Council to apply for $4.12m Tranche 1 'Better Off' Funding

Council has decided to apply for the $4.12m Tranche 1 'Better Off' Funding available to it but only include the $540,000 Waimarino Social Housing Upgrade out of the nine proposed Tranche 1 projects it asked for community feedback on.

The remaining $3.58m available in Tranche 1 will be used to establish a new discretionary community fund for the remaining Tranche 1 and other project ideas.

The new discretionary community fund will enable all the excellent new project ideas submitted as part of the Tranche 1 'Better Off' Fund engagement to be tested with the community.

Mayor Don Cameron said that the new Council will consult with the community and Iwi on the discretionary community fund projects as part of the 2023/24 Annual Plan Process in February / March next year.

"It should be noted that the circumstances and timeframe around which Council needed to make some difficult decisions on the Tranche 1 'Better Off' Funding has been far from ideal," he said.

“With the term of the current Council coming to an end we had limited time to seek community and Iwi feedback on what to do about the $4.12m available in Tranche 1 and any project ideas.

Besides the time constraints the discussions were complicated by some misunderstandings around the funding with some people seeing accepting it as support for the Government's three waters reform model.

The $2 billion 'Better Off' funding package is not for supporting three waters reform but to help councils position themselves for the future by investing in projects that enable growth and housing development, build resilience to climate change and natural hazards and/or improve community wellbeing.

Whether we take the funding or not will not change the Government's planned implementation of three waters reform but would significantly hinder Council's ability to improve things for our communities.

The Waimarino Social Housing Upgrade project is a good example of this where Council has been given responsibility for social housing where elderly tenants are living in cold, damp and mouldy conditions.

Without the 'Better Off' Funding the urgently required repairs to lift the housing to healthy home standards would have started later with the costs falling on the ratepayer.”

Mayor Cameron added that despite the challenges Council feels we had an excellent level of quality engagement that captured a wide range of community views and new project ideas.

“I would like to thank everyone who took part and would encourage people to engage just as passionately on the projects in the new discretionary community fund as part of Annual Plan in February / March next year,” he said.

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