Luggate resident and Luggate Community Residents Association member Dan Brake said he had a family ‘‘and we won’t be able to afford the rates increase’’.
‘‘We moved to Luggate because we were priced out of the Wānaka housing market.
‘‘We found a house that was just over a year old — that was still a lot of money, but it was affordable,’’ he said.
Mr Brake is an electrician whose wife is a teacher in Central Otago.
Increased rates, in addition to other factors such as the cost of food and fuel, could soon push them out of the district.
‘‘Our rates were $573 a quarter when we first moved in, and now they’re $1199 a quarter, and they’re proposed to go up even more than that,’’ Mr Brake said.
‘‘The reality is that if we can’t afford to stay here, we can’t afford to stay here.’’
Under the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s draft annual plan for 2026-27, rates for many properties in Luggate are set to rise by as much as 29.1%.
To put these increases in context, rates across the district are set to increase by 11.7% on average.
Allied Media understands that about 180 out of 320 households in the town face rates increases of about 29%.
A QLDC spokesman said setting rates relied on complex calculations around the capital value of properties and the services and infrastructure that they used.
The spokesman attributed above-average rates increases in Luggate to ‘‘our current investment in the Upper Clutha wastewater network and water supply upgrades’’.
Such is the concern in Luggate that a community meeting was held last Thursday, attended by Mayor John Glover, deputy mayor Quentin Smith and Crs Nikki Gladding and Nicola King.
At the meeting, one proposed solution was to spread infrastructure costs more evenly across the district.
In response, Cr Smith said ‘‘it sounds easy, but there are pros and cons to doing that’’.
Cr Smith said if costs were spread across the entire district, residents of Luggate and Wānaka would be contributing to the cost of wastewater treatment for Project Shotover.
‘‘And I can assure you, we don’t want to be part of that, because that is going to be a really big problem to fix.’’
While Cr Smith said residents of Wānaka and Luggate would not want to be paying for Project Shotover, he could not provide assurances they would not be left to pay for it in the future if the way rates were paid changed to prevent localised financial shocks.
‘‘The answer is we don’t know yet, because we haven’t modelled what it would look like if we just applied a flat wastewater rate across the district.
‘‘That is one option, and it’s an option that remains, but we would have to be assured that it is equitable and fair.
‘‘The fundamental goal is for us to find a fair and equitable and affordable way to provide the infrastructure and spread the cost of it,’’ Cr Smith said.
The council’s draft annual plan 2026-27 is open for submissions.
