Districtisation is back on the agenda again for community board members as the Central Otago District Council moves to integrate all of its rated activities.

A representation from the Cromwell Community Board (CCB) has been invited to a workshop next week to provide informal feedback to the council.  

Official written feedback has to be submitted to council by each of the community boards by July 8. 

A report from group manager - business support Saskia Righart for yesterday’s CCB meeting said only 18 per cent of activities are rated at the ward level, including community facilities, parks, pools and community grants.

Over the past 20 years, council has engaged in consultation with the community to rate certain activities across the district rather than by ward level. 

This was because it was particularly challenging in the less populated wards to maintain services given the fewer ratepayers in these areas to spread the cost across. 

The report said now that council has external debt it was important to manage the balance sheet impacts of all assets as a district. 

“Most of council’s debt is currently for the three waters programme and as it currently stands council will meet the maximum debt levels in the next few years. 

“Overall, the reserve accounts are forecast to deplete, the most significant being the Cromwell reserves accounts, which are funding in part the Cromwell Memorial Hall.”

The report said in the future, council will not have the ability for wards to borrow internally from other wards for their ward asset expenditure. 

During the delegations conversation two months ago, there were concerns from the Cromwell community in particular, that the rationale behind the proposal was to take land from one ward to fund activities in other wards with less assets. 

“This was not the rationale behind the proposal, but it is fruitful to outline what would happen to land if council further districtised activities,” the report said.

All land is currently held by council as a whole, and under the Local Government Act 2002 community boards cannot hold land. 

In practice, however, the council has operated as if land is managed at the ward level, and they have historically endorsed community board land sale proposals - and the proceeds have been allocated to activities within the particular ward.