programme of capital works, which will make sure we can do all the work we need to do, and deliver it in the timeframe we’ve set.

It also means $226 million on road, footpath and cycleway renewals, and $480 million on renewing and upgrading our water networks, in the first three years.

How will this affect my rates?
For the average household, we’re proposing a 12.4% rates increase, which comes to $8 a week. The proposed overall average for all properties, including business and rural, is 13.24%.

Is the Council making any savings?
We’re making cost savings and adding revenue of $6 million in 2024/25. Over the whole 10 years, we’ve identified $41 million of operational cost savings and additional revenue, without affecting the current levels of service.

Making these savings is always a balancing act – we want to keep providing you with the levels of service you expect, while keeping rates affordable and giving us what we call “debt headroom”, which means we can borrow comfortably in case there’s some unexpected event, like COVID-19.

How can I give feedback on this?
Your feedback will help shape this plan. Every LTP we make changes based on the feedback we receive, and this may mean adjustments to rates, debt and service levels.

Before you get back to us, take some time to read our consultation document and think about our proposed plan. Have we got the balance between rates and spending right? Have we prioritised the right things? If not, what changes would you like to see?

Visit ccc.govt.nz/longtermplan to make your submission, or pop into your nearest library or service centre and ask for a form. You can also ring us on (03) 941 8999, provide your details and a good time for us to call, and one of our team will be in touch.

Alongside the big-picture proposals in Christchurch City Council's latest Draft Long Term Plan, there are a number of smaller issues for people to weigh up as they have their say.

The Draft Long Term Plan 2024-2034 is out for consultation until Sunday 21 April, and proposes a $16.8 billion budget over the full 10 years.

Although there are some big programmes making up a big proportion of that spending – things like water, transport and Te Kaha, Canterbury's Multi-Use Arena – there are some projects and proposals dealing in smaller sums of money, or proposed changes to the way we do things, that are just as important to sections of the Christchurch and Banks Peninsula community.

• $820 million on parks and foreshore, with big projects including $185 million on the parks element of the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor, $87 million on sports field development, $23 million on Akaroa Wharf, $22 million on Te Nukutai o Tapoa – Naval Point and $21 million on Takapūneke Reserve.
• $51 million on repairing and restoring heritage items around Christchurch and Banks Peninsula, including $20 million on the first stage of the Canterbury Provincial Chambers, $9 million on Cuningham House in the Botanic Gardens, and $15 million on strengthening and base isolation for the Robert McDougall Gallery.
  
• Of the $140 million capital spend proposed for Christchurch City Libraries, there's $29 million budgeted for the rebuild of the earthquake-damaged South Library and Service Centre building, Ōmōkihi, which includes $9 million of funding from the Government over the first two years. The rest of the spend includes looking after existing facilities, expanding and renewing the library collection and continuing to invest in technology solutions.
  
• $64 million on recycling and transfer station improvements over the next 10 years. The Council no longer uses its old landfills, which require careful management to make sure they don’t affect their surrounding environment. The Council plans to complete a Closed Landfill Management Plan over the first few years of the LTP and proposes spending $22 million at Burwood and other landfills on aftercare management and mitigation, including $4 million at Okains Bay.
  
• The Council currently borrows to fund some of the cost of our annual asset renewal programme, and has been transitioning to fully fund these renewals from rates by 2031. However, the Draft LTP proposes to increase the level of rating for asset renewals over the next two years by significantly less than what's proposed in the Council's Financial Strategy. This means the work would get done while reducing the rates increase over the next couple of years, but also means an extra $84 million in borrowing in the short term – and the interest payments that come with it. The Council would return to having a balanced budget in years 4–10 of the LTP.
  
• The Council is proposing some changes to how it charges rates – including charging the business differential to properties being used as short-term un-hosted residential accommodation (such as Airbnb, Bookabach, and similar), extending the City Vacant Differential rating to an expected 40 vacant sites in Linwood Village, New Brighton, Sydenham, and Lyttelton, changes to rates postponements for people in significant financial hardship and changes that will give the Council more flexibility in how it grants rates remissions to charities.

More detail on all these proposals, and more, can be found at ccc.govt.nz/longtermplan