RATES SET FOR NEXT FINANCIAL YEAR.

The average rate will increase by a projected 2.21% for this coming financial year (2014/2015),

This is less than what was forecast in our draft 2014/2015 Annual Plan, which was a projected increase of 2.6%

"I want to thank all the staff and our financial team who have worked hard to keep the rates increase to a minimum for our ratepayers, given that there's a lot of big ticket projects we're investing in like the Coromandel Harbour and Coromandel Great Walks" says Mayor Glenn Leach.

"Development contributions have also been less than we hoped for, which means that the interest on the loans for some of our additional capacity infrastructure, like the three wastewater treatment plants, is being passed on to our current ratepayers in the short term," says Mayor Leach.

"We have been able to make some savings in other ways, through cost efficiencies in our operational expenditure and also reducing next year's capital expenditure budget by $4m," he says.

AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THE RATES INCREASE WILL APPLY TO SOMEONE.

If you own a property with a land value of $400,000 in Thames your rates will increase from $2,777 to $2,826 in Coromandel-Colville it will increase from $2,304 to $2,373, in Mercury Bay it will increase from $2,521 to $2,561, in Tairua-Pauanui it will increase from $2,527 to $2,567 and in Whangamata from $2,442 to $2,451

TO SEE A BREAKDOWN OF AVERAGE RATES BY PROPERTY TYPE CLICK HERE.

FEES AND CHARGES

Some fees and charges will remain the same, while others will either increase or decrease. Any changes will take effect from 1 July 2014. Some points that you might be interested in:

Small events fees and charges for commercial events and park concession fees will remain the same as last year (2013/2014).

We've introduced new landing fees for commercial aircraft at the Thames Airfield: one landing per day $20, two landings per day $40, day rate $50 and an annual fee of $900 and a $10 landing fee for micro lights.

Thames Hall Storage Hire has changed from $5 per month per m2 charge to a one month minimum charge of $2 per month per m3.

A $50 annual fee has been introduced this year for commercial advertising/signage at Hannaford's Wharf.

Mercury Bay Multi-Sport Park charges $10/hr for its meeting room, $20/hr for Foyer and Kitchen hire, $10 for BBQ use.

Dog registration fees have increased from $60 to $64.

Registration for dangerous dogs has increased to 150% of the normal registration fee; this means that the fee will be $96 in 2014/2015. A penalty of 50% again is added dogs are not registered by 31 August 2014

There have been a number of nominal increases in impounding fees for registered and unregistered dogs and stock control.

Cemeteries – Due to an increase in the contractor’s charges, an increase of $35 is proposed to the adult internment fee, from $960 to $995.

There's a number of changes to fees for Building Consent processing including Project Information Check for building consents increasing by $15 dollars to $335, Memorandum of Encumbrance has increased by $65 to $375; Certificate of Public Use has increased by $50 to $250 and Residential exemptions have reduced by $50 to $40.

Fees and Charges for Resource Consents under Land Use Management Activity have changed slightly in some areas with slight increases and decreases to fees and charges to better reflect the costs of providing this service.

A number of increased fees and charges for Harbour Facilities at Coromandel including a $10 increase in charges for a permit for recreational boat launching/trailer parking at Sugarloaf, $50 increase in charges for boat sheds and $14 increase for slipway grid emergency maintenance at Te Kouma.• 50% discounts are offered for commercial wharfage fees for 2014/2015 year for ports away from home.i.e. commercial operator will pay the full fee in their home port (where business is located) and then receive a 50% discount on annual commercial fees at berths away from home.

New fees set by central government have been introduced for Liquor Licencing.

Community Halls - Coromandel has increased its booking fees. Thames Hall has a new definition for community hire rate and new charges for the Pauanui Community Amenity Building meeting room for non-profit and commercial users. These includes $10 and $20 for half and full day use for organisations. $50 for half day, or $100 for a full day for commercial users, and $10 charge for kitchen per booking. A new fee for all day use of the Whitianga Hall is now $116 subject to the discretion for users associated with significant community benefit.

LIM application fees have increased slightly in 2014/2015.

THE FEES AND CHARGES SCHEDULE IS AVAILABLE SEPARATELY, EITHER ON OUR WEBSITE HERE or by contacting us on 07 868 0200. These updated details will be on our website from 1 July 2014.

EXPENDITURE AND RATES

Our total expenditure in the 2014/2015 year is $108.03m shared between 26,723 rateable properties. This is made up of a total operating expenditure of $83.67m and $24.36m for capital expenditure. We have reduced our capital expenditure by $4.3m for this coming financial year.

The Annual Plan sets out expenditure of $10.2m on renewals, $10.9m on increasing levels of service and $3.2m on growth.

We continue to operate within our set limit which is that annual rates increases are no more than the CPI + rating unit growth over the tenure of our Ten Year Plan.

Our projected external debt in 2014/2015 is $58.1m. This is $27m (or 32%) under our limit of external debt being no more than 150% of total rates revenue.

For everything we spend, we can only pay for it with 80% of the rates take, which is within our set limit. Anything on top of that is raised through other forms of revenue like fees and charges.

Our projected rates revenue for 2014/2015 is $57m (NB: our total revenue requirement is $75m). So at $57m, we're operating at 76% which is within our set limit of rates revenue being no more than 80% of total revenue.

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