The Otago Regional Council will soon be seeking public feedback on the council's draft annual plan, and proposed new activities and programmes for 2016-17.
ORC director corporate services Nick Donnelly said all Otago households would early next month receive in their mailboxes a copy of the draft Annual Plan consultation document.
This would contain full details and explanation of the proposed changes in an "easy-to-understand'' format, he said.
Because of the new activities proposed and recommended changes to flood and drainage rating for the Taieri and Lower Clutha, general rates would increase by around $7.50 a year, based on the region's median property value of $260,000, Mr Donnelly said.
The proposed new activities and programmes include:
● Increased activity in harbour safety, including appointment of dedicated harbourmaster;
● Increasing civil defence staff numbers to meet legal requirements for a welfare manager;
● Extra staff to meet increased requests for natural hazards analysis.
● Increased staffing for the council's rural water quality project;
● Allocating some reserve funding for development of a regional economic growth strategy;
● Allocating reserve funding to establish a new stock truck effluent disposal site in Central Otago;
● Targeted funding to support the management of wilding conifers in Central Otago.
Council chairman Stephen Woodhead said the amount of work the council needed to do was increasing "especially in our water quality, emergency management, and natural hazards areas''.
Accordingly, there was a need for the council to increase its general rates, to "provide our community with appropriate levels of these important services''.
Councillors had also proposed a change in how the Taieri and Clutha flood and drainage schemes were rated and whether the private/public benefit split was correctly reflected in how the scheme was funded.
These schemes protected "critical infrastructure'', including state highways, rail networks, and Dunedin Airport.
Protecting this infrastructure benefited the wider community, which relied on this infrastructure for economic and social reasons, he said.
After people in the scheme areas requested a review of the amount of public benefit in the schemes, independent economic consulting firm Castalia was asked to undertake a review.
As a result, the council proposed to reassign $284,000 of targeted rates to general rates, mainly in the Dunedin and Clutha districts, he said.
