Submission

Federated Farmers Submission on the Draft Taupo Annual Plan

  1. Rates are one of the main operational expenses for a farm.  Transparency of Council income and spending is important to Federated Farmers. 
  2. We made the following recommendations:
    1. That changes are made to the Annual Plan consultation document to provide example properties illustrating rates and to report increases to the rating mechanism and the percentage Uniform Annual General Charge (“UAGC”) is of total rates.
    2. That the rating policy is changed to conclude transitional period (for transitioning from rating on land value to rating on capital value), UAGC per property is increased to the maximum 30% to provide a more equitable funding stream from ratepayers and the Rural differential on the District wide General Rate be set at lower than 0.8 of the urban differential.
    3. That fees for rural working dogs remain as low as possible.
    4. That uninhabitable single storey farm buildings are exempted from building consent requirement.
  3. Council responded to our submission:
  1. It will take our comments into account in preparing future consultation documents.
  2. It considers that it is not able to address our points about rating policy until the Long Term Plan is reviewed in 2018.
  3. Council will review its position on building consents for uninhabitable single storey farm buildings and provide feedback to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment as part of its review of Schedule 1 of the Building Act.