1% - Waikato District Council

2NAVIGATING THE FUTURE | WAIKATO DISTRICT COUNCILKeyDecisionsThe key decisions have beenhighlighted throughout thedocument, along with the onesthat submitters also drew ourattention to as being areas ofconcern for them.Local government’s a complex business and touches everyone’slives every day in all sorts of ways. From the time you get up towhen you go to bed, you use council services. The buildings you gointo; the roads you travel on to go the park, and the lighting alongthe way; restaurants and take-away shops you buy food from; thedogs you own (or shy away from in the street); when you shower;your rubbish collection – the council has an involvement somehow.This plan provides the detail of the decisions we’ve made aboutall of those things that touch your lives. We had around 300submissions to the plan, with around 65 people speaking totheir submissions at our hearings, all discussing the servicesand issues that affect them and their communities.These submissions addressed a wide range of issues, fromtransport, to community grants, debt, affordability and rates,and libraries. The main messages included debt level, councilbenchmarking against other councils, and efficiency, all issues whichare also being discussed within central government with its LocalGovernment Act 2002 Amendment Bill now before Parliament.We have taken all submissions on board, and while not all can beaddressed, we have kept in mind what you’ve told us as we’vemade our decisions. You’ll see we have been able to provide forsome of what was asked of the council, by making adjustmentselsewhere in our budgets.For instance, since the draft plan was developed, we have includedfurther information around actual levels of debt, related interestassumptions and the progress of current financial year workprogrammes. We have also updated our growth assumptions.All of these things have changed our budgets.We’ve spoken of potential growth being a key issue for ourdistrict and this is mentioned several times throughout thisplan. Some submitters made it clear they wanted to be surewe weren’t going to be over-spending on infrastructure now toaccommodate growth that might not happen, and therefore havean unsustainable debt level.Our growth assumptions are based on historical trends, the 2006Census and National Institute of Demographic and EconomicAnalysis figures, but also take into account things such as buildingconsents and subdivision numbers. Since we released the draft planfor consultation, we have now updated our growth assumptionsto reflect actual development activity and staging. But, we have stilltaken a conservative approach. And, you’ll see we have revised ourdebt level downwards across the 10 years of this plan.