The Vincent Community Board has made things easier for developers by reducing development and financial contributions.
The contributions are designed to pay for effects of developments on capital works otherwise funded by rates, such as wastewater and water supply.
They were calculated at the total cost of those effects for the Vincent, Cromwell and Maniototo wards. For Roxburgh, they were calculated at 50% of the costs.
For Alexandra, the water contributions were proposed to be set at $5422, for Clyde $3131 and Omakau $4456. That equates to a 35%, 2% and 72% increase on contributions from previous years respectively.
The waste water contributions would be $2637 for Alexandra and $763 for Omakau, a 133% and 66% increase respectively.
However, Vincent Community Board members considered this week the economic climate was difficult for developers and decided to reduce the Alexandra and Omakau water and waste water contributions to 75% of the cost. That means, for water, Alexandra developers would pay $4067 and Omakau developers $3342. For wastewater, they would pay $1978 and $572 respectively.
Board member Martin McPherson said it was "an opportune time to signal to the business community that we are being empathetic".
Council infrastructure services manager Murray Washington said the change would not have an immediate impact on ratepayers but at some point the council would need to recover the money and so "over the length of a 10-year period, it will have an effect".
However, the board has the opportunity to review the contributions every year.
The Cromwell Community Board opted to keep proposed development contributions in that ward at 100% of the cost.
For wastewater, those contributions would be $3614, a 19% increase on previous years.
For water, that would be $2702 for the outer Cromwell area, a 10% increase, but those in the Cromwell urban area would end up paying 26% less, $1021.
Mr Washington said that was because there were "less capital works to be proportioned" over contributors.
The council recently set the rate for roading contributions at 60% of the cost.
The Maniototo and Roxburgh community boards have yet to consider contributions.
The new contribution rates will be included in the council's draft 2012-22 Long Term Plan which will go out for public consultation late next month.
