After conducting public consultations, Napier City Council and HB Regional Council have confirmed their Annual Plans for 2025/26.
Napier’s plan generated the most public excitement, with 1007 submissions, the highest number in ten years. Most of these from citizens opposed to earlier shutdown of the library as proposed by NCC’s draft plan, which aimed to save $620,723.
The response to the question of closing Napier Library resulted in 67% of respondents being in favour of keeping the facility open for as long as possible until the new library opens. Council agreed to amend its proposal to keep the library open for a minimum of five days a week, that being Tuesday to Saturday. This option needs to be costed and will impact the final average rates increase for 2025/26.
“The submissions were clear that people think the library is an important community asset, and they were willing to pay slightly more rates as a result. Reducing its days of opening will still help keep the rates increase low, says Mayor Kirsten Wise.
Did NCC split the baby properly? It will be interesting to see Napier candidates campaigning this year against ‘too high’ rates questioned on whether they would have supported keeping the library doors open! And where to cut instead.
The other hot spot in NCC’s proposed plan involved options for the Aquarium. On this one, submissions were all over the place. However the status quo was roundly rejected, supported by only 12%. Thirty-seven percent (37%) favored NCC exiting the scene, either by closing the facility outright (15%) or shifting it off to a “new party” (22%). Options to demolish (in whole or part) the facility and come up with something repurposed, but income producing, also received 37%.
In this case, Councillors indeed split the baby. Said Mayor Wise: “The community’s preference for the National Aquarium wasn’t conclusive. We are now going to do more work in two directions. We will provide clarity on what demolishing or part-demolishing the building and introducing a new conservation-focused visitor experience could look like.”
“Alongside that, we will explore exiting the Aquarium activity and handing its operation to a third party. This was another choice favoured during the consultation.”
“A business case will give the community more information on the pros and cons of each option and from there we will do more consultation before decisions are made.”
In other words, kick to touch until the election is over. Which actually guarantees that what to do about the Aquarium should become a high-profile campaign issue!
On matters of lesser volatility, NCC voted to explore handing the isite’s operation next to the Sound Shell to a third party in a current or new location, with no Council funding. This would enable the isite building to be leased to a commercial operator for another purpose. Council will initiate an expressions of interest process to explore this course of action, despite 39% of submitters opting for continuing the status quo.
Council also agreed to proceed with investigating a commercial lease for Par2 MiniGolf and moving the Faraday Museum of Technology into a charitable trust with a $1 million one-off capital contribution and $500,000 for ongoing operational expenditure costs.
Given adjustments made at this week’s decision-making, it’s not yet clear what the final average rate increase will look like for NCC. It stood at 7.9% assuming preferred options in the consultation document were accepted … presumably now slightly higher given the library decision.
HBRC
With 99 formal submissions in hand, the Regional Council basically ratified the preferences floated in its consultation document, landing again on its proposed 9.9% rate increase for 2025/26, with some tinkering around the edges in terms of how rates for some activities, like bus service, would be allocated.
This increase does represent a reduction of nearly 50% from the rates projected in HBRC’s last Long-Term Plan (18.3%). The journey to the final rate increase is nicely explained in this graphic.
Hastings District Council
And to note ‘for the record’, HDC stuck with the 2025/26 spending and rates levels projected in its recent LTP, so had no reason to conduct further consultations.
