Mayor and Councillors set rates for 2025-34 Long Term Plan

Published on 28 May 2025

At today’s full meeting of the Waitaki District Council, the Mayor and Councillors approved the ratings for 2025/26 and beyond as part of the Long Term Plan process.

The average rating increase for the next rateable year will be 9.79%.

Council also agreed a reduction of $100,000 in the budget which will have a further small reduction of around one or two tenths of a percent.

The Long Term Plan also sets out a 6.51% rate rise for 2026/27, including one of -16.11% in 2027/28 to account for water charges being separated from ratings.

Following that, rate rises remain below 4% for the following seven years.

Waitaki District Mayor Gary Kircher says, “This has been an extremely difficult process as we juggled with many conflicting priorities, against a background of affordability challenges for our community. We’ve been working on this Long Term Plan for around 20 months, and a lot of work has gone in to reducing cost for the ratepayer.

We started in late 2023 with a rates rise of 26% and pulled it down to 13.73%. Even then, cost pressures saw the draft budget increase to 16%. We’ve managed to get it down to 9.79% which is still more than anyone would like.

However, the decisions today set the course for declining rates over this decade, bringing much needed relief to the community.”

Council will also receive a report later this year with detailed costings for Council to consider about Beach Road, which will include an option to reopen it - subject to costings and funding.

ENDS

ENDS